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O/T - Social Media

PrincessFiona's picture

My previous post made me think about how social media is affecting our kids. Remember when we grew up and had a petty argument with another girl in school, or was mad at a friend? what happened? you went home, wrote in your diary, called another (1) friend, maybe 2 to hash it out. Got over it and moved on, probably to continue being friends with said person. Today.....before you even leave school you post 100 entries on FB and Twitter and Snapchat and whatever other crazy tools are the rave this week. you text 400 of your closest 'friends' how horrible this or that is/was.

There is such an opportunity to expand your circle of 'friends' that will provide the necessary feedback needed to feed the monster that is teenage rage/jealousy.

Or how about pictures??? When I was a kid (this is starting to make me feel very old) if you wanted pictures of yourself you had to take them, or probably have a friend take them, get someone to agree to take you to a store to have FILM developed, wait a week, get someone to agree to take you back to the store to pick them up and then there you have pictures, but you have to personally share them by showing them to people in person, on printed paper. Wow, how this has changed. THese girls can now take tens of thousands of 'selfies' in hundreds of the SAME pose and post them out to EVERYONE in the universe. And this gets them instant and huge amounts of attention and the compliments they were fishing for. It's no wonder they are so self involved. They have so many technical advances available to them to feed all the crazy emotions/needs of a teenager.

I don't think parents understand the entire affect this stuff has on kids left unattended to operate at their own will with this stuff. I have two teenagers of my own who surprisingly (or not if you consider that I am their mother) have little to no interest in social media. I'm not really sure if it's their upbringing or the tendency to have my personality traits that cause them to shun it, in any case I'm glad for it.

Comments

Anon2009's picture

I agree and think this applies to blended/stepfamilies as well. Before social media, stepfamily members were more likely to privately seek advice and/or support from friends and work the issue out with the person they had issues with. Nowadays, so many people air all their issues, including stepfamily ones, on fb and/or another social media site.

PrincessFiona's picture

Very true. However I hate to think where my marriage would be today is I had no where to vent this kind of stuff. I would probably implode from not dealing with it.

TASHA1983's picture

I agree...social media is the devil...when not used for it's INTENDED purpose(s). However, like mentioned above if I didnt have this site and have the oppurtunity to make friends with those who understand and accept me and my feelings I would go bananas!!!