Social media and its effect on children and their development

Social Media and Its Effects on Children and Their Development Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Social Media and Its Effects on Children and Their Development Social media platforms have advanced into integral components of humanity in modern life. The value of social media stems from its ability to connect people beyond conventional social, physical, or geographical boundaries. People also use social media tools to receive and share information (Mendes et al., 2023). The other key characteristic of social media is entertainment from diverse sources. Bearing the above attributes, the popularity of social media has grown among both adults and children (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). Partly, such popularity has raised questions about the impacts of social media usage on the development of children. While social media is known to offer opportunities for learning and connection to children, it is also considered widely risky. Partly, some of such risks could bear adverse impacts on the development of children. Before social media becomes even more popular among children, mechanisms should be put to explore its impacts on the development of those users. This research examines the effects of social media on children’s development. Drawing on research and various theories of child development, there is a need to understand how the increasing use of social media could affect cognitive, emotional, social, and physical growth among children thereby opening avenues to implement strategies to maximize its benefits while minimizing its harm. Background The adoption of various social media platforms through different demographic segments has triggered a range of debates on the ills of such trends. As social media becomes more popular, more people access its benefits and drawbacks. Still, the use of social media among children who are in early developmental stages has been increasing considerably since 2010 (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). Approximately 10 years ago, in 2013, around 81% of children aged between 13 and 17 years used social media in the US. As of 2022, 94% of teenagers aged between 13 and 17 had social media accounts (Vu-Anh et al., 2023). The number of children visiting social media sites daily also increased from 34% in 2013 to 50% in 2022 (Shewale, 2024). Further indications show that there were more age restrictions on social media sites in 2013 as opposed to 2022. In 2013, limited data existed on pre-teen usage of social media. That number, however, changed dramatically over the decade. In 2022, 68% of pre-teens (ages 9-12) were using various social media applications. Also, it is notable that as of 2023, 1.3 million children were reported to be on social media applications while another 84% of children aged 8 to 12 were reported to have used social media platforms (Shewale, 2024). The above statistics showcase how the number of children using social media has increased over the past decade. With an increase in the number of users comes the challenge of more access to the harms of social media. Hence, the primary question remains on how social media usage affects the development I children amidst the increased access and usage of such platforms. Effects of Social Media on Children’s Development Cognitive Development Social media usage may have both positive and negative impacts on the cognitive development of children. The use of social media can affect areas such as attention, memory, learning, and critical thinking of children (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). However, the effects can be both positive and negative. Positively, social media usage improves access to information. That is because access to such platforms exposes children to diverse perspectives, ideas, and resources that can increase the scope of knowledge acquisition. Further, children who use platforms such as YouTube alongside educational applications can steer active learning to help them with problem-solving skills. The other positive effect of social media usage on cognitive development is the advancement of digital literacy (Vu-Anh et al., 2023). Children are highly motivated to evaluate and interpret information critically when they are exposed to social media usage. On the same note, early exposure to social media allows children to develop skills that are vital in navigating the present-day digital world. Social media can also contribute to social learning. That is, children can deploy the platforms to learn by observing and imitating some online behaviors. By extension, social learning alongside other targeted learning techniques instills creativity and expression among such children. Amidst the positive effects, social media usage can also come with a stream of negative effects on the cognitive development of children. Principally, the usage of social media by children has been associated with reduced attention span (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). Social media tools are equipped with fast-paced content followed by constant notifications that can overstimulate children. If left unaddressed, such information overloads can lead to shorter attention spans among users and challenges to concentrate on tasks. It has also been noted that the scrolling habits of social media stimulate shallow processing of information. That is because the information is consumed fast without giving it time for deeper understanding (Zhu et al., 2022). Secondly, social media usage can also have an impact on memory and learning. The characteristics of such platforms like frequent multitasking that include switching between different applications can impair the ability of the brain to process and retain information effectively. Thirdly, social media usage comes with an increased cognitive load on the users. The high quantities of data on various social media platforms imply the difficulty for children to process and organize the data meaningfully. As such, it leaves the children with an overload of unnecessary pieces of scattered datasets. Finally, there are a range of neurodevelopmental concerns that have been associated with excessive use of social med...