Should parents limit teenagers’ use of social media? An opinion of the psychologist Maksym Krippa

Based on Maksym Krippa, a family psychologist and the author of many psychological books parents must help in restricting their kids to use SM. Here he explaines why.

Currently, everyone including children, parents, and teenagers is aware of social media such as Twitter, Instagram, path, and Facebook. The use of social media for the teens may help them to get up to date information on issues affecting their lives. Due to the availability of internet connection in most places such as cafés, malls, homes, or even schools, teens can use social media at any time in any place.

The impact of social media at the end of the day may be negative for the teens. Thus, giving a psychological response to the above phenomenon, parents have a responsibility of limiting the use of social media for the teens. As a psychologist, parents should limit the use of social media for teens according to my opinion due to the following three key reasons.

Addiction is the first reason. Majority of the teens tend to become zombies with the use of social media without their conscience thus, changes of the social life or the relationship with others. A vast majority of the parents perceive social media as the best platform where their children socialize and get more friends. Teenagers will be empowered to find outgrowing themselves through the friends whom they found on social media because they get in touch and give a response to one another. Research reveals that most teens love to socialize with their peers on social media as opposed to face to face meeting. To them, social media is frequently used for expressing their feelings or emotions and even to play games online. To get rid of adverse risks, long explanations and discerning concerning the dangers of the use of social media are a few ways in which parents can take to hinder the teen from getting addicted. There should be a good coexistence of information between the parents and the teens by being friends with them. Based on Maksym Krippa, a family psychologist and the author of many psychological books, teens prefer friends with similar interests and values as themselves. This is understandable to them and makes them feel secure, and they can delegate them with their issues and discuss matters on equal terms which they cannot discuss them with their teachers or their parents.

The second reason is that social media are frequently used by a reckless person to give the wrong impression about teenagers. According to some other people, social media can help the teens to appreciate themselves more. This form of appreciation is possible through the uploading and commenting on friend’s photos and many other online activities. It is true that there is a good number of sexual predators who make use of the chat rooms and lure the teens into doing things that ruin their morals. Such things are the pornographic elements posting and watching, posting inappropriate photos as well as irresponsible sexual behavior. There was a reported girl who was raped by unknown people that had previously known one another on social media. The teen should watch out not to fall victims of the same again. A Commissioner of the child protection Commission of Indonesia (KPAI); Dr. Sholeh Ni’am, MA Asrorun, states that social media has resulted to a large number of cases of sexual harassment. With respect to this case, parents ought to make an introduction about the ‘body parts’ to their children at early ages. They should also strive to keep them away from irresponsible behaviors. This should be given in a simple language that is easily understood by the teens; to avoid the ease of trust to the people they don’t know in future and stop asking them to send photos exposing private parts of the body on social media.

The third reason is the depression and anxiety. Most of the teens that are addicted to social media are mostly affected by the two situations. This creates a feeling of isolation and relates to avoidance. Depressed teenagers tend to use social media as a therapeutic approach to enable them to flee away from the challenges that they are facing at that instant. It is evident that such people are ultimately led to additional depression as soon as they log off of this social media that the trouble is still in its consign. This can make anxiety and depression more severe as they still facing the problem and their feelings can become worse if their problems are put off. As reported on the BBC website, an extensive persuade is tinted by the professionals, in this report, It is mentioned that other sites such as Facebook are bad for the health of the users. According to Dr. Aric Sigman’s article, the biological bad of a person is influenced by social networking. Social media has largely developed and supported as a result of the offer of smartphones like the iPhone and the Blackberry.

Teenagers have an Ease of access to most social networking sites. Social sites have remained the primary place to express the feelings and id the spur of the moment. Lack of popularity in the real world for some individuals can be replaced by being popular among socials networks by having many abstract friends as they perform the status update. The impact can also be realized by their friends, the higher the popularity level, the more they are known by other people. A controversial matter that is common on social media is that most researches have revealed that they have the harmful influence on the wellbeing of the users especially the teenagers. The research has further assessed and showed that the person’s daily activities are faced with more negativity with the increase in the use of social media. They also realize lower levels of satisfaction in their general life. Drawing our attention to this case, there is a need for the parents to pay attention to fine details to ensure that their teens are on the right way. For the teenagers, social media has become an essential feature of human contact. Due to its effects on the teenagers’ wellbeing, parents must help in restricting them and ensure teens are safe online.