Man is a social animal. It has always been integrated into family structures that in turn formed clans that were structured to ensure survival. The arrival of the internet has allowed man to take a tremendous leap and execute this socialization at a distance, with people he knows or has never seen. And the smartphone allows you to be connected with these people permanently. However, this has consequences and can lead to depression. Here we recommend several steps to minimize the negative effects of the use of social networks on your children.
The steps you must follow to avoid the negative effects of using social networks are as follows:
1. Ensure balance:
It is necessary that our children alternate the use of social networks with personal interaction. In addition, it is convenient that they carry out outdoor activities that give them energy and allow them to improve their self-confidence and build an identity.
2. Educate responsible use:
Educating responsible use of social networks is essential to avoid its negative effects like playing online study games or trivia questions and answers with their friends. As part of this education, we must show our children that they need to be honest with themselves about the time they spend on social networks.
3. Encourage family activities:
As parents, we must ensure that our teenager spends time with the family. One way to do this is to set rules for telephones during meals and other activities that also apply to adults.
4. Monitor the risk of depression:
Mainly in girls who have suffered a traumatic event or are under stress, since the negative effects of social networks multiply if confidence is low.
5. Turn off notifications:
Application companies place more and more emphasis on sending notifications by various means so that we are constantly consulting their tool. These notifications interrupt our daily life and the normal rhythm of each activity, which reduces our concentration on tasks. For teens, this especially applies to study time. To avoid these unnecessary interruptions, it is advisable to disable or at least silence the notifications of the applications. In this way, we will be able to dedicate more time to the tasks that require it.
6. Be a model:
As with everything, the education of your children in social networks will be easier if you yourself are responsible and show a balance in your use of them. If you are the first to break the rules, your children will take it as an excuse to break them too.
7. Establish a usage policy:
Especially a time before bed and at night we must set a time to turn off the phones and avoid having them by the bed at night. It also helps a lot to use a conventional alarm clock instead of waking up on the phone.
If we follow these few steps we will be able to alleviate the negative effects of the use of social networks and thus educate our children in a responsibility that can also extend to other areas. Furthermore, the responsible use of social media also helps to avoid other dangers of the internet as individuals posing as what they are not or potentially deadly games.
