Preview

Social Networking Sites and Children: Helpful or Harmful?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2345 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Social Networking Sites and Children: Helpful or Harmful?
Social Networking Sites and Children: Helpful or Harmful?
Social Networking Sites are one of the most popular applications for people to use. These social networking sites are usually focused on different kinds of relationships, for example, LinkedIn for professionals, YouTube for entertainment, or MSN and Facebook for personal users. Through social networking sites, people can communicate with people instantly, check the news quickly, and receive daily updates from family. Why are Social Networking sites popular?
Consumer Reports shows that more than 7.5 million American kids under the age of 13 have joined Facebook in 2011. As posted by CNN in May 21st 2012, “Is the Internet hurting children?”, Chelsea Clinton and James P. Steyer also say that more than 90% of all American children have an online history when they are two years old; more than 50% regularly interact with a computer or tablet device when they are five; many kids start to play video games when they are seven or eight. The author also asserts introduces that teenagers send messages an average of 3,400 times a month. These figures are really amazing, aren’t they?
Nowadays, children use the Internet very often. Thanks to the social networking sites, children have more ways to learn about the world. In fact, there are a lot of advantages for kids that use social networking sites, such as spending less money, staying in touch with friends and developing needed skills.
The first advantage of social networking sites for children is spending less money. Children grow up very fast. As posted by ATA WEBSITE DESIGNS, Benefits of a Social Networking Site for Kids, the author said “These sites can keep children entertained for hours without costing parents too much. Many of the games that are offered online cost users to play them. On social networking sites, kids can play free online games.” In my opinion, children love to shop because they don’t know how much the toys are. If parents don’t want to buy,



Cited: “Benefits of a social networking site for kids”. ATA Website Designs Clinton, Chelsea & Steyer, James. “Is the Internet Hurting Children?” CNN, May 21st 2012 Fox, Zoe. “This is How Much Time You Spend on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr”. Mashable, Nov.28 2012 Mackey, Robert. “Is Social Networking Killing You?” The New York Times, Feb.24 2009 Panaccione, Vicki. “The Benefits of Social Media.” Parenting Today’s kids. Vedder, Anton & Wachbroit, Robert, “Reliability of Information on the Internet: Some Distinctions.” Ethics and Information Technology, published in 2004.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the same way, research show that children,who constant use social network, were exposed to aggresive interaction between each other(American Psychological Association,2012). Thus, teenagers go online every day and neglect the negative consequences which social media may cause.The author appeals parents and school administrators to take the responcibility of the potential problem in order to convince teenagers to notice the social media’s…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Social media is considered to be any website that allows social interaction. (pediatrics) These include Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and gaming sites to name a few. Social media is a controversial topic, as it is believed that the youth of today spend far too much time using social media instead of interacting face -to-face with people. Therefore it is possible that they lack the proper communication skills they will require to be successful in life. Most jobs require face-to-face interaction. Children have too much access too and are spending too much time using forms of social media. 52% of all children now have access to one of the new mobile devices at home (smartphone, ipad, etc.) (commonsensemedia.org)…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social networking sites have grown so popular today that many individuals, especially teenagers, reference them in their everyday language and conversations. A social networking site involves enabling users to create profiles within it to interact with others. With the increase of technological advances, the use of these websites has increased dramatically because of their many benefits that contribute to everyday life and their ability to simplify many activities, such as online shopping, that would have been difficult without the sites. A majority of people would automatically be able to think of Facebook and Twitter, extremely popular social networking sites that have millions of…

    • 2034 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Best Essays

    Each generation spends their childhoods in different ways. As for this century, Millennials find themselves trapped in the world of media, populated by televisions, radio, magazines, mobile phones, laptops and the Internet, which gives young adults access to what most young adults crave, social media. There seems to be no decline for “the social networking movement.” Just a few examples of the seemingly infinite types of online networking are: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and YouTube. According to Amanda Lenhart, of New…

    • 3516 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On the other hand Social Media has social support it is very good for children who have trouble socializing with others and are shy its helps them make friends. It also has advantages in helping for educational purposes.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I do not agree with Wallace. In the last few years we have seen explosion of social media like snap chat, facebook and instegram, the children start to ask their parents in early age to have a cellphone and creat a facebook acount.…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Most of my generation didn’t have a Myspace or Facebook until about the age thirteen or fourteen. Now parents are creating them for their two or three year olds and allowing them to play games on it with their friends. This one consultant from London, Leisa Reichelt, writes “Can you imagine a Facebook for children in kindergarten, and they never lose touch with those kids for the rest of their lives? What’s that going to do to them?” The problem with this is that the amount of teasing or even bullying could greatly increase much more rapidly. The parents will hand over their tablets and ipads and eventually the very young children actually begin to chat with friends or even random people. On top of this, children as young as four or five are getting cell phones to talk to their parents and few close friends. But where is your five-year-old going that you wouldn’t know about or be with them for? The younger generations are already starting to carry the same issues the older generations have and will become more addicted and run into more problems. When kids are younger, even though they don’t think of it at the time, they make a number of bad choices that usually fades away and doesn’t affect the rest of their lives. With having so much access to technology, though, younger generations will start having drama with other peers sooner and could post something that they will later on end up regretting. Parents aren’t always around to be monitoring what their little ones are doing and therefore have less control of their…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    According to Alexia, 7 out of the top 20 websites (worldwide) are social networks. The top three include Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. (Alexia – Top Sites) Users are allowed to join these social networks at the age of 13, at this age users are still quite naïve. With peer pressure children are often swayed into signing up on a social networking website. This could cause them bullying, them seeing unsavoury content, them being vulnerable and giving out too much personally information to people over the Internet, security therefore needs to be overlooked in this area. (BBC Webwise, 2012) Social networking websites have recognised this and now have safe guards; this is especially designed for young children which restricts them from sharing and interacting with adults, which will provide minors with a limited experience.…

    • 2030 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many teenagers love social media because of its wide connectivity and function that people can receive it for free; it does not require money to make an account and use it. Facebook is the most visible among various social media. What’s impressive about this site is that you can easily connect with your long lost friends and see how they’re doing, or vice versa. You can also make new friends in Facebook. Though this could get addictive and may divert our attention away from the real world. Like what Cornell University’s Steven Strogatz said; “Social media sites can make it more difficult for us to distinguish between meaningful relationships we foster in the real world, and the numerous casual relationships formed through social media.” I strongly agree with this statement. Also, people become a whole new person, because it’s the Internet. People can be anything or anyone in the Internet.…

    • 648 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The number of users for social networking sites such as facebook and twitter has increased promptly in the last decade. It was believed that teens and students around the world use it widely just to get connected with different kinds of people. It seems like this sites have become a vogue presently.…

    • 1028 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Nowadays, a lot of people are using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and so on. Since the Internet has propagated rapidly, social media have progressed a lot. The generalization of the internet makes us to live conveniently and fast. People are almost using smart phones, i-phones or comfortable devices which can access to internet. These equipments make us to do social network easily. It helps contact friends, family, and other people even though they live far away. It could be, however, abused, if you don’t use properly. Especially, it is important that we understand and regulate the use of social media by young children.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    First of all, children should learn actual social skills before using social media. Kids should be reading, learning math and science, writing stories and playing outside. If kids under 15 start using Facebook he/she became addicted to it and their will (mostly) become zero in studies and 80% on Facebook (or even more).Ten and eleven year old children are on Facebook and don't even know why, they just think it is cool and then they are out of their parent's hair for hours on end. What a waste for a teenager’s mind to sit in front of a computer and rot their minds reading Facebook pages. They do it enough with TV, so why add the addiction of Facebook? Kids need to be playing out and interacting with others kids face to face, not competing for the most friends on their Facebook page or leaving them open to bullying or even worse, suicide.…

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Division of City Schools – Manila ROSAURO ALMARIO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Tondo, Manila SCHOOL RESEARCH STUDY School Year: 2013-2014 “Social Networking Sites: Beneficial or Not?” To Some Selected Grade Five Pupils of Rosauro Almario Elementary School” Submitted By: School Research Chairman: Research Co-Chairman: Research Members: FLORDELISA C. LICUP JACQUELINE T. ROXAS LORETA HABULAN ODETTE DE JESUS ANNA BAGUION SALVE MENDOZA REGINA OCTAVIANO…

    • 5774 Words
    • 35 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dwyer, C. “Digital relationship in the ‘myspace’ generation: results from a quantitative study”. http://www.cdwyer@pace.edu.com, September 12, 2009.…

    • 6153 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    While there are risks inherent in online social networking, there are also many potential benefits. Social networking can provide opportunities for new relationships as well as strengthening existing relationships, whether your kids’ friends are close to home or across the world. It’s important to be vigilant when your kids are getting involved in online social networking, but it’s also good to encourage positive relationships through various avenues, including the Internet.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays