Social Media's Harmful Effects On Our Children Today

Social Media is not only effecting adults but our youth as well. There are many hazards to letting your child/ren have social media accounts. Many children are not ready to have these accounts and be responsible with them. Not only that, but children are preyed upon and without the proper knowledge of using these sites, can lead to dangerous situations. Younger people post pictures and say whatever they want without thinking of the repercussions that may later arise. Older teens post selfies that they may think are cute in the moment but once they start applying for jobs have a problem.  Nowadays most employers do background checks and look at social media sites of their prospective employees.  Seeing pictures of their careless and irresponsible prospective employees is not what bosses want to see. According to Fleur Gabriel, research by Laurence Steinberg (2008) has revealed that “during adolescence, the brain’s ‘socio-emotional’ systems mature fasterthan the ‘cognitive-control’ systems.” “This imbalance means that teens makedecisions and process information in a way that is more likely to emphasizeemotional or social reward over potential risk.” On this understanding, it is more logic for teens to upload pictures for the immediate attention rather than thinking of later harm. There are also people out there that prey on our youth. Sadly, pedophiles can obtain their information and do as they wish.


Cyber bullying is also a big problem for our youth as well as suicides. Cyberbullying can happen any time anywhere and can be by anyone. Some kids just cannot take the constant pressure of trying to fit in and are verbally attacked online. Many of those that are the "attackers" feel like they can get by with this behavior. This may be the case especially when parents are unaware that their children even have a social media account. Gabriel states that, "recently, the phenomenon of 'cyber self-harm' has emerged as a practice that appears to be fuelled by social media and their structures ofvisibility and performance." I believe that more parents need to be aware of what their kids are up to and monitor their technology usage. I feel like this day and age there are too many ways for children to be taken advantage of and that there needs to be more rules and limitations placed on social media sites.