Social networks for parents of the 21st century
Being parents in the 21st century means understanding new realities of family education. Our children are digital natives and we try to educate them -also- in the use of technologies that we sometimes do not know. They, still immersed in a maturing process, sometimes they ignore the repercussions and consequences of what they say or do on the Internet and on social networks both for them and for other people.
Not so long ago the Internet came to our homes. Our children were born with the computer and the tablet under our arms, with the Smartphone in our pocket, but for us this reality is full of unknown aspects. Surrounded by so much technology, teenagers feel the need to share what happens in their daily lives with an environment for which space-time barriers no longer exist. During adolescence, the center of all this technological innovation are the social networks, which have become one of the identity marks of this generation. They use all kinds of systems to communicate, thus sharing a sense of identity among them.
What is a social network
The social networks -for parents of the 21st century- are websites that, in a simplified way, function as virtual social clubs. Once people join the social network and create their personal profile, they can interact and connect with other users whom they locate by complex search algorithms. They allow to share content (text, photo and video), chat, comment on the content shared by others, and create communities with similar interests.
Why are they so successful among teenagers?
Social networks open an immense range of extremely attractive possibilities, allow them to communicate instantly with friends and family, meet new people, get in touch with old friends, organize their social life, share messages, videos and photographs or play online with other members.
But one of the main drivers of network consumption among young people is gossip. This reality has two different aspects, very dangerous from the emotional point of view if they are misused. First, it highlights the problem of community criticism. Criticizing or being criticized in social networks, measuring affection according to the number of "Like", "Favorite" or similar, has much greater consequences than those derived from coexistence in the real world. Social networks magnify the contents by multiplying its reproduction through the profiles of others.
A second aspect that may be worrisome is the voucherism. The networks can be used simply to browse the lives of others without the young people interfering or interacting with those profiles they visit. The problem is that it becomes a habit that ends up stealing time to many other activities. According to recent academic research, 25% of young people spend more than two hours a day immersed in networks. Derived from this tendency to monitor what others do, there is still a worse behavior, called the hate-follow. It consists of following profiles of people who not only do not care, but ignite their hatred.
Sara Pérez López
It may interest you:
- Changes in the parents of the 21st century
- Digital natives, a different generation of children
- Parental control in social networks
- Gossip, a social phenomenon ... why are we gossips?
