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Pros & Cons: Social networking sites and your child

A child is the most vulnerable and yet essentially a social creature. Children tend to befriend people easily and also lay their trust on others quickly. This ability of children has moved past playground and school to the much in vogue social networking sites. Social networking sites are a rage these days especially among the younger children who always want to explore the unknown or the forbidden. Parents, however, need to keep tabs over their children’s activity on such sites and must safeguard their children from any kind of exploitation.

The age restrictions mentioned on the various networking sites are not effective. There is no system to verify the age, thus children below the required age are easily able to join the adult social networking sites. Presumably they are driven by the peer pressure or just desire to imitate the adults around them, be it the parents, sibling, relatives or anyone else.

Pros

1. Confidence booster

Social interaction help in increasing the confidence level of a child and also make him/her aware of new things. If a child spends time on social networking sites. It can be adjudged that the child enjoys being social and has a good circle of friends.

2. Long lasting relationships

These sites make the child more social, he/she is able to forge long lasting relations with people. When a child constantly stay in touch with friends, sometimes by meeting and rest of the time by chatting on social networking sites, the child develops an ability to forge long term relationships. communication work wonders for relationships and the case is no different here.

3. Awareness

A child who is present on social sites is more aware of all that is happening around him/her and is thus more mature and aware culturally. Social networking sites would have people constantly sharing stuff and commenting on the latest happenings. This would make your child stay in loop and be aware of what’s happening around him/her.

4. Self esteem

The social networking sites also help in building self esteem and confidence. When a child would have people talking to him/her and friends listening and paying attention to what he/she has to say the confidence and self esteem levels of your child would experience a raise.

Cons

1. Posting information

Children are more vulnerable to posting personal information, photographs or videos online without understanding the risks involved. A child might post some photograph or video without realizing what comments it can attract. Or in rare cases the picture or the video can be manipulated to give out a certain message.

2. Adult content

They might get exposed to adult content posted by other members of the social site; this is a major issue as children might face trouble understanding such things. Certain social networking sites might have some ads or specific content for the adult users. Nevertheless, this is the age of exploration and the child might click on absurd links and land up reading adult content.

3. Bullies

While social networking sites can make your child feel wanted, it can also make them feel bullied. They might get bullied by other mischievous members on that particular site. There is no dearth of online bullies on social networking sites. The bullies can harm the confidence level of your child and drive him/her away to seclusion in extreme cases.

4. Cyber Stalking

It is important to keep an eye on your child while he clicks his/her way through various sites especially social networking sites. They might turn out to be victims of cyber stalking and can further fall into a severe danger.

5. Influence

The child might get easily influenced by the pictures and the photographs somebody else has posted. This might make him/her try out the same stuff. The child might start being impulsive; he/she might fall for bad habits just because a random member of the same social site has a few photographs posted.

6. Addiction

While a social networking site can make the child interact with people and build relationships, it can also harm the child by making him/her an addict.The child might become a social networking addict and might stop getting involved with other children. If the child mostly stays on social networking sites, there would be every less time left for him/her to converse with his friends or other people offline.

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