Social Media in Children

Effects of Social Media in Children

 Did you know that of the 328 million people who reside in the United States, over 247 million people use social media on a daily basis. That is over 80% of the population. In 2008, only 10% of the population used social media, making this increase of 70% in just 12 years, astonishing. Social media, as we know, is taking over the world, and in some ways, has taken over people’s lives, especially children. Social media. Good or bad? Think about it, all of us nowadays own smartphones and have some type of social media app that we use constantly, it’s a way of life for some. The trendy thing now what kids want to become is to be tiktok famous and youtube famous, and the crazy thing is, you can make a living off of being a social media star.  A  young 10 year old girl by the name of Tiana Wilson has a youtube channel called “Toys and Me,” where she has over 9 million subscribers and over 2 billion views on her channel at just 10 years old, and Forbes estimates her net worth at a whopping 10 million dollars. Young kids will do whatever, wherever, and whenever for camera fame, some for the good and some for the bad. Social media is not a bad thing in all ways, there are many good things that social media has brought for us. As children, social media can affect many things in a positive and negative effect for their growth and learning. So whether or not you think social media is a good thing or a bad thing, I am here to talk about 4 different ways social media has a large effect on children in the world with addiction, communication skills, bullying, and social status in the world we live in today. 

Four Main Reasons

1. Addiction
2. Communication skills
3. Bullying
4. Social Status

Addiction

The question I ask is, is children being addicted to their phone a good or a bad thing for their development and growth? What do you think? First off, you have to ask yourself if being on a phone 4 hours a day scrolling through things that really don't have an affect on one's life really a good thing for children? Imagine a world where we have no face to face communication. To me, face to face interaction is one of the most important things that children develop in their young years, children who don't get this interaction never learn how to talk socially to another human. This addiction stems from constantly wanting to be on social media apps and doing whatever is “trendy for the camera.” Rushman indicates, “Research from both the United States and the United Kingdom indicates that the major alcohol brands maintain a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, (Rushman 2015).” With that being said, kids have a major influence of seeing these things all over the internet, but is this really a huge problem? Let's look at the other side for a minute. Yes, social media increases the chance that your kids might see alcohol and drugs and maybe they are influenced by this, but let's be completely honest, alcohol is consumed by a lot of parents in front of their kids at a family get together or party, so is social media really increasing the chances of influencing kids to drink and smoke, no.

Communication Skills

How important are having good communication skills? Well, I'll give a personal example from my life. I grew up old school, we my siblings and friends were always outside, we weren't aloud to be inside until the sun went down and it was supper time. I didn't have my first iPhone until I was 17 years old because my dad made me work for my own money to pay for my first iPhone. That was 17 years of my life with no social media, and what those 17 years taught me was to how to communicate with people. Now, is this the case for every child who grows up with phone in their face, no, absolutely not. But the key to know is that the majority of kids are all different and grow up in different ways.

Bullying

Bullying, one of the worst things children can go through in their lifetime and young years. Not, this bullying comes from a screen called cyberbullying. Anyone can go on a screen and say something mean to another behind the screen, and for some, this bullying can make a child very sad. Gerald Kelly states, “Yet communication using social media might be more challenging as emotions can be difficult to detect and comprehend. Furthermore, the anonymity granted through social media facilitates harmful and socially unacceptable behaviors such as cyberbullying, (Kelly 2018).” Now, this is important because we can see that cyberbullying among children is a huge problem, but we can’t disregard the fact that bullying has been around with children for a very long time. With that being said, some will see social media increasing bullying and making it easier to bully kids, but the other side is that bullying is a problem among children in general and social media isn’t where bullying started. But the thing is, social media among children has increased a large form of cyberbullying through a screen. Of 2021, over 20% of adolescent boys and girls have been cyberbullies, while 35% more are transgenders. 

Social Status

Children today have such a worry about not looking like someone else. Think about it, when you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and then you go on instagram and see a supermodel and famous male actor, your like wow, I wish I looked like that. Children have problems from social media because of the social status it creates for everyone. They all think they need to be this person instead of just loving themselves. This social status that social media creates among children is a large part of the problem within social media being a bad thing to be addicted to for young adolescents.