Is social media helpful or harmful to children? This is one of the most frequent topics for discussion, both online and offline. Social media has proven to be a useful tool since its inception, but we can not deny that it has also led to some damage to damage to children.

In this article, we will be listing out some of the benefits and risks of the use of social media by children. Read on to find out whether the disadvantages of letting children use social media are higher than the advantages.

Benefits Of Social Media For Children

Letting children use social media may have its bad sides, but it also has some positive effects. Join us as we highlight some of the benefits of the use of social media by children.

Learning

Learning is an activity that can be explored by different means on social media. Some social media platforms have learning communities established by users (children) to enable the exchange of knowledge and useful ideas. Children interested in learning can use social media learning avenues to have a better understanding of already acquired knowledge and also explore newer ones.

Creativity

One of the most popular areas to find creativity at its peak is on social media. Children can boost their level of creativity simply, by getting inspired from creative acts. They can also discover their interest and harness it, through social media.

Social life

Not all children are bold enough to make friends in real life, mostly due to shyness. The ability to chat with someone without seeing the person comes with a certain kind of boldness that, if well harnessed, can boost the confidence of the child in real life. Many social media platforms allow global connection. With the right supervision, children can make international friends and this can help them learn about different cultures and ways of life.

Sense of belonging

With the availability of many social media platforms and communities dedicated to certain groups of people, children can easily fit into the one that aligns with their interests and this can give them a sense of belonging. Social media platforms, like Reddit, are one of the best places to join appropriate social communities. Websites like REDUV help people create trending posts because they have professional upvote services that can help make it easier, specially for children to share their opinions on Reddit and reach out to the right people who can help improve their self-growth.

Risk Of Social Media For Children

Children can be easily influenced by what they see or hear. Most of the risks of social media revolve around allowing the children to hear or see what they shouldn’t. Here are some of the risks children are exposed to when they use social media.

Cyberbullying

This is one of the most common disadvantages of social media both for children and adults. Children can get threatened or frightened online by cyberbullies on social media, and this can sometimes cause drastic effects.

Exposure to inappropriate content

Children are not allowed to see or hear certain things and social media exposes them to many negative things. This can cause some mind damage and influence the character and attitude of the child involved, depending on what the content is about.

Bad influence

There are a lot of bad influences on social media that can influence children, directly or indirectly. A child, when left unsupervised, can end up idolising the wrong person, which can, in turn, lead to bad behaviour.

Peer pressure

Who says peer pressure can only be applied physically? Being friends with the wrong people online can lead your child to a lot of bad acts.

Exposure to danger

There have been several cases of kids being lured by strangers online pretending to be what they are not. The sad part about this is that not all the children involved in such awful situations make it out alive.

Targeted advertising

Children’s data can be used to influence the kind of adverts they see. While this is not all that bad, a child can easily get influenced to purchase irrelevant items.

Conclusion

Based on the listed benefits and risks of social media for children, the answer to this question is a yes and a no. Social media is helpful to some extent and it is also harmful to children.

Is there a solution to this situation? Yes, there is. There should be some laid down guidelines and rules on how to use social media. The first step is to let the children know about some of the dangers involved in using social media wrongly. The next step is to limit the usage time. If adults can get addicted to social media, imagine the kind of effect it will have on children.

The key is to monitor your child’s usage of social media and ensure that they only join appropriate platforms.