JPA Daily Buzz - Edisi 16 2025

page 2 connection they can’t find elsewhere. Sometimes, that’s how an innocent distraction turns into dependency because the screen listens when we don’t. It’s the same pattern when we avoid other difficult conversations. Teenagers exploring intimacy and identity are often left to learn from the internet because no one else will talk to them. When sex and relationships remain taboo, curiosity doesn’t disappear it just moves underground, into algorithms and videos built for profit, not guidance. Are we ready to tell our children, when they reach puberty or baligh, that curiosity is normal but it needs wisdom, boundaries, and values to grow safely? Because if we don’t, someone else or something else will. We don’t need new dasar or pekeliling to tell us our purpose, or to study how to become human . Maybe what we need is simply the courage to remember what connects us. Empathy, conversation, and the willingness to care when it’s easier to scroll. Research reminds us why this matters. A study from the University of Illinois found that adolescents with a clear sense of purpose reported higher life satisfaction and stronger emotional well-being. Meanwhile, a longitudinal study in Frontiers in Psychology observed that when teens lacked social connection, excessive gaming correlated with higher depression and lower self-esteem. But when they had supportive relationships, gaming became a source of joy rather than escape. After spending hours in that virtual world, I didn’t just feel tired, I felt empty. Because the real issue isn’t Roblox. It’s the silence that grows when purpose and conversation disappear and when we stop telling our children, and even ourselves, that our existence matters. At the end of the day, we all crave the same thing, to belong, to be seen, to matter. When we nurture purpose, we build empathy. When we forget it, even a game can become a battlefield . Dr. Diyana binti Hassim JPA Daily Buzz Corporate Communications Unit Public Service Department