The Dangers of Social Networking

Watch out with Social Networking!

Social networking have become an important part of people's lives. Not only do people publish everything they do throughout the day, but they also share private information on the media, which may represent potential dangers for them. Some of these networking have stated policies in relation to the age at which people can make use of its services, being this fact not respected by some users. Alarming is the young age at which children start using the media for publishing different personal data, such as what they do in their lives, what they think or even pictures of themselves. Here is the danger of all of it! Most of our children do not know who they are talking to. What is more, they do not even know if the profile of the person they think they know is a real one. It has been reported a great amount of fake profiles used to cheat or even to harass people via internet. 
Facebook and Twitter are two of the most used sites, with millions of users worldwide. Although the age limit for using Facebook is 13, and for Twitter is 12 the real tendency is that children who are between 8 and 10  years old also make use of them. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2014) the use of social networking has the following advantages: 

• They allow people to stay connected to friends. 
• They permit people to develop new social contacts with other people with the same interests. 
• People can share their art works, music and political views. 
• They are a means to develop and express your individual identity.

It is a fact that people can get in contact with friends and family that live far away, they can express their thoughts and feelings and they can also share interests with other people. But it is also a fact that all of these represent potential dangers, especially for children. They do not differentiate what information they should share, to whom and for what. They do not know how to discriminate a fake profile from a real one,  and not even adults know how to do it. And it is then when something like this may happen:

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, on the other hand, states that there are also some risks around the use of social networking: 

• They expose children and adolescents to "cyber bullying", which is a type of bullying made by online means. 
• They may share excessive information through internet. 
• As a consequence they are vulnerable to predatory adults. 
• They are exposed to considerable amounts of inappropriate content or information for their age. 
• They run the risk of identity theft.
• Spending a great amount of time in front of the computer reduces the time they may spend doing physical activity. 

The serious and real risk here is that parents do not know who the people their children talk to are. And not controlling them may lead to situations such as the one depicted in the video. Children and adolescents are easier attracted through internet by pedophiles and people involved in human trade and sexual slavery. Most of the young people victims of these criminals have been caught through Facebook with false profiles. 
For these reasons the site before mentioned offers the following pieces of advice in order to preserve our children and adolescent's physical and moral integrity: 

• Parents should keep a certain control on the information they share. 
• Parents should advise their children to keep personal information for themselves. 
• Parents should suggest their children to post only the information they feel comfortable with. 
• Children should have the sufficient trust to their parent in order to talk to them before considering meeting a person face to face. 
• Parents should establish rules in relation to the use of social networks. 
• Parents should monitor the use their children made of social networking. 
• Parents should also establish a time limit in the use of  internet when it interferes with family activities or external social activities. 

To conclude, the reflection we can build up around this issue is that the use of social networks has its pros and cons, but for children and adolescents it is important to establish a certain control on its use so as to prevent situations such as the one in the video, or even worse consequences.






Sources: 

• http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Children_and_Social_Networking_100.aspx
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV1ZCF4oueQ
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10619007/Children-using-social-networks-underage-exposes-them-to-danger.html