Utilizing social media internet sites is the most well known activity of the children these days. The websites which give the privilege of social interaction is called a social media site. There are many social networking sites in the internet Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. Many gaming sites and virtual world are also there such as Club Penguin, second life etc.
These sites provide today’s youth generation a scope for entertainment and communication and it is growing rapidly in recent years. So, for this reason it is very important for the parents to be aware of these social media internet sites.
Some useful sides:
- Opportunity for donating money on any charitable trust. To take part as well as volunteering many cultural, political events.
- Children can share their creativity through the internet to others.
- Growth of the idea for the creation of blogs, videos and gaming sites.
- It also helps for the junior as well as the seniors to gather information or study materials from many educational social media sites.
There are many social media sites which are not for the children and adolescents. Pediatricians are there to help the families so that they can understand these websites and also to encourage the healthy use and to monitor for problems regarding cyber bullying.
Facebook mania:
The most popular social media site is the Facebook. For the last five years the number of children using the Facebook has increased very rapidly. According to a survey 22% of the teenagers in the world use the Facebook 10 times a day and more than half of the teenagers are using Facebook once a day. 75 % of the teenagers have their own mobile phones. 55% of them use the mobile for texting and 24 % uses the mobile for instant messaging. Because of the lack of maturity, children are at some risk when they experiment with some social networking sites. The growth of the online world is a great factor of many adolescent’s depressions. Many kids are influenced emotionally by this social networking site. This affects their entire life.
Online harassment:
Cyber bullying is using the digital media for false communication, embarrassing and gathers confidential information about another person. It is the most important risk on the internet for the teenagers. Recent information says that online harassment is not the same as offline harassment because the social networking sites don’t put most of the children to online harassment.
Sexting:
Sexting can be defined as receiving as well as sending or forwarding sexual explicit messages, porn videos and photographs through mobile phone, iPod, Computer and other electronic gadgets. This phenomenon is very common for the teen population. There are many teens who are threatened for a penalty of the huge amount for sexting. In many cases sexting is not shared over a small peering group or a pair.
So at the end it can be concluded that social media have so advantages as well as some disadvantages. If the parents are aware of this fact and if they frequently checks, what his children is doing over the internet then it will be the best way for the children to stay safe from all the harmful effects on the internet.
