IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON CHILDREN, ADOLESCENTS AND FAMILIES

This paper intends to x-ray what social media is and how it translates to children, adolescents and their parents as it pertains to family living. Internet provide benefits in the areas of cognitive and social development and present risks as well as opportunities for adolescents growth and development. Using social media web sites is among the most common activity of today’s children and adolescents. Any web site that allows social interaction is considered a social media site. Internet also provide benefits in the area of intellectual, emotional development and also present risks as well as opportunities to teenagers and children’s development in functional and societal challenges. Social media offers today’s youths a portal for entertainment and communication. As society becomes more reliant on the World Wide Web, the risk of internet addiction of children and teens is diagnosed with several emotional and social phobia. For this reason, it is vital that parents become aware of the nature of social media sites, given that not all of them are healthy environments for children and adolescents. Pediatricians, psychologists and childhood educators are in a unique position to help families understand these sites and to encourage healthy use and urge parents to monitor for potential problems like cyberbullying, facebook depression, sexting and exposure to inappropriate content. The benefits of social media use justifies this paper’s output through opportunities created for information gathering, entertainment and social interaction.