Should Parents Limit the Use of Social Media by Teenagers

Should Parents Limit the Use of Social Media by Teenagers?
How do you connect with your friends? Meeting each other face-to face? Using mobile phones? Or just watching what they posted on Facebook and Twitter? Social media, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, is a two-way communication media that helps people to stay connected to other sites, resources and people. In today’s society, staying connected to others is very important, especially for the teenagers, who need to keep themselves up-dated so that they will have more topics to talk with their friends and be less likely to be isolated. That is why the social media is very common among teenagers ---- 9 out of 10 teenagers are using social media. However, if they overuse the social media, it will be harmful to them in both physical and mental way. So, I believe that parents should limit the use of social media by teenagers, not only limit the time but also how they use. If they do that in a reasonable way, it is beneficial to the family, teenagers’ growth and health.

The popularity of social media raises the privacy problem. Teenagers like to post their real names, photos, interests like music or movies, birth date, address, email address and phone numbers to make themselves characterized. These are all their personal information and once they apply some applications, the companies of those apps can access and use what they have posted. The companies may use the phone numbers and other personal data for advertising purpose or even sell them. Also, many of the teens do badly in privacy settings. Some of teens just leave their social media partially public or even fully public. Even if their social media are on private, it does not mean that they are safe as their friends can share what they posted, which the others who they do not know could read. That information collected by the strangers could be used for committing crime, like giving you calls and then saying something based on your personal information collected to cheat you. The more information you posted, the higher chance you get cheated. Actually, as teens use social media for a long period of time, it is common that they will be less conscious of what they should post and sometimes they just post without thinking before so that they feel regret afterwards. To prevent them from the possible danger, parents should limit the time and how they use the social media.

Another risk parents should consider is that teens like to make friends on social media. They will join different groups which can be supporting a pop-star or a type of music and then make friends with who may have the same interests. But how they know if those ‘friends’ are really posting real information? Sometimes teens even go out with people met online to trade or have a dating. Sadly, it is not uncommon to hear the news that some juveniles got sex harassment or cheated when they went out with online friends. I believe that if parents can limit who the teens make friends with, the possible risk can be prevented.

Social media have a great impact on teenagers’ behaviors. It would definitely play an important role in development and growth of teens. Social media like Facebook and Instagram provide the function of giving likes or comments to others’ posts and following other people. Teenagers will be happy to have their posts liked by many people, but it can turn out to be narcissism. They may think they are famous, beautiful and have many friends and become arrogant about that. Also, teens seldom take their comment to other people serious on social media, but actually it can turn out to be hurting the others or even cyberbullying. For example, in their real life, they will not criticize the others directly; instead they will post their criticism on social media as they may be under the impression that they have no responsibility on what they said on social media. The functions of social media can be the media of instilling the wrong moral values into the teenagers and it actually affects how they get along with the others. That is why parents should limit how teens use the social media.

Teens spend too much time on social media can lead to bad heath of themselves and bad relationship with family. Using social media for a long time is harmful to their health. Mentally, they keep checking the latest status, no matter when they walking on street or during the lessons and it is actually a symptom of addiction and regarded as a morbid state. It can make a harmful effect on their academic results, and more seriously, it is detrimental to their health. Remember the advertisement talking about a boy using mobile phone when he is crossing the road and finally hit by the car? The same thing may happen in the teens checking the new status on the road. Parents love their children and they will not leave their children addicting on the social media. Parents will be worry about their health and performance in school and they may blame on their children. Then the children may argue with their parents as they just think that their parents do not understand them. This may ruin their relationship and increase the misunderstanding between them. If parents can limit their children using social media before they get addicted to it, these can be prevented.

Some people may argue that relationship between parents and teens will also be ruin since they limit their use of social media. Parents cannot control their children all the time. They can still seek social media access elsewhere--- at school, the library, or friends’ homes. Yes, it is true, but I am not encouraging to force the teens. The key point is not only to limit, but also to communicate with teens to know what they are doing on the social media and crate a trustful relationship, so that teenagers will follow rules set by parents and even tells parents what they are experiencing through the social media.

Some may also argue teens have the human right and parents have no right to limit their use of social media. Most of teenagers use social media every day, however, do they have a sense of using it in a proper way? On the stage as a teen, they are learning to adjust and make decision. They do not have the ability to consider the dangers and consequences of what they do so that they need guides from parents, teachers and the society. It just like students need to follow the school rules and we also need to obey the laws. They are not deprived of their rights, but actually learning to adjust what should do and what should not.

The use of social media by teens has long been discussed. I believe that if we want a good relationship with family and a well development of teenagers’ growth and development, parents should limit the use of social media by teens