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Milad Malakooti
CST 300 Writing Lab
14 February 2021

Social Media and Children

Social media is a digital interactive platform that encourages the exchange of ideas,

information, and interest. The use of social media can be attributed to the advancement in

technology, which resulted in the formation of phones and laptops. Additionally, many people

now depend on social media to communicate or interact, including the youth. However, a

growing number of community members are opposing the use of social media. They claim the

use of social media results in moral decay, increases laziness among youths, causes health

effects, and is addictive. On the other hand, some community members claim that social media is

helpful and aids kids’ development. Through social media, children can learn new things about

themselves and others get inspired, get more ideas, and many other things. Furthermore, social

media improves interaction amongst the youth without needing to meet physically. With that

perspective, the internet and social media can be both good and bad, but what should we do to

make it better for the new generation? Therefore, the paper seeks to identify whether children

should be encouraged or discouraged from having Social Media Profiles.

The community is divided on whether social media should be encouraged or

discouraged on children. Some community members believe that children should not be enabled

to use social media since it negatively affects their moral. However, another fraction of

community members encourages their children to use social media to extend their learning and

thinking capacity.
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There are parents whose opinions are against social media for children. Many children

have suffered from moral decay due to improper use of social media (Dyer, 2018). Since social

media allows unrestricted entry to the internet, some children may access pornography sites.

These pornography sites cause moral decay because children are exposed to pornographic

content. According to National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are

approximately 859,500 registered sex offenders in the United States (O’Reilly et al., 2018). The

data from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children show that moral decay is the

cause of an increase in sex offenders. Many of those offenders claim they were exposed to

pornographic sites and content during their childhood development.

Community members who are against social media claim that social media have affected

children negatively. Some of the effects of social media are moral decay, increased laziness

among youths, causes health effects, and addiction (Ehmke, 2020). Moral decay causes children

to access the internet unrestricted, resulting in them accessing pornographic content—the

pornographic content results in young children involving themselves in sex offenses like rape.

Also, social media may result in laziness among youths. Due to social media, many children

spend more time chatting and interacting with their friends than perform their chores.

Additionally, social media use results in health effects that may result from prolonged access use

of laptops and mobile phones. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 3.1

billion people globally have sight problems caused by prolonged use of phones and laptops

(O’Reilly et al., 2018). Lastly, social media is addictive among youths since many youths spend

a lot of time texting and sharing ideas.

Physical harm of social media to children is health effects and laziness. Many children

suffer from eyesight problems due to the prolonged use of laptops and phones. Adverse eyesight
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may result in blindness if medical attention is not sought. Similarly, many children may suffer

from laziness due to addiction to use social media. Youths tend to spend much time on social

media sites chatting with their mates instead of doing chores. As a result, most of them suffer

from laziness since most of their time they spend texting rather than doing chores.

Exposure of pornographic content to youth causes moral decay. Many children suffer

psychologically related conditions leading to them committing sex offenses. Psychological

health is essential for children during their development (UNICEF, 2018). Therefore, if

psychological health is affected, then children may be forced to engage in uncouth behaviors. To

effectively end psychologically related conditions, children need to avoid exposing themselves to

pornography. Research sex offenses are on the rise due to psychological conditions people

suffered in their childhood age. Hence, limiting them involves maintaining psychological health

by avoiding explicit content.

Parents should enroll their children in sports and games. Registering in sports and

games is a good alternative for social media. Through sports and games, children may interact

with each other and grow both physically and mentally. Additionally, sports and games improve

children’s knowledge as they learn new skills and ideas through interacting with others. Sports

and games may reduce children’s exposure to pornographic content, improving their

psychological health. Secondly, parents can ensure their children are enrolled in safe chat rooms

and social sites to avoid moral decay. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are not the only social

media sites children can enroll (Rozali et.al., 2019). Several social media sites put children’s

safety first to avoid being exposed to pornographic content like browse safety, among others.

On the other side of the argument, there are people who believe that social media has

enabled children to learn new things about themselves and others, get inspired, and get more
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ideas. Through social media, children can learn new things about themselves and others. Hence,

through learning new things, they will understand themselves better as well as understanding

others. Examples of things children can learn about them and others include character and

interests. On the other hand, children might get inspired to try new ideas through social media by

reading educational and inspirational quotes. The internet offers children the opportunity to learn

new quotes, which encourages them to be great in the future. Additionally, they can learn from

stories about their role models, which offers a perfect example of inspiration. Lastly, through the

use of social media, children might learn new ideas increasing their knowledge. Besides, the

internet provides vast knowledge on many ideas, and children can quickly learn them through

research. Many scholars post their research on the internet, and ambitious children can easily

benefit from their knowledge through reading.

According to research, 5.7 million children under the age of eleven years use social

media (O’Reilly et al., 2018). However, only thirty percent of them use social media to increase

ideas or knowledge. That is a worrying trend since only approximately 1.9 million children use

social media for a beneficial purpose (O’Reilly et al., 2018). Therefore, only a limited number of

children use social media for educational purposes or to increase their knowledge and ideas.

More needs to be done to increase the number of children using the internet for the right purpose.

How to Control Children for Using Social Media? There are various methods you can

control children from using social media. Some of those methods include network blocking,

having conversations about social media use with them, avoiding them from joining social media

until they are of age, and monitoring their social media usage (Christofferson, 2016). Network

blocking is critical to limit children from accessing social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The idea involves blocking certain social media sites from being accessed by their children.
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Secondly, having an honest conversation is essential, making them understand the challenges of

using social media (Nemours KidsHealth, 2018).

Similarly, through having conversations about social media, children will understand

why it is significant to refrain from using social media until they are of age. Besides, avoid them

from joining social media until they are of age is another control measure that will limit children

from using social media. Parents need to be strict to refrain their children from joining social

media successfully. Lastly, parents can monitor their children through using tools like Experian

Identity Works. The tool can help parents monitor their children’s activity on various social

media sites by sending alerts. How to Make Social Media Channels a Better Place? Social media

sites should be regulated to ensure only children who have attained 18 years are allowed to join.

Children of 11 years can currently join social media since there are no age restrictions imposed

while registering for various social media sites (O’Reilly et al., 2018). Secondly, social media

sites should improve their identity check to avoid impersonation. Children of 11 years and below

are impersonating to access various social media sites; hence, enhancing social sites will restrict

underage children from accessing the different sites. Lastly, social media should burn people

who share pornographic content on social media to ensure only interactive and knowledge-based

information is exchanged.

With all the perspective mentioned the question is that should children be encouraged

or discouraged from having social media profiles? As explained, there are two general answers

to the question where one agrees with the fact that social media could be beneficial for the

children, and the other who believe otherwise. In my opinion, social media is not a good place

for children because of various reasons. First social media are not suitable for children since

most of the risk being affected negatively (TEMÜR et al., 2017). According to a study, most
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children do not use social media for constructive and knowledge-based reasons. In addition,

many children risk moral decay since social media content is not good for children. Many of the

content on various social media platforms results in bad habits and moral decay amongst

children. Similarly, most children are not social media consumers since most of these sites are

created for people above 18 years.

Every social media platform has a reason for being there and the way they are making

money. Children cannot be their consumers in any sense since most of these social media sites

focus on interactions aimed at forming relationships against children’s motives. Hence, children

should focus on getting an education rather than involve themselves in social media. The core

mandate for children is to get educated but not try to form relationships, leading to mental stress.

Additionally, just like TV channels, companies can set up children protected social media. Just

like YouTube, that has “YouTube for kids.” Setting up children’s protected social media will

limit the number of children going astray due to bad morals (O’Reilly et al., 2018). Moreover,

these children protected social media sites will ensure children’s activity in those sites is

monitored. Hence, many children will be protected once they join those sites from moral decay.

Furthermore, developing children’s social media sites would restore parents’ confidence to allow

children to join them.

In conclusion, social media sites have both pros and cons for children who chose to join

them. Social media sites may aid child development by increasing children’s knowledge and

ideas. Many children have benefited through knowledge enhancement ideas available on social

media sites. Additionally, social media sites have enhanced children to learn new things about

themselves and others. Through learning new about themselves, children can understand

themselves better as well those around them. In contrast, social media is a threat to many
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children. Children have suffered moral decal due to exposure to pornographic content while

young. Furthermore, statistics from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children show

that sex offers cases are not the rise to moral decay. Social media causes health effects associated

with prolonged use of phones and laptops. Statistics from World Health Organizations show that

3.1 Billion people in the world are affected (O’Reilly et al., 2018). Hence, more measures need

to be put in place to ensure the dangers children face due to social media are neutralized.
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References

Christofferson, J. P. (2016). How is social networking sites effecting teen's social and emotional

development: A systemic review.

Dyer, T. (2018). The effects of social media on children. Dalhousie journal of interdisciplinary

management, 14.

Ehmke, R. (2020, June 16). How using social media affects teenagers. Child Mind Institute.

https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/

O’Reilly, M., Dogra, N., Whiteman, N., Hughes, J., Eruyars, S., & Reilly, P. (2018). Is social

media bad for mental health and wellbeing? Exploring the perspectives of adolescents.

Clinical child psychology and psychiatry, 23(4), 601-613.

Rozali, N. F., Abd Latiff, Z., & Baharuddin, N. A. (2019, May). Social Media Exposure among

Children Leads to Growing Numbers of LGBT Community in Malaysia. In Proceeding

of International Conference on Communication, Culture and Media Studies (CCCMS)

Teaching Kids to Be Smart About Social Media (for Parents) - Nemours KidsHealth. (2018).

KidsHealth. https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/social-media-smarts.html

Temür, A., Öztürk, M., Avci, M. F., & Ziya, A. Z. (2017). Negative effects of social media on

children.

UNICEF. Is social media bad for teens’ mental health? (2018).

https://www.unicef.org/stories/social-media-bad-teens

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xiety% 20and%20sleep%20deprivation.