UNIT IV LR ENG (ZEEK THE GEEK)

Topic

Should social media access be limited or prevented for young children is the question debated by both parents and pediatricians on child social growth. Currently, at an early age between 7 and 13 years, it is a critical stage for the growth of interpersonal skills and social competence of a child. Therefore, the media they interact with will be very influential in their future interactions (Livingstone and Bovill, 2013). Thus the parents can either decide to allow them to be exposed to family, school, and friends as a community or the full access to the media. Occasionally, allowing the children to interact with the media is not harmful, but it is vital to monitor what they are being exposed to and reduce the amount of time they spend on the virtual systems. Some of the negative ways that the media influences children is through the recruitment into mass killings that is often associated with terrorism. Furthermore, the persons that the children admire most when they are growing, they tend to emulate their characteristics and behaviors which can either be positive or negative for a child development.

Controversy

Pediatricians have over the years advocated for exposure to media by a kid to be less than 2 hours a day so as to allow them to have functional interpersonal skills. However, critics have been raised on the notion as media has occasionally been used for education and thus the kid can still get same skills in school ad through media. The mode of exposure does not matter. This debate has left many schools in a dilemma whether to fully initiate digital learning in their schools or emphasize on the traditional education and only use digital learning in individual cases.

With today’s technology-driven world, it is almost impossible to keep the children away from the media (Strasburger, 2013). Shielding them will mean raising them in an ideal environment that support less technology, and upon maturity, they are unable to interact with their equals who were exposed to media while growing up. Therefore, parents have the responsibility of allowing the children to learn and appreciate the innovations and technologies in the press while at the same time preventing them from exposure to the risk of excessive media consumption.

Social networks are notably the teen’s largest pools of friends’ acquisition. With the current trend in the social networks, it is, therefore, important that the parents are kept in the loop on which friends the children interact with on the social sites. However, despite social networking being used for friends’ acquisition it also acts as a speculative venture of teens acquisition of friends, as the ones in the social networks are only virtual friends and there is little to no physical interactions between them as friends. Moreover, parents are noted to ensure they respect the children pool of friends be it the once they choose to associate with being either physically available or those on the social sites who are only virtual (Love, et al., 2016). Thus, to ensure there is not in the children interactions, it is paramount that the parents explain in detail the advantages and disadvantages on friends acquisition on the social networks.

Thesis

Social media access should be limited or prevented for young children. Giving internet access freely to young children without adult supervision/consent can put themselves and family at risk of internet stalkers, child predators, cyberbullying, and identity theft.

References

Livingstone, S., & Bovill, M. (Eds.). (2013). Children and their changing media environment: A European comparative study. Routledge.

Love, S. M., Sanders, M. R., Turner, K. M., Maurange, M., Knott, T., Prinz, R., & Ainsworth, A. T. (2016). Social media and gamification: Engaging vulnerable parents in an online evidence-based parenting program. Child abuse & neglect, 53, 95-107.

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. Pediatrics, 132(5), 958-961.