THE GOOD AND BAD EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ON TEENAGERS
It seems the effect of social networking is majorly on teenagers. It is disconnecting them from associating or connecting with people one-on-one and has contributed to their not being able to live a normal life. This is why a lot of parents now refuse to release phones to their teenagers because of the thought that it would make them withdraw themselves from associating with human beings and prefer the computer. Although there are positive effects; negative effects seem to outweigh the positive, hence the fear being raised by people all over the continent. In this article we shall see these effects, how they occur and possible ways to curtail them.
Ability To Make Friends Across The Globe
Social networking gives teenagers an opportunity to make friends all over the world. They get to know people they cannot ordinarily meet if not for social networking. They get to interact and know more about those people’s culture and nature and widen their experience in different fields and culture.
New Communication Skills
Teenagers get to learn new communication skills as they interact and relate to others. Some teenagers that don't know how to say sorry, thank you and show appreciation are beginning to learn that through their interactions.
Increased Rate Of Information
They have access to any kind of information they want so it becomes easy when it is time to gather information about school's work and other necessary things which they cannot ordinarily get elsewhere.
Makes Them More Creative And Literate
They get to learn from their friends online and become more creative in writing and designs which they cannot ordinarily do on their own.
Ability To Work As A Team
Some belong to different groups on Facebook and WhatsApp where they put heads together to achieve a purpose and this has encouraged them to start working as a team even in real life. For instance, when an assignment is given to a group of students, they can create a WhatsApp or facebook group where they can meet together. This helps greatly especially when the distance is very far apart for them to conveniently meet.
Exposure To Violence
Teenagers that don’t know much about violence because they don’t encounter such in their homes had been exposed to violence through social media. The videos and chats they involve themselves in had given them the opportunity to experience violence and some of them start practicing it as soon as they are exposed to it.
They had been exposed to pornography through social networking. The decent teenagers have mixed up with indecent ones that expose their nakedness on the social media. Some even post sexual videos, making those that are not living that kind of life to begin to learn and practice it.
Writing Disorder
Most of them do not write full sentence again. This is because most of the texts in chats are done in short forms to meet up with what the person at the other end of the chat is sending. It has affected their English composition as some of them also use that short forms to write in classes even exams.
Emotional Hurt
One of the greatest bad effect social networking is emotional hurt. So many teenagers promise themselves intimate friendship on social network only for them to discover that there are other people going out with the same person asking for an intimate relationship. This has broken a lot of hearts in the process and many have not recovered from the hurt. This feeling hurt some of them to their adulthood.
Distraction
Social networking is a kind of great distraction to teenagers as some of them cannot concentrate to do their homework any longer. They shuffle between their home works and chats, thereby making a lot of mistakes in their work.
Addiction
Some teenagers get addicted to social networking to the extent that they don't know what is going on around them once they get into the social network. Some get their food burnt on fire as a result of chat while some keep late nights chatting with friends online thereby leading to their waking up late to prepare for schools.
Ways The Bad Effects Can Be Cautioned
If these bad effects are not checked, it is going to seriously affect the victim even in adulthood and that won’t be a nice story to tell. In order to stop this from happening, discipline should be employed by all concerned. The type of discipline depends on the person being affected and the area it is affecting the person. The person that is being distracted by social networking can decide to finish all he or she got to do before going online so that there won’t be any distraction when he starts his work. If it is food that is on fire, it should be completed before going online to avoid getting the food burnt.
The number of hours spent online should as well be minimized so that other things can be attended to. Even if there is no urgent thing to do, they should just excuse themselves from there for some time so that they don’t get addicted to it. Parents should as well monitor what their teenage children do online. They should make them their friends on Facebook and others so that they can see what they do and who they keep as friends. Click socialproof.xyz for more information.