Teens love their social media. They can connect with friends. They can find out about the latest outfits that others are wearing. They can use them to shop and keep in touch with their friends. However, social media have a downside. They can get children in trouble in schools, and schools have problems with bullies or threats.
- Cyberbullying. Teens are using social media sites, such as Snapchat, to bully other students. The site allows people to take pictures and write funny messages on top of them. Too often, what one teen thinks is funny is really harassment and bullying of the other students. Many schools have zero tolerance for bullying and cyberbullying. This is leading to teens getting suspended and expelled. At the same time, the bullied child feels unsafe at school. Despite the dangers, the punishments don’t match the crime and aren’t keeping students from bullying or harassment.
- Teen Depression: Constant exposure to carefully curated and idealized images on platforms like Instagram can lead to feelings of inadequacy and lower self-esteem as teens compare themselves to others. Likewise, the pressure to gain validation through likes, comments, and followers can lead to a constant need for approval, affecting teens’ emotional well-being when expectations are not met. Moreover, excessive social media use can disrupt sleep patterns and lead to decreased face-to-face social interactions, potentially contributing to feelings of loneliness. To address this issue of depression, parents would need to take their kids to a teen psychologist in Denver or their local area, for active counseling and support. Teen psychologists can provide valuable guidance and help teens navigate the challenges of social media, such as its potential impact on mental health.
- Texting in Class. Teens are using social media when they are supposed to be learning at school. They are chatting with friends, sending messages, or being disruptive in class. They are searching on social media while in class. In some cases, they are using their phones to cheat on tests.
- Poor Safeguards. Although businesses have adopted policies and tools that prevent their employees from trashing them online, schools haven’t caught on that this is a good idea. Teens are posting negative comments against teachers and principals. Schools need policies, training, and enforcing the problems.
- Dangers to Children and Teens. Bad people are looking for children. They snatch them for human trafficking rings, sexual reasons, hurting them in some way, or stealing identities. Schools that allow teachers to have a class Facebook page should insist that these pages be private. They should ensure no one posts to it outside the classroom. Teens are visiting chat rooms and talking with people they think are their age, but aren’t. They are getting into cars of unknown people.
- Fail to Include Parents. Schools don’t work with parents to ensure that children aren’t posting sensitive information all over the Internet. Parents have to take a proactive approach to watch what teens are posting online. Teens don’t want their parents to know what they are doing. That is causing fights between parents and teens and between teens and schools. Some parents may feel that public schools do not do enough to protect their children online, so they may look at putting them in an educational setting that can be more proactive with shielding young people. This may mean sending them to a private school with more regulations. However, this should not be jumped into quickly, which is why checking out a website like the School Guide can help them make an informed decision about what they should do.
- Cheating and Copying. It’s so easy for teens to search on their phones or through their friends to cheat on tests and copy essays. Some sites actually sell research papers that students can purchase for homework. However, these are almost all copied from other papers or research texts. Teens also don’t see why it’s wrong to copy someone else’s work. They download movies and music illegally from sites that don’t pay royalties on copyrights. Schools aren’t paying attention to this trend that much. As much as these sites are harmful to children, adults can benefit a lot from them by downloading TV shows or reading material. It’s easy to get lost in a rabbit hole when looking for the Best torrenting sites for anyone’s needs, especially since many good sites don’t even appear on search engines. As a result, it is preferable to look for the ones that rank high to ensure that a site is much more trustworthy, leaving everyone less likely to encounter issues such as popups and low-quality torrents.
- Threats to Students or School. Students who don’t like their school are posting threats on their social media pages. They talk about knifing other students or causing problems for the schools. In rare instances, the threats escalate to real danger, such as bombs or murder. Students with poor self-esteem are carrying out these threats. We have seen school shootings, movie theater shootings, and church shootings. We have seen bombs in schools and other issues such as identity thefts
- Teens are knowledgeable about technology and how to use it effectively. While this is good for students who want to learn, it presents a problem for schools of students who are bored and don’t want to learn. They quickly learn how to wreak havoc on schools by hacking into their systems. They will change web pages or add information that is false or as a protest to some cause. This can cause real problems for all who use the school’s network.
Schools need to reassess how they use technology and why they use technology. They should find ways to address these issues.