It is said that social media and giving kids a phone at an early age could be the cause of bad mental health.
This is posited because kids and even teenagers should be going outside to play or hang out with their friends and socializing instead of being on their phones and social media.
Studies also show that the mental health of kids and teenagers wasn’t as bad before the early 2010s when phones started became a huge thing.
A book called “The Anxious Generation” recently got published and the author/social psychologist talks about how social media can have a negative effect on teenagers and how it can affect the development of adolescents. The headline talks about how parents are noticing and getting concerned about their “phone-obsessed” teenagers changing and succumbing to distress and mental illness.
Yoselin Esmeralda (10) said she thinks social media is toxic and full of toxic people and is never positive. Social media has affected her in a very bad way and made her mental health worse because people post negative and depressive things. She thinks kids should not have social media at a young age because it’s very toxic and not a good environment and she hates how her younger sister is on social media because she doesn’t use it in a good way and she’s says she noticed how social media has also affected her younger sister’s mental health and development.
Jonathan Haidit, a social psychologist has studied how technology and social media can affect teens mental health and has laid out the facts about the epidemic teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time.
He States in an interview “The way that a human being becomes a self-governing autonomous adult is by practicing being a self-governing autonomous child”.
But kids can’t do that because they are so focused on technology and social media. He also says in an interview that “Kids were first made weak by overprotection from mostly imaginary dangers then given devices that gobble up their attention,”
Yahaira Luevano (9) says she thinks social media is ok and not that bad and social media can be a bad and a good thing.
She says social media can be full of a lot of hate but it can also support you like if you’re trying to grow a small business. And she says young kids should not be on social media because they’re young and they could do dumb stuff and she feels like her younger brother who is on social media should be more safe with it because social media can be tuff.
She also advises parents who have kids on social media to check up on their kids and to limit their times on social media and that parents should check their phone because social media has a lot of bad things.
The book “The Anxious Generation” is a very intriguing book and parents should read it to know more about their kids and how to help them if they’re struggling with their mental health. As well as to know and have a probable cause to their kids mental health.
