Local authorities in the United States of America are taking more legislative measures to limit the impact of social media on the mental health of the young generation, especially after many cases of depression and suicide have been linked to these platforms.
Report points to a site Axios The American news outlet notes that the state of Utah recently passed a law limiting the use of social media for minors, and that many educational institutions in Seattle, Washington, and in San Mateo, California, are suing communication platforms and accusing them of providing harmful content to children.
This comes at a time when Congress has intensified its pressure to impose a ban on TikTok due to, among other things, the harmful effect on children.
How does social media affect children? Psychotherapist and specialist in psychological evaluation, Marie Shaheen, answered this question in an interview with Al-Hurra, saying that the effects differ between children before the learning age (3 or 4 years) and children after this age.
According to Shaheen, the first category is prevented from using social media (such as viewing videos and electronic games) from playing, which limits the development of their intellectual energies that lead them to formulating, visualizing and rationalizing concepts, and also leads to limiting the child’s imagination and thinking.
She stresses that the child, before the age of learning, has a great and basic need to develop the kinesthetic sense through touching things, using his senses and learning.
Social media deprives the child of human and social interaction, especially with the mother. Shaheen says: “We notice in our clinic that many children have good intellectual development, but their linguistic, communicative and social development is bad. As a result, they reach the age of seven years with weak language communication.” “.
Psychologists notice this in the children’s intelligence test, which recently shows that many children have a very low level of linguistic intelligence, according to Shaheen.
As for the effect of using social media on children after entering the learning age, Shaheen says: “We notice the long time that children of this age spend behind the screen of smart phones. This is reflected in a decrease in emotional interaction with others, and their use of communication means and electronic games prevents them from sharing feelings and feelings.” And later they fail to develop social communication in their schools.
One of the harms of social media to children is that it gives a sense of control and control, which deprives children of realism, according to Shaheen.
And she adds, “Children, as a result of spending a long time behind their phone screens, lose focus and weaken their memory, and they have many problems in writing and pronunciation.”
Social media (not necessarily pornographic accounts) expose children to sexual thoughts, words and suggestions prematurely and in the wrong way. Especially on social media platforms popular with children such as TikTok, according to Shaheen.
And she stresses that this leads to great psychological trauma and subsequent suffering for children, which increases fear and anxiety due to the scenes they are exposed to on Tik Tok and from content that includes scenes, words, or sexual suggestions.
And she confirms that the early use of social media for children harms their physical development because they sit most of the time in front of the screen, in addition to the narrowness of their imagination, so their intellectual level is limited to some personalities that appear on communication sites, which often cause them many psychological problems.
Shaheen points out that what harms children most is the Tik Tok application, which introduces strange behavior into the consciousness of the child, who imitates the famous people of the application, and his behavior becomes violent and narcissistic to a certain extent.
She considers that 13 or 14 years old is the ideal age for a child to start using the means of communication, but within the supervision and follow-up of the parents, and they must immediately alert when the teenager withdraws while using these platforms.
Shaheen warns that children’s use of social media often leads to depression, and some of them reach the point of thinking or attempting suicide, because these applications separate the child from his reality and increase his love for control, thus enlarging his “I” through his quest to increase interaction. Despite his inappropriate images for his age, but when he encounters a problem in reality, he cannot solve it.
Shaheen explains that the use of social media generates depression because the brain’s interaction is limited, and this pattern leads to disturbances in secretions in the brain, and instead of giving substances that stimulate happiness, the brain secretes some substances that stimulate depression.