The advent of digital age and the exponential growth of the social media has raised many alarming questions. Our children get exposed to this digital world very early on in the form of tablets or smartphones. Using it on a regular basis they eventually get addicted to the point where they spend hours creating a post or taking a selfie, all for just some likes and online validation. Extreme cases of this kind of behaviour has become an everyday matter. Are the dangers of social media real? Should we be worried about it as parents? To understand this let us look at some of the extreme behaviours or conditions that come with the excessive use. Addiction Spending hours on the phone scrolling through the feeds, being glued to the phone to give instant replies and getting agitated when a platform is down are grave signs of social media addiction. Children and youth waste their precious time being unproductive. To counter this, you can always set a time limit for your children for daily social media use. Smartphones can be installed with apps which sets fixed amount of time for each platform. Narcissism There have been numerous studies which have scientifically proved that social media addiction tends to increase narcissism on many fronts. For instance, teenagers try to look perfect in their pictures which sometimes takes hours to shoot, edit and upload. The instant validation of likes and false online praises only fuels this behaviour further. Children slowly start to put their online identity first above everything. This tends to make them more self-centred and prone to faking things and scenarios just for some extra likes. Depression Many children hide and mask their pain behind by sharing extreme memes and suicide jokes. Instead of getting help and dealing with the depression, they create a feel good online persona which only works temporarily. Once they stop getting any kind of attention or engagement they tend to fall into deeper states of depression making it a vicious circle. They might even fall victim to online trolls who feed on people’s misery making fun of everyone through abuse, insults, online bullying and harassment. Keeping all this in mind, it’s imperative that you keep a constant eye on your child's online activity. Most kids work out their way just fine through the digital mediums but if they are using it excessively you should know when to intervene. The best way often is to have an honest talk with your child to get an evolved understanding of their fascination with this medium and where they stand.
If you feel your child has experienced something traumatic or some abuse on social media, you can always take the help of experienced counsellors of KYTS. We offer a non-judgemental space to deal with all kinds of trauma, addiction and depression. Let us help you to help your child.
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