Discuss your opinions about whether you think internet exposure and social media have positive and negative consequences for children's social development.
Nowadays, technology is a huge part of children’s social development. Its impact encompasses both internet exposure as well as social media. Teenagers believe that posting personal and private information on the internet is not harmful. On the contrary, the internet and social media posts and sharing of personal information pose a huge risk to the teenagers. The Frontline documentaries ‘Growing up online’ and ‘digital nation’ outline some of how the internet and social media are affecting children’s social development. Particularly, ‘Growing up online’ addresses issue such as duration, addictive behavior, and social development impacts of the internet and social media while ‘Digital Nation’ addresses issues that arise due to multitasking in this tech-driven world (Dretzin and Maggio; Dretzin and Rushkoff) .
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Firstly, children and teenagers are living their lives on the internet. They dedicate much effort, time and emotion to their activity on the internet which in turn detracts them from their real lives (Dretzin and Maggio) . Some of them say that they can be their true self on the internet. This makes them addicts to the internet. As Jessica Hunter from the film ‘Growing up online’ states, the only time children feel contented is when chatting with their MySpace or Facebook friends (Dretzin and Maggio) . Some of them cannot imagine anything else to do if separated from the internet for an hour. Additionally, the internet offers them a platform to engage people who in real life they don’t communicate. Consequently, some of these people may have ill-motives, for example, pedophiles that use the internet to lure young people into relationships as well as those who introduce children to immoral activities such as pornographic material.
Another issue that the internet has raised is the creation of a huge social gap between the children and their parents. That is, their parents grew up in the era where the internet activities did not exist, and though they rebelled and questioned their parents or life when they were growing, they did not have a potentially powerful tool as the internet around to toy with (Dretzin and Maggio) . Therefore, the parents are experiencing a hard time relating to the children over the issue of the internet.
Despite seemingly harmful to the social lives of the children, to them it a cool and fun thing to do after school. The internet is a place that someone can express their desires and be rewarded in some ways such as making more friends and discovering new things such as eating disorders that may be affecting you.
Also, discuss and give your opinion as to whether or not you think you are good at multi-tasking within today's tech-driven world. Be sure to comment on at least one other classmate's comments.
Multi-tasking can be defined as performing or attempting to perform two or more tasks simultaneously or switching between the tasks (Dretzin and Rushkoff) . In regards to multi-tasking in this tech-driven society, I think I am terrible in handling multiple tasks at the same time. For instance, I cannot perform tasks such as reading a book and text simultaneously. I always end up re-reading the same sentence a couple of time, actually up to five times. On the contrary, I have observed my friends watch television, talk on the phone, text, and eat concurrently.
Overall, several issues arise from the constant use of the internet and social media. For instance, excess time spent by the computer leads to underdeveloped social skills and addictive behavior. Additionally, there are concerns over harmful individuals such as pedophiles and stalkers that use the internet to lure young people into relationships. Moreover, a study conducted by Stanford University Professor Clifford Nass on effects of multi-tasking reveals reduced brain activity which in turn slows execution of tasks as well as our studies (Dretzin and Rushkoff) .
Works Cited
Dretzin, Rachel, and Douglas Rushkoff. Digital Nation . Frontline, 2010. Film.
Dretzin, Rachel, and John Maggio. Growing Up Online . Frontline, 2008. Film.
