Social media is now vital for people—specifically for millennials. If you're looking for a place to stay on vacation, meeting new people, or hoping to find your soulmate somewhere, social media platforms will be the bridge.
Communication is now more accessible with the help of social media networks. However, every one of them has its flaws—it can be a gateway to immoral or unfriendly acts, thus, making them dangerous to use to every user.
Why is Social Media Bad for your Children?
In 2019, "roughly 45% of the world's population use social media, with an average of two hours and 23 minutes spent per day on social media," according to report. As discussed by UNICEF, this huge amount of time being spent on these platforms will then provide negative effects on the social behavior of people, especially to children. Here are some of its effects:
Designed for Excessive Use
As said by UNICEF, the most negative impact of social media is once your children are addicted on using it. The act of browsing on social media feeds can trigger different emotions to children, such as 'envy, inadequacy, or less satisfaction in life.'
Exacerbating Loneliness
The simple factor of liking and reacting to pictures or videos posted by someone can also result in the massive distraction of a person. According to study, once a teen or a child posted a picture on social media and only a few people liked it—the tendency for the child to feel lonely and sad may occur at any time.
Cyberbullying
Whether online or in a physical world, bullying is not a good thing. That's why, as said on UNICEF, cyberbullying can lead to more problems once encountered by children. This can result in skipping school, alcohol intake, or even using drugs.
Apps That Do Not Have or Have Poor Age Verification
According to Federal Laws, effective on April 21, 2000, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) states that social media platforms must prohibit children below 13 years old to use and enter their media.
For example, Facebook already requires its users upon signing up to input their age to follow the restrictions of Federal laws. However, there are still social media applications out there that do not follow the protocol of US laws and simply chooses to disregard the law.
According to an initial report of Techcrunch, Instagram is not making any actions in the said COPPA law when it comes to their medium. This is because you can easily join their app by downloading it and just answering whether you're under 13 or not.
However, starting on Dec. 5, CNN reported that Instagram will now have an age-verification requirement on their platform—making it 'safer for young people.'
Tiktok
As reported via Family Education, TikTok that aims to share and produce short videos can also be dangerous for your children. Though it has an age verification on its sleeve, children can still access the app by just downloading it.
Some parents say that a lot of inappropriate videos are being broadcast on the app. Some also say that since all videos are set to public, the ability for strangers to chat children may occur anytime.
Tinder
Though dating can be considered as for adults only, children can also have access to this once Tinder is on their mobile devices. Tinder is said to be suitable for 17 above, but ages 13 can still enter their data on their system. Since this is a dating app, catfishing and sexual harassment can happen anytime once an innocent child enters the stream.
