REFLECTING ON THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH
I remember teaching one of my students Information and communciation and the topic was about the right use of social media, she said she had encounter of a man that sent her a naked picture online asking her to send money, and she is only 13 years unexperienced, i had top use this medium to explain a lot to them and made them to understand that anytime such occurrences happen again they should report to their parent or any adult near them.
Image by Thomas Ulrich from Pixabay
I can't speak against social media because it has a significant role in the life of young people, and it is the future which we must adapt to, but there are some flaws. People make mistakes on social media. Some people allow social media to overwhelm them, and when there is too much of anything, it will affect a person, which is why we need to be cautious of what we use our social media to do and who we follow.
I remember I once wrote about social media, and I explained in the content that it is not social media that is the problem, it is who we follow that is the problem. We should stop promoting toxic influencers because they can affect the way we view things by influencing our mental understanding with their ignorant experiences and understanding.
Personally, I believe social media is not evil or against our mental health; it just depends on the way we use it, which is why adolescents need to be careful about the way they use it. I feel there should be an age limit to every content produced online because most content can be very manipulative when it gets into the wrong hands. I notice most adolescents find this lgbtq community, especially the ones not brought up with them, gain interest and want to be like them just because they enjoy their content, which is very wrong.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
I believe social media, when used in the right way, can't have a negative impact on adolescent mental health because at this stage, their mental understanding needs to be protected. After all, it is from this stage that they start to view the world and everything about the world. I have seen a lot of youngsters and brilliant adolescents influenced by social media even me, i was influenced by it but thank gooodness i had people aroudn me that where hoping for thre best for me and they cortrected my thoughts back then this is why i said it depends on who we follow, which is why we need to be observant of who we follow on social media especially this adoliscent stage. I don't think banning social media will change anything; it might even limit their understanding of how the world outside views things.
Social media can be dangerous to adolescents when they follow the wrong influencers, and this can pollute their mental understanding and influence them to engage in negative things they are not meant to do, which is why we need to be careful of who we follow.
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Social media needs a proper guide in the cases of adolescent because some of them are been mislead by it
Social media just like every other thing depends largely on how we use it, its ofcourse contains the good the bad n the ugly which ever side we get depends on us however parent's n guidance has a lot to do in terms of observing n placing some restrictions to certain site n content they get access to
Some people can be so mean, now why was he sending the pictures to the young lady? I am sure she told him she was 13. Sometimes I wish there is a section unique to teens.
I agree with you, social media isn't the problem we are the problem. How we use it is where the problem lies