With the rise of technology and the internet came with it social media. Social media has engulfed all of our lives regardless if we personally use it very often because even if we don’t use it that often the people around us are addicted to it. There are people that before they go to sleep and when they wake up check all their social media websites and this is from my own knowledge of people my age. When you think about the generation born in the 2000’s they are being completely engulfed in this digital age. Parents who don’t want to deal with their kids just have to give them a laptop or iPad to play with, but that is the wrong response to be giving towards their children. These kids are born with innate comprehension of how these devices work and this creates a divide between their parents and them. Some parents then think they are smart enough to monitor their children’s internet usage or stop them from using certain website but in reality because of the gap between generations the kids can maneuver the internet better than anyone else.
Now social media has effected all of us drastically. All social media is are platforms for us as individuals to express ourself and show a specific side of us. This control over the content that people see of ourselves allows us to be extremely meticulous and paint a picture that may not be who we actually are. Then we as human beings don’t like to show people our bad sides or our mistakes and this then makes our lives on Facebook and Instagram have the possibility of looking perfect or flawless. We travel to a bunch of places, we are always going out to eat, or hanging out with friends. Yet we don’t show how you hate your job, or your family issues or how bad that trip to Greece actually was. This creates a near perfect image of ourselves for the general public and when everyone is doing that it can cause people to become depressed if they aren’t media literate. Some people look at it and think how come I can’t be like them or live their life and become self conscious. This leads into the article for this week “The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families” which in it talks about various concerns towards kids using the internet and its effects. One of the effects they talk about is a concept called “Facebook Depression”. This is caused when a teenager or pre-teen uses Facebook so much it leads to the point that they exhibit symptoms of depression. This is all because of what I mentioned before they compare their own lives to everyone else’s they see and feel inadequate. We need to raise our kids with media literacy at a young age because they are already born into this digital world. Media culture has affected how we do business, stay in touch with people, make fundraisers, get accepted to college, and even get a job. We all need to be careful what we do and what our children do on the internet because everywhere we go online leaves a digital footprint.
