Why do young people spend so much time on social networks?
One of the most repeated images in recent times is to see young people using their phones to interact with other people. The social networks they have become a tool that has supplanted interpersonal relationships among adolescents. If you used to stay in a cafeteria to talk, now a message through a smartphone application is enough to update friends.
While the utility of these services can not be denied, it can not be ignored that many young people abuse these services. technologies. Why is so much time spent? What arguments do teenagers use to spend so much time on this platform? This is one of the topics covered in the Survey on Internet use and security habits of minors and young people in Spain prepared by the Ministry of the Interior.
Daily use of social networks
Around the age of 15, young people use two or more hours per day internet access platforms for various activities, including the management of profiles in social networks and the connection with your friends. In fact 90% of these adolescents already have a profile in one or several platforms of this type, which end up becoming the main form of interaction.
The reasons young people give for spending so much time on these platforms are mainly related to the problems they encounter in making friends. This is reflected in the study Youth and Communication: the Imprint of the Virtual. 67.5% of respondents in this report emphasize that they use these technologies to establish new relationships.
At the same time, almost 80% of respondents say they use social networks to talk with their friends and only 22.7% use them to contact family members and 18% use them to answer questions about studies or chores. It is curious how almost 21% of young people between 15 and 19 years old recognize that they spend less time with their acquaintances.
This is the use of the Internet
The Internet is a tool that will not disappear and that, if used well, has great benefits. Therefore, from National Police These tips are given to prevent addictions to new technologies and the risks that lurk in it:
- Establish rules of use and their consequences.
- Prioritize school and study schedules to the use of computers.
- Control usage times.
- Teach them to use the Internet to carry out their work, studies, searches, etc.
- Talk about the harmful and beneficial effects that privacy causes when using the network.
- Talk about the dangers of social networks, where they can be confused, when "chatting", with supposed friends that do not turn out to be such, paying special attention to sexual contents.
- Perform periodic checks on the use that children make of the computer and, above all, of the network.
- Evaluate the possibility of installing filters and control programs to access certain activities.
Damián Montero
