How Facebook Impacts Children’s Growth

How Facebook Impacts Children’s Growth

Introduction

The love for Facebook among children is a recent occurrence. This love is attributed to the fact that children as young as eight years can open a Facebook account. Studies done from the new millennium to date indicate that children love Facebook because it helps them to meet new people and retain their old friends. Apart from this connection, there are other peculiar things that children do on Facebook that can raise the alarm to guardians and parents. Therefore, parents need to be aware of the consequences Facebook presents to children since it affects their growth.

First, Facebook causes mental ill-health among children. Reports emerging from psychologists indicate kids exposed to Facebook show many mental health issues.  Excessive engagement in Facebook is associated with brain and personality disorders such as ADHD. Most of these children also show personality issues like depression, anxiety, poor social skills, loneliness, and addictive behaviors. Research done by Brosch (2016) reveals that children who spend a lot of time on Facebook are likely to feel isolated, disconnected, or sometimes develop eating disorders. Strasburger et al. (2013) indicate that middle school children who experience cyberbullying have a high likelihood of killing themselves.

Second, Facebook exposes children to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying on children induces emotional conditions that are dysfunctional in their later lives. Research done in 2012 indicated that close to 900,000 children were harassed on while on Facebook (Brosch, 2016). Bullying among children has become easier on Facebook. Bullying is achieved through subtle posts that have offensive content or threatening messages directed to kids. In a survey that was done in middle school in the US, 49.8% of the respondents reported that they had been bullied more than ones on Facebook (Strasburger et al., 2013). People who intend to harm parents or guardians target their children on Facebook first.

Third, Facebook erodes the behavior of children. There is a lot of misinformation on Facebook.  When children come across such information, they create violent imagery making a kid violent. Due to many political events occurring around the globe, spending much time on Facebook as a kid is dangerous. The majority of the discussions on Facebook are violent. Because of the viral nature of the content, it is hard to moderate the content circulated on Facebook. This creates a negative impact on children’s minds. At the same time, children develop a defeatist and sadistic view of what happens around the world (Greenfield, 2014). Almost half of the children on Facebook at one time read false information on Facebook. With time, children become obsessed with updating their status and posting photos. If these photos are not appreciated with many likes, children become anxious and even start thinking that nobody likes or loves them. Children begin to lack empathy for other people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, children get impacted differently by Facebook. The growth of Children are affected by Facebook in several ways which include mental health issues, cyberbullying, and erosion of morals. Parents should, therefore, be aware of the content that affects their children negatively while on Facebook. The safest trick about the use of Facebook by children is restricting to content which does not add value to the life of the child.

References

Brosch, A. (2016). When the child is born into the Internet: Sharenting as a growing trend among parents on Facebook.

Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Mind and media: The effects of television, video games, and computers. Psychology Press.

Strasburger, V. C., Hogan, M. J., Mulligan, D. A., Ameenuddin, N., Christakis, D. A., Cross, C., & Moreno, M. A. (2013). Children, adolescents, and the media. Paediatrics, 132(5), 958-961.