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Social-Media-and-Children

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Chapter 2
Social Media and Children
Mustafa Ersoy
Cumhuriyet Universitesi, Turkey

ABSTRACT
As a result of high-tech developments and the increase in the importance of the global communication,
social media websites and applications have occurred as a new way of communication and self-expression
in the contemporary world. Globalization has forced people to obtain and spread the necessary infor-
mation quickly, and due to this requirement, people of all ages have had to acquire digital skills which
they utilize to meet their need of learning and being informed about the issues happening around the
world. Social media tools and applications are being highly and commonly used all round the world by
all kinds of people from all ages in order to express themselves, get to know other people, share their
opinions and learn others’ opinions on the world issues, socialize, and have fun. Regarding its effects
on children, social media has both advantages and disadvantages.

INTRODUCTION

Social media refers to the environments that change the way people communicate, interact and socialize
and, in the meantime, allow people to express themselves as they want, using internet infrastructure.
Social Media is a platform that enables its users to participate in activities and events identified
as its content as a way of communicating with their social circles including other users in the system
and society, to share their own opinions by bringing them together to create their own content (Cohen,
2011). Although interaction and communication between social media users are emphasized in this
definition, Fredman (2013) divides social media platforms into two different groups as interactive and
non-interactive social media environments.
According to the way Fredman (2013) distinguishes social media platforms, interactive social media
environments provide a way for users to communicate. Outputs of the software programs that make this
communication among users possible depend on input from registered users in these environments to the
system. In other words, all kinds of information and interpretation that users share in the system directly
affect the output of the programs. Digital and electronic devices, software, touch tablets, applications,
video games, interactive screen-based media such as Facebook, MySpace, game play sites, club penguins,

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-5733-3.ch002

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Social Media and Children

blogs and YouTube are directly influenced by the output of virtual site programs and they are designed
according to these outputs. Non-interactive social media platforms, on the other hand, do not provide
an interactive experience. These environments consist of content that electronic devices cannot change,
such as songs, movies, photographs, news articles, online images, and ads that appear on sites. These
include digital copies of television programs, DVDs and CDs that have been shipped to the market. In
summary, interactive social media environments are social media sites where users interact with each
other and create their own content through their sharings and comments, while non-interactive social
media platforms are the social media sites where users listen to music files and watch the video files
that are added to the content without communicating with each other and sharing their own content.
Whether it is interactive or noninteractive social media environment, it is an undeniable fact that social
media tools exist and occupy a huge part of modern life. Therefore, it is important that their uses and
effects be searched in detail and people, especially parents, be aware of their both positive and negative
effects on children and behave accordingly.

BACKGROUND

Increasing Trends About Social Media and Its Uses

In the 21st century, the breathtaking pace of the developments and innovations occurred in the field of
high-tech and the increased networking and communication means as a result of these advancements
have made people develop digital skills in order to keep track of this rapidly changing information
era. Especially, the Z generation have found themselves in a highly digital world in which they have
to acquire the digital skills. In today’s world, there are children who actively use all the social media
websites through the applications in their mobile phones. The fact that communication technologies and
the internet are getting more and more accessible from every other day has made it possible to spread
the so-called social media tools, applications and services (Boyd, 2008: 92). The fact that people can
perform activities such as introducing yourself, getting to know others, sharing and spreading their own
opinions and ideas, learning others’ ideas and information, having fun, playing games, advertising and
organizing events quickly and economically makes social media highly widespread all around the world.
When compared to the real life, the cost of doing all the aforementioned activities in the virtual world
seems to be quite economical in terms of business, time and other costs. It is also seen that the conditions
of competition and business union in the real world change in virtual environment.
It can be said that the increasing trend of the internet which started to be used in the 1990s is continu-
ing and social media is one of the important driving forces in this trend. The fact that naturally, human
beings are in the effort of socialization and the decrease of the resources that he has to spend for this
effort contributes to the continuation of this upward tendency in internet use. Nearly all Internet sites,
such as shopping sites, training and research sites, news sites, forum sites, etc., have social media links
in the Internet.
According to the 2017 We Are Social data (We Are Social, 2017), 3.77 billion people, which is equal
to almost 50% of the world’s whole population, use the internet while 2.8 billion people, which cor-
responds to 37% of all the people living in the world, use social media. 4.92 billion mobile users make
up 66% of the world’s population and 2.56 million are social media users.

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Social Media and Children

If these data are compared with that of the year 2016, it can be seen that the number of internet us-
ers increased by 10%, social media users by 21%, mobile social media users by 30% and mobile phone
users by 5%. (We Are Social, 2017)
The most noticeable increase is seen in mobile social media users. This shows that social media users
are willing to make their interactions faster, share instantly, and make comments.
The number of social media users and the attention-grabbing increase in their numbers have made
social media sites an invaluable space for advertisers, especially since ads can be shown based on the
user’s profile, internet searches, age, and gender.
The readers, who can share their own opinions and discuss about the newspaper columns they read
in the real world only with their friends around, can interact with many people who write their opinions
under the related texts, read others’ opinions, suggestions and comments and share their own thoughts
with these other people thanks to social media tools.
Through social media, it is possible to reach a lot of information such as culture, art, entertainment,
sports, news, weather, etc. in a very fast manner. Moreover, this situation is not only limited to reach-
ing the information, but it also enables to follow the opinions, thoughts and shares of the other social
media users regarding these issues and to have an influence on the decisions made upon these issues.
In other words, the interaction among people can happen at an unprecedented pace and easiness. This
quick interaction can produce many good or bad results for people, depending on what ideas are shared
and disseminated. Communication has become faster and easier thanks to the benefits and opportunities
offered by social media, but the negative effects and harms of social media are also increasing day by
day. In other words, it is obvious that social media, which has high impact and thus can bring positive
and negative effects when used, needs to be controlled. Every place where communication and interac-
tion occur among people causes them to experience social, cultural, emotional and cognitive changes.
This will inevitably have an impact on social, cultural and political transformations of societies. Trying
to ensure that these transformations occur in a positive and intended way should be one of the priority
tasks of the governments.
In addition to these aforementioned issues, many families are wondering who their children are
interacting with, how their children interact with these other people and what content their children
see and share in social media websites and want to control their interactions to protect their children.
However, the nature of the social media it seems to be very difficult to control what their children do in
these websites owing to the nature of these social media websites. Assuming that parents are one step
ahead of their children in using technology, it is the first step towards protecting them. For this reason,
professional supervision may be required to ensure that the inspection and control are healthy and safe.
However, it is clear that the healthy communication and interaction between the family, in order to en-
sure that their children do not undergo any dangerous or harmful interactions and content in these social
media websites, are a must and cannot be replaced with any technological tools or professional support.
The natural learning style for children is learning through observation; therefore, the forms, amount
and purpose of the social media use of the significant others in the children’s family and environment
will serve as a model for children. In cases where the way parents, grandparents, and others benefit from
social media is a positive example, the time spent by children in the virtual environment can be with-
drawn at normal levels, and the unwanted content and the children’s interaction with dangerous people
can be avoided. If the family is a conscious user, the child may also be positively affected. Especially
when used for entertainment, games and friendship, it is important to take into consideration that risks
may increase; thus, children should be directed to real, physical environments instead of social media

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or internet which is difficult to control. However, it may be efficient to ensure that this is done through
being a good model for children in this issue rather than limiting or forbidding social media use of the
children. Otherwise, the children’s secretly using a false profile on social media or having a secret social
media account with fake identities may make the problem even more intractable.
In the contemporary world, individuals should be raised and educated according to the modern require-
ments and in today’s world, the structure and the content of the information, skills, values, competencies
and all the other proficiencies that individuals are asked to possess are changing rapidly. Therefore, in
such an environment where the requirements are changing at a high speed, it is necessary to be able to
benefit from the social media platforms as a learning tool in order to help individuals obtain intended
qualifications. At this point, the fact that there is a natural motivation for students to use social media
websites can make these social media platforms a valuable educational tool. Through social media facili-
ties, it can be quite easy to provide feedback, discuss ideas in a variety of dimensions, suggest solutions
for problems individually or in groups, work part-time and track tasks. The use of this structure, which
offers communication between individuals and groups in a bidirectional way, can be used by the educa-
tors, and the communication and interaction between the educators and the students can be rescued from
the walls of the class and spread throughout the life.
Chau (2010) expressed that there are five main aspects of the use of social media. The first aspect is
that people can express themselves creatively on social networking websites or applications since there
are not many restrictions. Almost all the audiovisual elements can be used to express whatever it is in
people’s minds freely. The second aspect is that social media provides an easy way to share informa-
tion. It is extremely easy to share ideas, opinions, thoughts, criticism, emotions and so to the world at
an instant with only several clicks of the buttons on computers, tablets or smartphones no matter where
people are. Social media provides quick and easy way to share anything people want with other users on
the social networking applications and websites. The third aspect is that social media provides informal
support of other’s work because people can learn about what is going on in the world through others’
sharings on the social media facilities. Another aspect of the use of social media is that people acquire
general understanding and respect of other people’s forms of expressions and the last aspect is that social
media provides an alternative way of socializing. From these aspects, it can be understood that social
media is used in three main ways by its users, which are for communication, entertainment and learning.

Social Media as a Means of Communication

The fact that access to internet via mobile devices has become a popular habit has required the develop-
ment of web pages designed for big screen devices such as computers to be compatible with small screen
devices. Many social networking sites have developed applications for use on mobile devices and have
benefited from the location and time advantages of interacting with mobile devices. However, this also
necessitated ways for people to write their messages shorter. It is seen as a habit in social media to be
able to express oneself by sharing pictures or videos using shorter sentences, few words, abbreviated
sentences and words.
People who use social media to make new friendships and to communicate more with their existing
friends are also following the frequent brands and the celebrities they like. Their shares usually include
their families, friends, places they go on holidays, their excursions, even what they eat and drink, others’
shares they like and activities that they do.

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Social Media and Children

At present, it is observed that the vast majority of young and middle-aged populations are connected
to social networks via mobile devices. It is not surprising that these people, who have discovered the
existence of a large virtual world with the increased ease of access to the internet, go online and use the
online websites as their initial and primary resources to find the necessary information no matter what
the problems they face. Taking recommendations using social media even for shopping can be given as
an example of the increased communication purpose among users.

Social Media as a Portal for Entertainment

Social media is used by children as a gaming tool. This can also cause unique problems, apart from in-
ternet and computer-based problems in general. Children find the games including no human interaction
boring after a certain period of time. However, the online games played with other children are played
a lot and for hours in a non-stop way with the same enthusiasm at the very beginning due to the social
characteristics such as competition, business association, cooperation, and the desire to prove themselves
these online games have. In addition to being just a way to have fun, these games have become a new
way of making new friends and killing time. Considering the fact that a lot of advertisements are being
displayed during these games, it is possible for children to encounter inappropriate contents, sexuality,
violence, abusive speech and other undesirable situations. The worse is the fact that some games spread
rapidly because people earn money through these games and the fact that many of these games include
violence, killing, crime, torture and even rape and thus they pose serious threats for children.
It is important to use the games played on social media for educational purposes, besides as a way to
find entertainment and friends. In other words, helping children acquire the desired knowledge, skills,
attitudes and values through these online games children play should be accepted as an important objec-
tive. This objective cannot be reached by increasing the control and developing new control mechanisms.
Families should be a part of the games designed for educational purposes and allowing for social interac-
tions in order to achieve this desired objective.

Social Media as a Learning Tool

In today’s world, children are required to have the ability to use modern technology and they are expected
to be able to conduct research, possess problem solving skills and own creative and critical thinking
skills and therefore, it is imperative that children be conscious in the issue of social media use. In this
regard, parent and teachers have great responsibilities. In order to fulfill these responsibilities, parents
and teachers must have the skills to use social media and internet. Families should be informed about
the risks caused by social media and internet use.
As a general view, face-to-face education can be considered to be more effective than virtual envi-
ronments in terms of developing healthy human relationships. As one of the important reasons caus-
ing this situation, it is observed that due to the fact that more than one sensory organ is active during
face-to-face communication and the communication is made more versatile, learning is much easier.
However, education technologies can also be effective in increasing academic success, where they can
attract students’ attention and influence their motivation. One of the natural characteristics of technolo-
gies such as computers and the internet is that users can achieve attention without any extra effort. This
natural state of involvement can be used by teachers to increase students’ use of educational technologies.

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Social Media and Children

It can be said that smart board, computer, projection, internet and social media technologies have the
desired educational benefits such as hosting and presenting educational content, increasing interactions
between students and content, enabling cooperation among students, providing collective or independent
research and discussion opportunities.
Many video sharing sites, especially YouTube, offer a rich archive of content. These contents, which
are used for fun, learning and communication with other people, bring with it a lot of problems due to
being prepared for income generation. Content rating appropriate to the age of the users is inadequate,
especially when it is necessary to verify the age of videos that contain violence and sexuality.

Factors That Affect the Use of Social Media

The main reasons for the widespread use of social media are the development of technologies for the
computer, internet and mobile devices and their pricing at the affordable level. However, social media
has become that much widespread because the infrastructure variables mentioned can be used to meet
some of the basic human needs. Social media, through which people can quickly meet their needs like
researching, recognizing, discussing and sharing the values of the society they live in, continue to increase
their influence because these humanly needs are far from being met by the family and the environment
that the city life shapes. The fact that both parents work, the number of siblings’ people have is small or
the increased number of only children, and the disconnected relations among family members reduce and
inactivate communication in the family. If the children in the family are a bit lucky, one of the parents
may spend time with them at least in the evening, chatting with them, observing their mysterious worlds,
their curiosity, and their development. Otherwise, they may be drawn to their worlds, which they built
for themselves with their tablet computers in their hands after dinner. It would have been unnecessary to
worry anyhow if they could build that world in the direction of their own beautiful thoughts. However,
internet and social media interactions, messages given through games, images and messages engraved
with advertisements into tiny minds are very effective in shaping them. Along with their own worlds,
their minds will grow unhealthy, full of the ideas and emotions imposed by the internet world broken
from the family and society they live in.
For children who have difficulty expressing themselves and feeling constantly alone, the internet creates
an escape environment and detaches them from the living reality. In addition, the need to surf and find
friends in the social media makes the children addicted to the internet environment. Their exposure to
unwanted content and interaction by hiding their age and identity can pose great danger for them (Kırık,
2014). As the social media begins to fill the large gap created by the parents, the amount of time parents
spend with their children has begun to decrease more. This can result in a loss of communication in the
family and thus a weakening of family ties. Individuals with low self-confidence, poor communications
in their surroundings, and no suitable social environments can try to make themselves more visible on
social media. Poor communication and interaction among family members together with loneliness,
which is mostly felt during adolescence, can leave children unguarded and thus they can be affected
more easily by the people or groups they interact with on the social media websites.

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Social Media and Children

Risks and Benefits of Social Media

Risks of Social Media

It is seen that the use of the internet is increasing day by day and social media is used not only by adults
and young people but also by children. Thanks to the devices that have a touch screen, even children who
are illiterate have become internet users. What children can encounter on the Internet, where they are
left alone for playing games and watching videos, should be regarded as an important problem by adults.
Children discovering the virtual world via game applications and video sites also become active social
media users after learning to read and write. It is quite easy to get the attention of the children by evoking
their senses of curiosity. Especially if the advertisements can be watched by the content providers without
considering the age of the users, it should be seen as a serious problem. In addition to this, the fact that
some ill-minded adults can show themselves as children by giving misinformation about their real age
and try to interact with real children users in social media sites should be considered as a danger, as well.
One of the major threats on the internet was pornography via text, pictures, audio and video, but it
seems difficult to prevent the spread of these contents through social media, while the sources of these
contents can be identified and closed down. Moreover, the work of those who want to attract children
to themselves by creating false profiles through social media seems fairly easy.
In addition to these harmful and unwanted contents, due to the social media contents highlighting
the promotion of the substances and drugs potentially hazardous to human health, and attempts of the
seemingly friendly terrorists organizations to deceive people and increase their popularity among young
people and the similar troublesome sharings directly related to human factors that can be encountered
on social media platforms can influence children negatively, cause the problems of sexual exploitation
of children, expose children to the recognition of deviant thoughts and heresies that can lead them to
commit suicide and even cause them to confront unwanted situations like obscenity and prostitution
which may derange their mental health. It is a well-known phenomenon that unsafe and unconscious
use of the internet may cause long-term negative effects on children and adolescents and result in social
and psychological problems (Bayzan & Özbilen, 2011).
Owing to their inherent desire to share, people can share a lot of things such as their writings, pho-
tos, videos and links of commercial goods on their social media accounts. However, in these sharings,
people are expected to behave as carefully and meticulously as they do in their daily life while choosing
their clothes, eating, talking to others around, and even walking. Responsible people need to think about
how people can see what they share, how they can be seen, and how the shared message is meant to be
understood. Benefits like expressing yourself easily, sharing information quickly, helping others to share
their own experiences and ideas, and discussing a variety of topics are expected to result in unintended
consequences when the expected social media is not used carefully and consciously. Among these nega-
tive consequences are the uncontrolled display of private life in front of many other users’ eyes, exposure
to violence and sexuality, dissemination of information that may be dangerous to humans and nature,
confrontation with targeted content disregarding social order and rules, misleading product advertising,
and exposure to advertisements.
In short, it can be said that if parents and educators are not aware of the potential risks and threats
that social media pose for children, it may be dangerous for children more than it is realized. Undiy-
aundeye (2014), in her study in which she discussed the benefits and risks of the use of social media

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Social Media and Children

by children and adolescents, put the aforementioned negative aspects of social media on children into
following categories:

• Cyberbullying and Online Harassment: It can be said that this is the most dangerous risk that
social media pose for children and it is the most common one. Through social media, cyberbul-
lying or online harassment can be realized as “from an adult to children” or” from peers to peers/
from children to children”. Social media is an easy and potential platform to spread fake, artificial,
embarrassing and hostile information about others, which may affect children profoundly and
cause depression, anxiety, isolation and suicide as a result.
• Sexting: Social media provides an easy platform to share any kinds of content for its users and
some people can use the social media facilities to spread their own sexual messages, videos, pho-
tos or information and children users may see these sexually explicit sharings of others or even
children may make such sharings and become targets of child pornography. Sexting can be used
as a way of cyberbullying as well.
• Facebook Depression: Hankings and Jia (1999) expressed a new phenomenon called Facebook
depression, which can be defined as the negative emotional mood or situation that occur when
children spend too much time on social media websites. Especially, adolescents who feel lonely
and have trouble making friends and becoming a part of social peer groups in their environment
can use social media websites to avoid this loneliness and may start to use these websites more
than enough and thus suffer from a more severe social isolation that may cause them to develop
addiction.
• Defective Social Relationship: Directly related to the aforementioned item “Facebook depres-
sion”, children who spend too much time on social media platforms may lose wonderful oppor-
tunities of real conversations and face-to-face sharings in their real lives because they spend little
time with their families and actual friends, which weakens the family bond and limit interaction
with actual people. Real conversations and face-to-face communication make people happier and
help them avoid depression, loneliness and any kind of negative emotional mood.
• Distorted Senescence of Reality: In today’s world, children are extremely active in social net-
working websites and they may get a different kind of sense of reality in these virtual environ-
ments. Children may think that every relationship they make on these websites and every contact
they have through these websites are real and totally harmless. They may not be aware of the
others that try to contact with them and give harm to them through these websites. Making virtual
friends are not always safe. Children may make online friends and start to share their privacy with
these friends without noticing that these sharings may be harmful in the future. In addition to
these, due to the harmful content of the advertisements seen on social media websites may affect
children negatively and change their understanding of what is normal and abnormal.

Benefits of Social Media

According to Chau (2010), social media applications and social networking websites can also be effec-
tively used for the benefits of children, as well. Chau (2010) states that social media is a great platform
for children to socialize, increase their creativity, interact and learn. Rosen (2011) put forwards that social
media websites can be utilized as an alternative way to increase student motivation and participation in

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Social Media and Children

educational activities. Clark-Pearson and O’Keeffe (2011) suggest that social media facilities can help
students with their assignments and group projects.
In addition to these educational benefits of the use of social media, it also provides a good platform
for children to stay connected with their peers and ease their communication with all the people around
who they get to know in their social environments such as family circle, school and gyms (Ito, 2008).
Rosen (2011) stresses the importance of social networking websites in that these websites help shy
children interact with others in a safe and virtual environment so that their shyness does not occur as a
problem that blocks their communication. Ito (2008) suggests that social media websites and applica-
tions can be used as a platform for children to find new friends who share the same tastes in different
walks of life and these websites are also great avenues where children share their interests in everything
and everybody with other users (Clark-Pearson & O’Keeffe, 2011). Social media facilities can be used
as social platforms to find self-help suggestions from experts in different problem areas when needed,
especially when children go through hard times (Nielsen Online, 2009).
In addition to these social benefits, another advantage of social media is that children can make
friends from diverse backgrounds and different cultures from all over the world so that they can develop
a cultural awareness (Clark-Pearson & O’Keeffe, 2011), which may lead them to organize social events
highlighting cultural awareness in order to make good impacts on policymakers while making decisions
on important issues about the services provided to the youth all around the world.
In short, social media websites and their applications on smart devices can serve as great platforms
for children to increase their learning experiences by participating in different and effective educational
activities; to look for social, medical, and professional advice from the experts who have their accounts
on these websites especially when children experience difficult times; to socialize and interact without
feeling the stress of face-to-face interactions with new people and to increase their cultural competence
by making new friends from different backgrounds and countries. Through social media, children can
play an active role in policymaking process.
Undiyaundeye (2014) discusses the benefits of the use of social media by children and adolescents
in her study and categories these benefits as follows:

• Literacy Skills: Children can be provided with excellent social media applications to help them
learn to read and write and improve their skills in digital reading and writing.
• Numeracy Skills: Children can learn how to count through the games presented in the social
media websites and applications on smartphones and tablet Pcs.
• Social Skills: Social media means a great amount of easiness in communicating and interacting
with different people from all around world, which directly improve their social skills in the most
positive ways. In social media, children are observed to show cooperative and helping behaviours.
Furthermore, children may follow their role models through social media and if these role mod-
els are chosen correctly, this may affect their development positively. Children can also increase
their awareness about what is happening in the world and this may enable them to become more
responsible human beings who always try to act upon human rights and protection of the nature.
In addition to these social benefits, children may relax as they use social media just for fun, which
help them relieve boredom. Furthermore, with their increased motivation and skills, as they grow
older and become more mature, they may start use social media to create global contacts to get
career information and contact with important figures in the business, political and art world.

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Table 1. The positive and negative effects of social media on children

The Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Children

Positive Effects Negative Effects
Cyberbullying or Online Harassment:
Social Media as a platform to communicate:
• To suffer from the release of private/secret personal information by
• To make new friends and expand social circles
ill-willed users
• To get to know people from different backgrounds and
• To suffer from the spread of fake and offending gossips about
countries and thus improve cultural awareness
oneself
• To seek for educational, relational, vocational and medical
• To feel humiliated and embarrassed by other users in an unfair way
advice
Sexting:
• To become a part of the global world in different walks of life
To share audiovisual files including sexual content and suffer from
• To come together with the related people to organize social
negative reputations and not being able to avoid being contacted with
events and try to persuade policymakers
other users on this issue
Social Media as a platform to have fun: Facebook Depression:
• To spend fun time and relax • To spend too much time on social networking websites and lose
• To overcome loneliness and boredom track of the relationships among family members and friends
• To play games and increase digital skills • To be afraid of not having enough likes and losing the perceived
• To increase their rivalry skills online support
Social Media as a platform to learn:
Defective social relationship:
• To develop literacy and numeracy skills with the help of
• To get stressed while making face to face contacts with the people
related and intended applications
around and be addicted to social media to communicate with others
• To increase motivation in educational activities
Distorted Senescence of reality:
• To increase creative thinking and critical thinking skills
• To fail in distinguishing what is normal and what is not normal or
• To ease assignments and group projects
what friendships are real and what friendships are fake
• To make educational activities more interesting and accessible

• Intellectual Skills: Children can improve their problem solving and critical thinking skills through
their sharings and comments on others’ sharing and they can learn to respect others’ points of
view and start paying more attention to universal morals and values as they interact with people
from all over the world.
• Creative Skills: Children try to show themselves in an interesting and different way to attract oth-
ers’ attention and obtain social acceptance. They can cut and design their photos and videos into
the applications included in the social media websites so that they may develop new digital skills
to promote themselves as true friends and good people who care others.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

In the presence of the qualifications that the 21st century information age forces people to obtain, no
one can deny the importance of the digital literacy. Children of this age should acquire the digital skills
that they are going to need in the rest of their life to be able to meet the needs of the information age
they live in. Therefore, parents cannot prevent their children from using social media tools. However,
children of this age should be led to obtain digital literacy and in addition to these high-tech require-
ments, they should be taught to possess media literacy. Social media tools are excellent platforms for
the children of this age to obtain the 21st century skills and practice them to deal with the requirements
of the information age. Considering the risks of social media tools that can be detrimental to children’s
psychological, mental and physical health, one of the most important 21st century skills gain increasing
importance. This skill is the media literacy.

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Social Media and Children

Today, people reach information through an interwoven system of media technologies. Media literacy
is an essential skill which means the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media. With the help
of this skill, children get the necessary competence to understand what information they share or reach
on their social media accounts is safe and what information is hazardous. Therefore, prospective edu-
cational research on social media and children should focus on how media literacy skills can be taught
to children effectively.
Another important point that should be given importance in future research on this issue is about the
preventive guidance studies. Preventive guidance services should be provided to children, teachers and
parents at school so that they can become informed about the risks of social media. Therefore, future
research should focus on how schools, families, police and related authorities can work together to cre-
ate psychoeducational programmes through which children can be taught to protect themselves against
any kind of threats on social media.

CONCLUSION

In the 21st century, the era people live in are called “information era” and this era is marked with high-tech
developments that change the way people live in every part of their daily lives. Among these high-tech
developments, social media tools seem to be an indispensable occurrence in people’s daily routines owing
to the increase in access to the Internet and smart phones. Although most adults use social media at high
amounts, the real users of these social media tools are the children of this age and thus the benefits and
risks of these tools are hold under the microscope meticulously by educators and parents. At this point,
what educators and parents should do become significant. Table 2 shows some suggestions for them.

Table 2. What should be done by parents and educators

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

Suggestions for Parents (Ehmke, 2017): Suggestions for Educators (Clarke-Pearson & O’Keeffe, 2011):
1. Parents should curtail their consumption of social media use first
and set a good model for their children.
2. Technology-free zones inside the houses where family members
are not allowed to use any kinds of technological devices or gadgets
and technology free hours during the day when family members
1. Educators should advise parents to talk to their children about
stop using their electronic and technological devices and share these
their online use and be in an open conversation with their children
moments by talking and doing activities together instead should be
on important issues related to the risks of social media.
established as a strict family rule.
2. Educators should recommend parents to be more
3. Children should be ensured that their parents are always willing
technologically competent than their children, especially on social
and ready to help them with their problems; spend time together
media websites.
with them and talk to them about their days, schools, hobbies and
3. Educators should inform parents about the correct use of social
interests.
media for learning, communicating and entertaining purposes and
4. Parents should ensure that they trust their children no matter what
train them about how to set a good example for their children in
happens by letting them know they are good kids. Children should
these beneficial uses.
know that they can consult their parents about anything doubtful on
4. Educators should train parents on the risks that social media
their social media accounts.
can pose to their children.
5. Parents should establish direct communication with their children
rather than distant monitoring in terms of checking and controlling
their children’s social media sharings. They should never act like
spies. Instead, they should talk to their children if they doubt that
something is wrong.

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ADDITIONAL READING

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Cyberbullying: The act of spreading fake, artificial, embarrassing, and hostile information about oth-
ers, which may affect children profoundly and cause depression, anxiety, isolation and suicide as a result.
Digital Literacy: The ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate,
create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.
Facebook Depression: The negative emotional mood or situation that occur when children spend
too much time on social media websites
Media Literacy: The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media.
Sexting: The act of spreading one’s own sexual messages, videos, photos, or information through
social media.
Social Media: Websites and internet-based applications which enable users to create and share content
or participate in social networking.

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