Effects of indiscriminate use of social media on children, youth
What you need to know:
The anonymity and distance provided by social media platforms often embolden bullies to target their victims relentlessly, leading to severe emotional and psychological distress.
Justine is worried about her son, Marcus, “He spends a lot of his time recording videos of himself on Tiktok. He wants to become a ‘Brennan Baby’. I wish he would concentrate on reading his books. There is a better future there than gambling with life hoping to become a social media influencer.”
According to datareportal.com in their Digital 2023 Uganda, “There were 11.77 million internet users in Uganda at the start of 2023, when internet penetration stood at 24.6 percent. Uganda was home to 2.05 million social media users in January 2023, equating to 4.3 percent of the total population.
A total of 30.55 million cellular mobile connections were active in Uganda in early 2023, with this figure equivalent to 63.8 percent of the total population.” Considering that the majority of the population in Uganda is 78 percent youth and below the age of thirty, we can safely assume that the majority of the 63.8 percent of those with cellular mobile connections are youth (15-30 years) and are engaged on social media.
Social media on its own is not evil when it is moderated, regulated, and used for the right purpose.
For instance, some people rightly use social media for business, to stay connected, to spread news and information, to build relationships, to increase social awareness about a cause, to gain education, to enhance customer care service, entertainment, research, and even to get a job. However, when used wrongly, social media can have ‘side’ effects and these may include:
Pitfalls associated with unlimited exposure of children to social media:
Exposure to inappropriate content:
One of the ways social media is abused is when children use it to access inappropriate content such as sexually explicit information. For instance, Nicole, a mother of two, observes; “If a bad guy showed up at your gate at 3 am and asked to meet your daughter, you’d probably call the police on him. But with social media, the same bad guy can have access to your daughter at that time of the night without your knowledge or permission. This is what we get through the many Internet sites that carry all varieties of content, some of it inappropriate for our children and that is scary!”
Moral toxicity:
There is a lot of toxicity on social media and if your child is not careful and old enough to decipher, they might be sucked into it. A lot of values we held before are no longer material to this era and age. Indecent dressing and talking are the order of the day and these are applauded as the right thing by the general society.
“In my days, we used to watch Television as a family because it was the only entertainment gadget in the home. And that Television had one TV station. That has changed. Each of my children has a tab for study purposes from the Covid-19 days. They usually find a way to sneak up on social media which is filled with stuff that I would not normally approve of. So as a parent, I have to keep my eye on them in case they bust the parental control codes…It is a hard way to live”, laments Jacob, a father of three.
Depression and anxiety:
Social media use has been associated with a decline in mental health. According to figures from wearesocial.com, in an article titled, Social Media Users Pass the 4.5 Billion Mark, there were 4.55 billion social media users as of October 2021 out of the total world population of 7.89 billion around the same time.
Melissa, a 22-year-old fresh university graduate, who deleted her 10K followers Twitter account recently told me why:
“At first it was fun getting many followers liking my content. I felt popular and relevant. I used to stay up late in the night creating content. But with time I started to feel trapped in a cycle of having to please people for validation. Some people dissed my content at times which caused me to be depressed and anxious. My daytime job started being affected: I would appear late for work and be sleepy most of the time there. I was not meeting my work targets. I soon realized my mental and emotional well-being was being affected negatively. I got the wake-up call when I received a warning letter about my sloppiness at work. I realized I was going nowhere with this addiction to social media so I made the bold decision and deleted my account. Now I have good rest every night and I am alert to the realities of life around me.”
Cyberbullying:
The anonymity and distance provided by social media platforms often embolden bullies to target their victims relentlessly, leading to severe emotional and psychological distress. The constant connectivity of social media exacerbates the problem, making it challenging for children to escape the harmful effects of cyberbullying even in their safe spaces.
Lack of privacy:
When an Internet user visits various websites, they can leave behind evidence of the sites they have visited. What goes online, stays online. This collective ongoing record of one’s Web activity is called the “Digital Footprint”. This digital footprint can be used in the future by fraudsters and bad-meaning people to injure their reputations, careers, or political aspirations.
Corrupts language learnability:
Social media can reduce command over language usage and creative writing skills. Children and youth generally use slang words or abbreviated forms of words for interpersonal communication. Also, over-dependence on device language structure and spelling check highlights may hamper their ability to improve their writing abilities.
What should we do about it?
Parental control:
According to the Ugandan Children’s Online Survey Report 2020 published by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), “About 7 in every 10 children have never been engaged by their parents about their Internet use and nor have they ever been encouraged by their parents to explore and learn new things online. There is limited involvement of parents in the lives of the children’s online activities. About 76.8 percent, that is in almost every eight in every 10 parents, are not involved as to what their children are doing online.” The report recommends parents and guardians get involved through the following means: keep an eye on their children while they are online, place time restrictions on how long children can spend online daily, ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide free parental control software to restrict or block certain types of content to protect children, teach your children not to post private videos, pictures online for these can be misused by strangers and bullies who may want to harm them, and be free with your children so they can report to you in case they are having online risks.
Use existing security tools:
Most anti-viruses appreciate online security and therefore have designed tools embedded in programs to guard against insecure sites, and block inappropriate content keeping users safe and risk-free online. Android and all other smartphones have an inbuilt security tool that functions like an antivirus, the only difference being that the user has to manually set it (technical expertise required).
Collaboration:
Parents, guardians, educators, and online platforms must work collaboratively to create social support systems to help children and youth who may have been damaged by the excessive and wrong use of social media. Also, there is a need to raise awareness, implement effective safety measures, and foster a culture of kindness and empathy online to combat this growing issue and protect our children’s well-being.
With these measures, I believe we can avert the effects of social media on our children and youth.