They are neglecting their studies. Moreover, many are falling prey to bad elements,' said Franklyn.

'There should be some amount of restriction on children using internet services and parents and teachers should monitor while children browse internet services,' added the principal.

Echoing Franklyn, Charles Noronha, the vice-principal of St. Joseph's Boys High School, said there was nothing wrong with children being part of the web world, but there should be some restrictions.

'Children don't understand what is good and bad for them. Thus elders should monitor children and guide them. Moreover, children should concentrate on their studies and sports for healthy growth, rather than wasting time on the internet,' said Noronha.

'The TCS Generation Web 2.0 survey confirms that today's students are shifting their academic and social life online and embracing the digital world as true digital natives. This societal trend has important implications for parents, educators, policy makers, as future employers as well as companies and brands that want to sell to tomorrow's generation,' the IT major's CEO and MD, S Ramadorai, said recently commenting on the survey findings.

According to Rita Vijay, a mother of two teenage sons, due to the children's dependency on technology, more and more of them were losing their ability to build inter-personal communication skills and fast becoming social outcasts.

'Children these days are becoming recluse of sorts. Technology is undermining their ability to communicate properly with elders and their peers. They have no social skills and at times they go into depression bouts and there is nobody to address them,' said Rita.

However, her son Sundar feels that blogging and social networking are part of today's children life and too much restriction was not good.

'These are a healthy medium of communication and expression and such restriction is uncalled for,' said Sundar.

(Maitreyee Boruah can be contacted at m.boruah@ians.in)