I love the idea of giving kids freedom and exposure, it's good when they know things that can help them make good decisions. My parents did that with me when I was younger and I remember my dad sitting me down to watch or listen to the news with him. Sometimes, he comes home with a newspaper and passes it to me after reading. He would discuss what we read to tell me history or some of his life experiences, but now, social media is there to show us everything happening all over the world. Social media is doing a better job than many news agencies that I knew while growing up, and that's commendable.
The difference between social media and News agencies, then, is that we now have unfiltered information and content circling the internet. I can post whatever I want, and you can do the same; it doesn't matter if the content is age-restricted or not. It's yours, but the problem lies with who's seeing these things, how they digest or interpret them, and what impact does it have on them.
The adolescent stage is a very critical one, a stage where we are eager to learn and try things, not even thinking of the consequences. It was a stage of exploration and you can relate because it's something we have passed through.
So many adolescents are learning from social media, both the good and the bad, which ends up influencing their lives in the long run. You can teach them things, and they won't understand, but the things they see, especially on social media, remain in their brain for a long time.
Some school kids around the place I live were talking about a beautiful lady they saw online. They were junior school kids, and the descriptions they were making really bothered me. They talked about their fantasies, like touching the lady's body, and one of them was even touching another, making an illustration.
I shook my head and didn't know how to react because these kids were already ticking bombs and could cause problems in the near future. So many other kids have fallen into depression, some have developed an evil mindset, joining gangs and doing many unspeakable things because of the exposure and things they learned from social media.
If you spend time on TikTok or Snapchat, you will see a lot of girls (adolescents) exposing their bodies. Some of them go to the point of sending you their erotic pictures in DM just to get your attention, all of that for wigs and phones. All of these things didn't exist before, and we can still say that immorality has increased with the use of social media by adolescents.
Some adolescents use the information and exposure they have on social media for good things, which is what we should be seeing, and not the evil that's growing among the younger generations.
I know a boy who makes a power bank, and he learned it from a guy on TikTok. His parents supported him when they saw that he had passion, and kids like that are capable of becoming great someday.
As I said in the opening paragraph, I like kids having exposure and to help prevent negative exposure, parents must know what their children are doing on social media.
It is hard because these children are smart, they know how to hide because I know one who blocked her parents and other family members on WhatsApp. After all, she doesn't want them to see what she's posting. But for the good of the parents and their children's future, they must find a way to see what their children do on social media.