Once the digital age has taken over our lives, human beings have entered a possible point of no return, as described by the famous novelist Franz Kafka, who claimed that this point needed to be reached.
Social networks have become a fundamental element in our lives, keeping us connected with millions of people around the world. However, along with the benefits they offer us have also come a number of dangers, for both us and our children.
For this reason, this post is dedicated to highlighting what are the risks currently facing the world of Social media, what effects the use of these tools produces and how we can make good use of them .
Index:
What are the current dangers that social networks have over children and adolescents?
Yes, safety is important, much more so if it is children and adolescents who can be our children, grandchildren, nephews, cousins or friends. Today social networks have attracted millions of people around the world, including the youngest who are seduced by their content and usefulness to connect with different people.
It is true that they have an age limit to register for them, but this is usually a vulnerable measure. The fact that our children have access to conventional social networks like Facebook exposes them to a lot of risks.
These dangers can range from displaying inappropriate content to being contacted by strangers with intentions that we do not know. That is why it is important that they know how to use networks properly to significantly reduce existing risks.
Next, we will mention some of the most common hazards to which they are exposed:
Privacy
The world of Social Media stores personal information that is shared with third parties in order to develop content according to our interests. Nowadays networks are used to share photographs and frequented places, this implies that others can take advantage of this data with bad intentions.
Contact with strangers
How many times we will have told our children that they should not talk to strangers. In the era of global connection, the number of friends and followers is something that has become very popular among young people, Well, the more numbers you have, the more famous you are.
Massifying contacts accepting requests from unknown people increases the chances that our children will be contacted by them for malicious purposes. Today society has perverted to such an extent that in social networks there are adults who seek to deceive children with the aim of sending photographic content where they appear naked.
Inappropriate Content
Thousands of social media posts are shared every minute and sometimes the content is not suitable for our children. These networks expose you to view posts that contain nudes, violence, obscene language and many other things that are inappropriate for your age.
Sexual content exchange
Curiosity in adolescents linked to a non-existent sexual education makes this factor quite common in networks today. As we mentioned, many young people and even adults who exchange photos or videos in intimate or naked clothes ignore that this material can be used maliciously. For this reason it is necessary to monitor what our children do on social networks.
Addiction
Without a doubt, social networks are attractive, but you have to be moderate in terms of using these tools. Many young people reach the point of having health problems by disproportionate use.
It is important to clarify this point with them to avoid spending many hours in front of the mobile or the computer. Many of them are usually connected until late at night, which can cause insomnia problems.
In addition, the excessive use of social networks can cause them to isolate themselves from the real world, of the family, cause poor performance in school, behavior changes, among others. You can read more about social media addiction from here.
What do psychologists think about the effects of social networks? in young people and adults?
As we have read, social networks have become a fundamental element for communication. But How was it years ago when they did not exist? Although it is true before we had no evidence of this or the consequences that this would bring, but now that we know it has become clear that have caused an inverse effect to what was thought.
Psychologists have repeatedly reiterated the effects they have, for example, increased depression, anxiety, suicide and others, especially comment that this is reflected more than anything in girls. Because of this it has been discovered that vulnerabilities are exploited from 2016 onwards.
Many specialists have used platforms such as Facebook for the detection of certain disorders, these are reflected in status updates, like, comments, photos and other aspects. Perhaps this is the best way to know as parents the effect that these networks may be causing on them.
But young people are not the only ones that can be affected by behavior, adults are also part of this world, even though millennials have not been so harmed. Millions of people have turned the digital age into a completely different one, where today it is more important to create a profile on some network than to start a face-to-face conversation , where we create an ideal identity that is Only the best part of ourselves, this and other situations are also a disadvantage.
Sometimes, people who use these tools for entertainment purposes tend to be constantly checking and checking the status updates of their contacts or the message tray. So many of these feel despair when they do not have access to them, reaching the point of suffering from disorders such as anxiety, stress or depression resulting from it.
How can we prevent these risks and make good use of them? social networks?
Without a doubt that there are a lot of risks to which we are exposed from the first moment we decided to register on a social network. Even, since we took a computer to search for something in Google, since that third parties can show us advertising according to our preferences.
There is a lot of personal information we share when using Facebook. Even more so if we do it frequently by publishing photographs, places we frequent, moods, unforgettable moments, among others. All this information is available to almost anyone using the social network and our privacy and security in RR.SS is in danger.
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Of course, the dangers in RR.SS are innumerable. Every day new ways of extracting extremely delicate information arise as data from our bank account. That is why, aware of each and every one of these risks we must look for methods to prevent them, some of these are:
Social networks for children and young people 
There are social networks dedicated to the smallest of the house that are intended to provide an alternative to what they represent Facebook, Instagram, among others.
Lego Life, Picapon, Messenger Kids … There are social networks for children suitable according to the age of each one. Our children can choose to register with one of them so as not to be exposed to the common dangers of social networks that adults use.
Supervision of our children
If we allow our children to use conventional social networks, the right thing would be to exercise supervision of the content that our children share both in their public profile and in the messaging. Without a doubt that if we can monitor what our children and young people do we will have the opportunity to correct this on time.
It is also important that before entering this world whose dangers are the order of the day, we talk with our children about them. It is necessary that they be aware of what they are exposed to, how to avoid it and how they can properly use these great tools.
Set schedules
Applies to both the little ones and us. It is important that we make moderate use of these tools so that later we will not have family or work problems or that our children lower their performance in school.
It is important to establish a series of schedules, distribute our time in different activities and evaluate which are the indicated times to use them, so that we do not become addicted to them.
If we are going to take the mobile phone with us to some other place it would be a great idea to close our session while we do not use it, as this will prevent notifications from stalking us every minute and we can also save some data on our device.
Do not provide information
Phishing is a technique widely used today for others to get very important information from us. This works by sending messages that claim that there are problems with a web page or service bank we use.
Given this, keep in mind that banks will never ask for your personal information through informal channels like Facebook, so be very careful with this method that can extract relevant data for unknown purposes.
Adjust privacy
Social networks like Facebook allow us to choose who will provide access to the content we publish. It is important that we make these privacy settings because otherwise, anyone who registers on this social network could access your profile and see everything you publish.
Choose your contacts well
It is important that we do not provide access to our information to people we do not know. Accepting requests from strangers allows them to access our profile and our content even if we have made privacy settings.
Be careful what you publish h3>
Phone numbers, address or where we are. There is a lot of personal information that we should not publish on social networks since anyone would have access to it and seriously compromise our security.
It is important to make good use of social networks, everything we share on it can have an effect, so you have to be extremely careful with it.