Social Media's Effect on Children
Social Media and Children
Over the past few years, development, growth and use of social media has been on an upward trend growing into levels that were not considered possible just five years ago. It is quite difficult to define and classify social media appropriately, but several categories can form a broader classification. However, what defines any of these classifications is that these websites do not just give information, but they interact with the user. Social media has also been adopted for use by people within all brackets, with the young people forming the bulk of these users. Some social media sites like Facebook already have more than eight hundred million users, and the number is fast increasing. This leaves many wondering whether today 's is social media is appropriate for children (Matson 19).
There are several negative implications that social media pose to children who are turning to be real fanatics of them. Children are at a critical stage in their lives when rapid growth and development is taking place; hence, they are more prone to danger of harm due to the social media (Wollan and Zhou 174). First, excessive use of social media can lead to loss of social skills among the children. This is extremely ironical because social media is meant to help people to be interactive as much as they can. However, on children, excessive use of the same makes a child to be alienated from other children, hence risking being a social misfit because they do not learn to interact with people exceptionally well (Hansen and Smith 27).
Most children spend a considerable amount of time on social media. Many spend almost their entire free time on the same, leading to negligence of other useful things that they should be doing. The consequence of this is that many other necessary activities are not done, such as homework, playing with friends and physical exercise. Social media sites are particularly addictive, and once a person starts
Over the past few years, development, growth and use of social media has been on an upward trend growing into levels that were not considered possible just five years ago. It is quite difficult to define and classify social media appropriately, but several categories can form a broader classification. However, what defines any of these classifications is that these websites do not just give information, but they interact with the user. Social media has also been adopted for use by people within all brackets, with the young people forming the bulk of these users. Some social media sites like Facebook already have more than eight hundred million users, and the number is fast increasing. This leaves many wondering whether today 's is social media is appropriate for children (Matson 19).
There are several negative implications that social media pose to children who are turning to be real fanatics of them. Children are at a critical stage in their lives when rapid growth and development is taking place; hence, they are more prone to danger of harm due to the social media (Wollan and Zhou 174). First, excessive use of social media can lead to loss of social skills among the children. This is extremely ironical because social media is meant to help people to be interactive as much as they can. However, on children, excessive use of the same makes a child to be alienated from other children, hence risking being a social misfit because they do not learn to interact with people exceptionally well (Hansen and Smith 27).
Most children spend a considerable amount of time on social media. Many spend almost their entire free time on the same, leading to negligence of other useful things that they should be doing. The consequence of this is that many other necessary activities are not done, such as homework, playing with friends and physical exercise. Social media sites are particularly addictive, and once a person starts
Cited: Hansen, Derek and Smith, Marc. Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeX. Morgan Kauffmman, 2012. Print Matson, Johnny. International Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Springer Publishers, 2011. Print Singer, Dorothy and Singer Jerome. Handbook of children and the media. Sage Publications, 2001. Print Wollan, Robert and Zhou, Catherine. The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Get Social Media Working. John Wiley and Sons Publishers, 2011. Print