(Trigger Warning: Suicide) When to Worry About Girls' Social Media Use
"Earlier this month, a U.K. court found Meta (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) responsible for the suicide of a 14-year-old girl, Molly Rose Russell. The coroner who served on the case described her death as attributable to her social media use, which affected her mental health.
Molly’s story resonates with parents who find it difficult to monitor their children’s technology use and are not sure how concerned to be about the hours their teens spend online – connecting with friends, but also often connecting with strangers and content which may or may not be damaging. In fact, Molly’s parents had attended e-safety classes at her school and attempted to monitor her social-media use. Most parents aren’t worried about suicide, per se, but are worried about the unrealistic images and provocative content that bombard their children at all hours of the day and night.
According to Common Sense Media’s most recent report, 38% of tweens regularly use social media and by the time they are teenagers, they’re spending about an hour-and-a-half on social media each day (although far longer on screens in general). In most cases, social media use will not have deadly consequences, but this doesn’t mean that it won’t still be deleterious. One area of concern beyond general mental health is girls’ body image.
Young people's social media worlds could include psychological support and information about mental health care, self-acceptance, and positive body image. This requires that youth curate their newsfeeds to see this content. In the U.K., even before Molly Rose Russell’s death, a law was being considered by Parliament that would require social media companies to adopt child safety protections. We suspect a lot of parents would worry less about their tweens' and teens’ social media use if more safety precautions were in place and if the content they were viewing was less likely to result in negative mental health consequences."
*It's crazy to me how much of an effect from social media we are seeing on the youth of today. We are seeing mental health being affected, including self-image. While I know a lot girls tend to struggle with body imagine, with social media making this worse, boys struggle too and I think that's important to mention. I think social media is tough for all teens and parents need to be more involved. Personally, I see the effects of the Internet at such a young age so my future kids won't be having a phone for many years 😂 What do you think parents can do to help prevent the negative effects of social media on their kids?*
#BodyImage #MentalHealth #SocialMedia
Please find the full article at Psychology Today.
@fruityPond7887
Loved reading your post ♥️ Thank you so much for this wonderful post. This is a much needed topic to be discussed and some action must be taken against it to help the teenagers.
When you said, my future kids won't be having a phone for many years. I felt it lol! *Hi fives* I'm thinking to do the same. Perhaps we are the last generation in India who grew up without a phone.
For the development of children, it is most important that they stay connected to the environment around them. This does not mean that stay connected by phone. A child is like a wet clay. We can give it any shape we want. The next generation should learn to spend time in doing more physical and mental activities to keep both body and mind healthy. They should spend time with nature, atleast do some swimming, trekking instead of watching other people do it on social media.
Social media should be a place where people feel safe and don't start feeling more demotivated after using it.
@dtanushree I love your comparison of wet clay!! I remember as a kid how much we played outside and how much I enjoyed it, while my sister (who is 7 years younger) has had an iPad and the Internet since she was really little. It's amazing how much it can affect the generation and our society as a whole. I think it can be good in small doses when kids become teenagers, but it's not great as they are still growing and their brains are still forming. Thank you for your perspective! 💗