Educating The Digital Native: Likes, Shares And Mental Health

How come we didn't think of this long before now? Maybe the negatives of using social media would have reduced a little bit if this had been put in place, educating students before they go into the virtual world where likes, comments and shares could play on one's mental state of mind.

Now, I wonder what educating strategy was put in place when social media was first introduced to the world especially to people below the age suitable to make use of it. It's pretty much the fact that none of that was put in place, the world just adapts quickly and some learn their lessons.

Social media has become a part of our lives today, even the little ones have access to it wether it is known to their guardian or not, so the need to educate people on the dangers and positive uses of it, is important. The suggestion to teach it as a subject in schools is a good idea.

I remember my high school days where we had students hiding their phones in class to use it for all the wrong reasons. Then, I never imagined we would ever use social media to make money and I only thought it was to make friends and most likely fall in love and date someone online lol.

I'm almost sure most of my peers then thought the same and so when we got any chance, we'd strive hard to get likes and comments on our photos with hopes that it would put us on a good light for others to want to be friends with us. Our mediocre on social media was quite shameful lol.

So if you ask me, I'd say it's a good idea to have a social media teacher in high schools. It's obviously a new work load on the school but then, it would also serve as a job opportunity for many social media handlers today. Having a teacher who knows the ups and downs, to teach.

I believe if schools will add social media as a subject, they should also be ready to make sure the teachers who teach this subject are very well qualified and selected for the job, it's a very important part to make this plan work positively.

Students will get to understand much earlier how to use social media to enhance their knowledge in positive way, taught of the dangers in abusing the media especially with wrong information or being attacked by the bad social media handlers. Cyber bullying is real and this class will teach it.

The class will be a form of early exposure to a lot of things about social media, both the good and the bad, it's very possible that some students will still choose to use these media platforms for the wrong uses but it's on the high side that more students will learn and use the media for good.

Social media and human mental health are very close, one minute we could be happy using a platform and another minute, we could be tempted to fall into something that would derail our mental thoughts leading to things we would want to avoid, this calls for the need to teach it.

I'm in support of adding this as a subject but each school should be very careful on the teacher selection, the guidance on students who take the class and if possible, supervised equipments should be provided by schools in cases of students who don't have to participate in the class. I believe this would go a long way.