Op-ed: Social media’s effects on children

by Meghan Tarr

Social media is affecting children’s futures, causing many of them to suffer from depression, anxiety, and more.

Research has shown that even a three year old playing with their parent’s Ipad affects them in the long run. It could cause anxiety and less self esteem as they get older. There was a survey done in the United Kingdom that involved ages 14-24 to see how they felt about social media. When the results came back, most of them had high anxiety, depression, and lower self esteem after using instagram, twitter and facebook.

Many children go on computers, Ipads, televisions, and phones all day and have no interaction with anyone but their technology. They aren’t playing outside, getting fresh air and this could and is causing many children to have social anxiety. When many children go out in crowds without their technology they don’t know what to do for themselves.

(Photo: Google)

Social media also affects the way a lot of children think they should look. When they see a photo of one of their favorite stars, photoshopped most of the time, they think they need to look like that. Some kids start wearing clothes that, for example, a ten year old shouldn’t be wearing but do because they saw it on social media. Some kids think they are fat after seeing edited pictures on Instagram.

Dr. Phyllis Zrzavy, a communications professor who also studies children in media said, “Social media effects have mostly been focused on adolescents and teens. Research has documented how social media use can lead to feelings of insecurity, loneliness, isolation, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Face-to-face interactions can be a barrier these feelings, but they are being replaced by online interactions. Young children’s brain development might be affected by this substitution of interpersonal communication for social media interactions.”

Social media can be very dangerous for children. In order to make it safer we need to teach children about the effects and causes that could occur. Parents should make their children have a screen time only an hour a day or less. Instead of children going on Youtube, where there are so many ads, have them go on Youtube Kids. Many parents don’t know about this and it needs to be advertised to help children. Instead of having a comments or like button on Instagram and Twitter they should remove it to help children’s self esteem, etc. Little things like this could help in the long run for children.