Why as a parent you should be concerned with your child's access to social media?
Social media is causing mass contagion among our youth. Contagion according to the Meriam-Webster dictionary, is an influence that spreads rapidly. It’s a rapid communication of an influence such as a doctrine or emotional state. In the healthcare world it’s used to describe a disease going from one individual to another until it reaches epidemic levels. However, social psychologists who have long examined this influence in emotional state are growing worried of the effects it may have on our youth.
A few decades ago, suicide contagion was a concerned and traditional media was careful when reporting suicide for fear of the “copycat” effect (Ortiz, & Khin Khin, 2018) or suicide contagion. In today’s technology advanced world, social media is now a primary social interaction form among most adolescents (Ortiz, & Khin Khin, 2018). Word of a suicide or mass tragedies costing the lives of many can spread through the world in minutes rather than hours or days. Our youth competes for attention on the social platforms making videos as is the case of You Tube or posts that can go viral or reach the biggest audience possible, as is the case with Snap Chat. The need for more likes and views is drawing youngster all over the world in starting the latest trend. Unfortunately, the riskier the behavior the more likes and the bigger the audience. Thus, suicide contagion should be a concern to parents who often find out of these trends a bit too late.
A Japanese study found evidence of increased suicide rates after the suicide of a celebrity was widely shared on Twitter (Ortiz, & Khin Khin, 2018). Because adolescence is a key period of social development (Reiter, Suzuki et al) and this period is especially characterized by the “susceptibility to social influence” (2019) it is imperative parents monitor their adolescent's behavior to prevent them from copying dangerous behavior. Adolescence is a period in the child’s life known for the increase in risky behavior such as; binge drinking, unprotected sex, and smoking, furthermore the risky behavior increases in the presence of their peers more than when they are alone (Reiter, Suzuki et al). The social influences adolescents encounter is learned through peer observations (Reiter, Suzuki et al).
When an individual conforms to the norms of the culture they are immersed in, it’s known as normative social influence (Cruwys, Bevelander, et al). This form of influence has helped make the social media the most common form of communication for our youth. Even when at school with their peers they choose to communicate electronically via text or instant messaging rather than by a face to face conversation. This has created the perfect atmosphere for social media to influence our youngsters' thinking, making them prey of the latest trend or viral challenge. Challenges such as the blue whale challenge that caused commotion all over the world back in 2016 where adolescents who took part in the challenge were dared to self-harm with the last demand in the game encouraging them to commit suicide (Mahadeviaiah & Nayak, 2018). This is why it's important for parents to reiterate to their children their norms and values at the time of permitting access to social media.
When someone makes decisions based on what their beliefs and values are, rather than on what others are doing, it’s called informational social influence (Cruwys, Bevelander, et al). These are the folks who will do what they believe it’s right, regardless of what others may think of them in the process.
With social media and its demands for attention we have seen teenagers recording someone in distress rather than offering help to get the most likes in an attempt to go viral. As a result of it, the price we are paying as a society is too high.Those who are controlled by the normative social influence will continue to record if others are recording, however the informational socially influenced will do what’s right, rather than what’s popular.
Given all this, how can we as parents prevent our children from becoming preys of social media?
To begin, monitor your child’s access to social media by mediating their smartphone use. In his book, The Smartphone Paradox: Our Ruinous Dependency in the Device Age, Reid tells us how the use of smartphones can be liberating, but at the same time controlling for some (2018). The reason for it being, while the smart device can get you access to just about anything in the world by clicking a few times, it may also cause you to grow so dependent on it, you may be connecting to it on a constant basis. For a child whose yet to develop their social skills, it’s important that parents mediate their smartphone access so they can work on developing their social abilities. Social abilities, such as those needed to determine whether they will conform to the norms of the world they live in, or the values they have been taught at home. To do this, some parents have created ‘phone free’ zones where the child is not allowed to bring the device to the table, or their bedrooms. In other instances, families have small device boxes at the entrance of their houses for all visiting to put their devices down upon entering and take them when leaving but restricting their access while they are in the house. Finally, for other technology savvy parents, there are applications available to restrict your child’s access to the internet, where you can set limits and after they have used the device for that length of time, the device is no longer able to connect to the internet until the following day.
Another way to keep your children safe is by restricting their social media access altogether. Depending on their age, and the level of maturity for your child, you may start by giving them access to one platform first. If the child is wanting to stay in touch with friends, you may consider allowing them access to the one platform they feel they like the most, and again monitor it. Some parents who have allowed their child access to Snap Chat for example, they have created their own account in order to monitor their child’s activity on it. For a young adolescent there’s no need for them to have access to all social media platforms and having one will make it easier for the parent to monitor.
Before the child even has access to the social media world, they should have a conversation with the parents about what’s permitted and what’s not. For example, parents must teach children about stranger danger and how that can easily go wrong in times where you don’t know for sure who’s on the other side of the screen. For example, teach children never to use their real data, and never to share any pictures, or information that can be used for identification purposes. Finally, even when communicating with people you may know there are certain things you should never do, such as sharing pictures of your body with anyone and parents should be ready to lay out the consequences of these actions.
Finally, parents must teach children the importance of balancing responsibilities and setting priorities in place. For example, while children may be allowed to have an hour a day of access to the internet, if the child is significantly behind in schoolwork, that child should be taught schoolwork is a priority and therefore, social media will need to wait. Parents should encourage children to access their social media account only when they have completed all their schoolwork and have also done their chores. This will teach them responsibility and to see social media as an entertainment and not depend on it so much.
In conclusion, as parents we need to be aware of the latest trend our children are having to deal with and give them the support and skills, they need to surpass those. Furthermore, we need to lay down some rules when it comes to social media access as they have yet to develop the social skills, they need to be able to make some decisions on their own. Adolescence is a period of uncertainty for many of our children and they must have the guidance from us to make the right decisions. We can do this by monitoring and mediating their access to their social network platforms. When providing guidance about the use of internet to our children, we must discuss internet safety and what’s allowed or not when making use of it. By helping them prioritize their responsibilities we are helping them understand that there’s more to all of us than just social media.
References
Cruwys, T., Bevelander, K. E., & Hermans, R. C. J. (2015). Social modeling of eating: A review of when and why social influence affects food intake and choice. Appetite, 86, 3–18. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1016/j.appet.2014.08.035
Effects of mass medias on the dynamics of social contagions. (2016). 2016 12th International Conference on Natural Computation, Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (ICNC-FSKD), Natural Computation, Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (ICNC-FSKD), 2016 12th International Conference On, 311. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1109/FSKD.2016.7603192
Mahadevaiah, M., & Nayak, R. (2018). Blue Whale Challenge: Perceptions of First Responders in Medical Profession. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 40(2), 178–182. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_399_17
Ortiz, P., & Khin Khin, E. (2018). Traditional and new media’s influence on suicidal behavior and contagion. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 36(2), 245–256. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1002/bsl.2338
Reiter, A. M. F., Suzuki, S., O’Doherty, J. P., Li, S.-C., & Eppinger, B. (2019). Risk contagion by peers affects learning and decision-making in adolescents. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(9), 1494–1504. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1037/xge0000512.supp
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