Social Media ≠ Real Life
Very few people can claim to not be affected by social media nowadays. Almost everyone has an account on one platform or the other while some people even have accounts on almost all platforms.
Social media just like life and almost everything in it has two sides, the good and the bad. It is left for us to seive the good and limit the bad sides.
Raising children can be challenging because regardless of the values we wish to inculcate in the child, we can not entirely protect them from external influences. We can only do our best to limit it but that is at the expense of your time and energy.
This is particularly the case where social media is involved because there's a lot going on at every given time.
It's easy to assess a variety of information just by clicking a button and this could have varying effects on individuals based on personality differences and upbringing.
The youth of these days are privy to a lot including depressing and uplifting news. So it depends on the individual. For example, it's easy to see the growth and success of "peers" on social media and hence one can begin to feel inadequate for not having achieved such status.
One would also see news about people who have it worse despite their best efforts.
There is also that possibility that the peer who seems to have achieved a lot is only pretending, living the "fake life".
Everyone should realise that social media is not equal to real life. This would ensure that unnecessary pressure and expectations are avoided in our daily lives.
The parent should be able to inculcate the right values into the child from cradle so that even in his absence, the childs values and morals would keep him in check regardless of what others are saying or posting.
Also understanding displayed by the parents would also ensure that the child confides in them when he come across gray areas in life or social media.
This would be the guiding principle even as an adult.
Image(s) are mine
Yea you are right, social media has both the good side and the bad side, it has helped many people intellectually and it has also made some people dumber, many people depend too much on AI nowadays they don't want to stress themselves, creativity cannot happen without deep thinking, so we should learn to use the social space the right way.
I totally agree with your saying on these depend on which side they face
The fake life in social media is on a high rate. We know this thing and it still play out in influencing us.
Social media is everywhere, it's nearly impossible to keep the influences away from the younger generation and yes, social media can be both inspiring and draining, it really depends on the person and what they feed their mind with. A lot of people carry unneccessary pressure simply because they're comparing themselves with someone's curated highlight
You are absolutely right, parents have the duty to inculcate the right attitude in their kids from cradle, inculcating this habits will go a long way in shaping this child even in your absent.
I'm glad some of us are seeing this from similar perspective. Either little or much, parents have a role to play in the lives of these teenagers so that social media doesn't influence them badly
At a point i pause from social media because the fake life there is too and if you aren’t disciplined you will be move by things you see on social media if is possible our kids should be taken out of social media.