Today, children spend an excessive amount of time on social media. This situation is likely to result in some serious problems unless prevented by a set of effective counter measures.
To start, children’s addiction to social media gives rise to two major issues, the most significant one of which is social isolation. This is because more and more children choose to stay with their devices and surf the social media in search of entertainment and new friends, they do not have time to interact with their friends at school or do recreational activities such as going to the cinema and doing some sports. This, consequently, being only with themselves, leads to problems with socializing with other people in the long run. Furthermore, spending a lot of time on social media may cause some serious health conditions such as diabetes and obesity. Children sit in one place for a considerable amount of time watching videos, messaging, uploading and downloading photos on social media. Lack of physical movement makes them idle and reluctant to do any physical activity which leads to problems with their health.
Having established the severity of the situation, there are some practical solutions to consider. Implementing restrictions on the amount of time children spend on social media by parents is the first line of response. It works since parents are the people who have the most control over activities that their children do. Having a strict control on their children’s social-media time, parents can prevent their children from becoming addicted. Social media companies’ introducing age limits to users of their platforms is another possible solution. This can be done by asking new users to submit a document which confirms their age such as a copy of their ID or birth certificate. Companies can take this idea further with the regular checks on the age of their users to make sure that they are not younger than required.
In conclusion, while the main issues stemming from children’s addiction to social media are social isolation and serious health issues, solutions range from strictly controlling the amount of time allocated to social media by parents to the introduction of age limits by companies.