Why Young Kids Should Avoid Social Media
Fundamentally, social media is not inherently a bad thing. It allows us to stay connected with our loved ones, it helps keep up to date with what’s going on in the world around us, and it provides us the chance to post moments of our lives that we want to share with others.
And although social media has become such a large part of our modern lives, it has also caused a lot of problems, especially for young teenagers and children that want to make use of it.
Dangerous Strangers
Almost all social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are completely free to use, which means that there’s no barrier of entry for those that want to start up their own profile. This also means that there are a lot of unsavoury people in the world that make use of social media, and most of them have anything but pleasant goals in mind.
Young children that use social media and have public profiles are easy targets for those that want to try and contact them for whatever reason, and there’s often very little that a concerned parent can do to try and limit these interactions save from banning their kids from using social media altogether. It’s important to be realistic and accept that social media sites to provides gateways for bad people to reach out to young kids, and to remember that there’s often no recourse in the event that those interactions are negative.
Fear Of Missing Out
The Fear Of Missing Out, also known as FOMO, is a modern phenomenon that causes people of all ages to believe that they are missing out on life, often because they see others having a good time. It’s vital to keep in mind that most of the pictures and videos that are posted to a social media site are often snippets of a person’s best times, and most people are unlikely to post their worst moments.
But FOMO has far-reaching consequences, and there’s lots of evidence to suggest that it can cause depression and anxiety for those that feel like they aren’t living fulfilling lives. This can be especially disheartening to younger teenagers that only see the best that everyone else posts, even if it’s not really based in reality.
Data Harvesting
This has little to do with the people that use social media sites but rather the sites themselves and lack the quality control of sites like those offering Canadian online slots. Facebook, for example, has landed in hot water numerous times for harvesting personal data from their users and selling it to third party companies, and often allowing that data to be leaked.
Our digital privacy is an important part of online internet usage, and social media sites in particular are well-known data harvesters that frequently violate the privacy of their users.
