Hello! Im posting a rough draft of my research essay hoping it can someone can send me some feedback and review it. Thank you!!
What was the growth and early development for a child like before technology existed and was used in daily activities? Before turning on "Bluey", a highly popular childrens cartoon, maybe they colored, played outside, or simply sat doing nothing and found something to do. There was creativity sparked in their brain everyday to find something meaningful throughout daily life. Now, how does that compare to the children that are raised in today's culture? Children are naturally creative, inspiring and always searching for the next adventure and part of this adventure is the journey to find it. With the rise of technology, and not just phones but computers, tvs, virtual reality, ai, and an overload of reliance on technology to keep the world moving creates a need for these items, something one would not be able to exist in normal society very well without the collection of them. This reliance has transcended onto children and more often than not one sees the dependency start from a younger and younger age. Sure, kids use crayons, and play outside, jump rope, and do goofy things, but this attention span and need to search out for an activity is quickly dying and being replaced by fast acting entertainment. Children do not sit in silence and trace the clouds finding shapes, or count the ants that walk across the cement path outside their house anymore simply because they do not need to. In one click bright colors, flashy titles, interactive games, and funny videos are simply right at their fingertips luring them in. Now, the clouds just look like clouds and counting ants just seems tedious and dull. It does not end at home though, this dependency starts to reach them whenever their mind feels bored or unfulfilled; sitting at a restaurant, in long lines, car rides, simply any fray spaces in between our activities leaves room for a craving of immense immersion. One that cannot be fulfilled without the overflow of quick, easy to digest, entertainment. The age of being bored is over, boredom is no longer forced, something that is a part of life, but is now a choice
and for young impressionable minds this concept transcends throughout their life. Not even counting the emotional repercussions this has on young developing minds, but also the effects noticed as they grow up continuing to have more negative experiences from a screen addiction. To touch the surface, not only can it be a huge safety issue, exposing young kids and teens to pedophiles and other unsafe content but, the rise of insecurity from social media, specifically targeting girls creates false realities that carry on throughout their lives. Phone addiction takes away from their daily lives and the motivation to explore and create has been replaced with fast acting dopamine hits that no longer give long term happiness; making this addiction rampant and often overlooked. The misuse of social media on brains will have lifelong damaging social and mental effects.
Social media is a fairly new development that not only arose so quickly but so aggressively. Technology went from channel tv, simple phones (like blackberries) with elementary games, phone calls and short texts, to an extension of our lifeline. According to Shooting Reels, Facebook went from a small site for Harvard students in 2004 to 100 million users by 2008. This is just one example, Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram and many more sites were created and gained popularity, making it normal to share every aspect of one's life online, appealing to fads and making life look 'aesthetic' to other people. Online video games became more complex and popular as well, specifically for kids. One example is Minion Rush, an online game based around the franchise Despicable Me. This game features little yellow characters called Minions who in the game jump through obstacles, collect coins, and duck under lazers to complete levels. It is highly fast paced and includes bright intriguing lights, goals, and a much
higher paced activity designed for kids. It could be described as hard to look away from and for young susceptible minds, they can become easily addicted. Kids are also directly targeted by influencers through social media, Jojo Siwa is an example of this. She has over 11 million followers on instagram alone, her merch contains her popular line of bows, to shirts, toys, collectables, songs, t-shirts, really anything you can think of; all of which brightly designed and marketed towards kids encouraging them to spend more time online checking up on their favorite influencers and seeing the newest fad before they can even realize they are a product of targeted consumerism. Compared to 20 years ago this is a massive change, kids were never targeted the way they are now, their lives forever changed from the minute they are able to truly process information. There is very little time one sees morning cartoons substituted with morning drawings, video games substituted with playing with toys, even in school technology is introduced very young, submerging them in video projects and online teachings.
With the growing development of technology being used for young kids, so does the issue of attention spans that affects their lives. The Cleveland Clinic discusses this in a research project they did, saying they, "...Found that the students who reported using digital media many times a day were more likely than their peers to show these symptoms...Inattention, such as difficulty organizing and completing tasks...Hyperactivity-impulsivity, such as having trouble sitting still". This affects more than just schoolwork, doing laundry, making meals, going about day to day activities are now more increasingly difficult. It is important to note that the long term effects social media has on the brain has not yet been fully researched due to the fact that it has been so fast growing in such a short amount of time. UNICEF says babies learn the most from
human interaction, wedging a screen in between this crucial step of could cause issues later on including lowering their range for empathy. Patricia Kuhl does research on babies' brain development associated with learning and screen time, she says in their study they find that babies do not learn from a screen...at all. Meaning, no matter how interactive or educational these games are, these children are not learning anything from them and can only retain information from real human experience. The world health organization recommends no screen time for children under 2 and less than an hour from 2 to 4. Learning concentration and focus early on are key to successful lives, a large part of this learning is taking the time to process. The constant flow of images and interactive material leaves no room for the absorption of this information. Additionally, the room for boredom is crucial as it teaches kids how to deal with frustrations and control the impulse of the need for more, which technology just feeds into. Charles Nelson, a Harvard neuroscientist says, ""Until babies develop language all communication is non-verbal, so they depend heavily on looking at a face and deriving meaning from that face,". Recognizing these face to face communications play a tremendous role in learning empathy and identifying social cues, reinforcing the concept that social media stunts learning from a young age, even before school is in question.
Continuing, as children are more active on social media it can turn into a safety concern. While as the internet has guidelines it can be unfiltered and hateful, aggressive, gory, racist, sexist, and sexualized content can still be posted and viewed by young audiences. A study by Sharedhope says that 42.1% of kids have viewed online porn, their study targets children between 7-16. Furthermore, 1 in 12 have exchanged sexual messages online. Porn addictions are becoming increasingly popular especially in boys and the rate at which they are being exposed to
graphic content just escalates to younger and younger ages. In continuation of this, exposure to violent actions; some seen through sexual acts talked about above, has been traced to having effects on emotional learning and emotional regulation. Meaning exposure to these types of content early on does have lifelong effects that work their way into their brain. In a Harvard study, they say "Exposure to violence is associated with elevated risk for a wide range of mental health problems in children and adolescents, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder". This study was done based around the principles of tracking how early exposure to violence affects threat ,safety and environmental emotional cues. An increased predisposition to online violence can leave them vulnerable and expose them to emotional manipulation by online predators as well who solely look to target younger kids whose brains are easily malleable to the environment around them. Taking advantage of this, predators can put children in very dangerous and sexually vulnerable situations, oftentimes children are unaware of the grooming taking place during these conversations. In a news report by KOAA they take a deep dive into warning parents about child predators and the methods they use to hook kids. FBI agent Herrick says, "'Individuals who are conducting this kind of activity have multiple online profiles. They can pretend to be a 16-year-old boy or girl, they can pretend to be anyone, especially in the online gaming environments where they're offering cheat codes, they're offering access to coupons or to get further advanced in a game,'". Herrick explains how they can easily manipulate young and vulnerable children using multiple methods to act as their friends, to get close and gain trust, often resulting in parents not knowing the depth of the situation until it is too late. Child predator offenses can result in lifelong damaging mental effects, the article
explains nearly 500,000 predators are online everyday, 89% of which target their audience through chat rooms or some form of online messaging.
Furthering the topic of mental health and online exposure, with an increased viewing of more, more, and more, comes an inescapable feeling of insecurity that is projected onto young audiences before they have those concepts in their head. Objectively children do not pick apart and judge their own personal features with disdain. They are not predispositioned to insecurity at this level until being made aware through social media from influencers for brands trying to sell products that can 'fix' their 'issues' when in reality they are not issues in the first place, just objective standpoints deemed unfit by society and capitalized on to flow money into the economy and brands pockets. Particularly for girls, body shapes go in and out of being the fad, in the 2000s it was being as skinny and 'fit' as possible, while in the 2010s the idea of what they call slim thick came to play and the rise of bbls and plastic surgery to increase butt size and slim down the waist came about. Through social media these fads flow much quicker and new trends emerge trying to sell an idea of what the dream body is. Drink chia seed water, apple cider vinegar shot in the morning, probiotics, seamoss pills, intermittent fasting, kefir instead of dinner are all examples of propaganda pushed onto young girls when in reality the influencers pushing these are not medically backed and oftentimes have genetics to thank for their shape. On top of genetics, influencers are not transparent in portraying their lifestyles, some claim to live a lavish life, clubbing, designer bags, staying slim, pilates, nice apartment, when in reality many influencers have come out to describe this as an untrue realm of what really happens, stating most struggle to make ends meet, skipping meals (which can lead to eating disorders and further issues), selling themselves out to keep this lifestyle, and most importantly lying to their
audiences often doing things just for show. This creates a harmful reflection for girls, influencing them to buy into their lifestyle, specifically the rise of OnlyFans; a sex work app where you create your own account and charge a monthly subscription to make money. Many girls promote their OF through social media and show a luxury life, including going through what they do each day and explaining it only takes a few hours and then off to Bora Bora they go for their weekly vacations when in reality sex work is a serious industry and only a small majority of OF workers make decent money from it. Ads to promote this as an easy lifestyle pop up everywhere. For example, an instagram ad from Hushhushcreators reads "They bring all the traffic to my page...Music to my ears! I signed up the next day. They are recruiting more models now. It's your perfect time to try. Drop them a message," and below is a link to their website. It is appalling how easy and carefree they make it sound, reassuring girls it was the best decision and how simple it is when in reality it could not be more from the truth. Throughout all these lies, heavy editing can also take place. Influencers buy followers, and edit their body to make it look more curvy or skinnier than they appear, including using facetune to change facial features and fine tune their face to have it match the beauty standard to as close as they can come.
The big question is asked now, how can one protect one's kids against all of this? To start, short-term solutions are required to think long-term. It can be as simple as limiting screen time and only allowing x amount of time per app, limiting the reach and exposure to this kind of content they will see. Certain aspects of social media can be beneficial to parents, giving them a much needed break. With this pause, parents can better handle stressful situations as they are not as overstimulated. However, moderation is key and finding the right social media platforms for
kids is just as important. A popular show called Mrs.Rachel has become highly recommended by parents because it is incredibly educational for children. Instead of Spongebob or any dopamine grabbing show, Mrs.Rachel benefits the children's minds. It is finding this balance and resources that one can control certain aspects of these effects on their kids.
However, it is just as important to teach kids from the get-go to live their life as screenless as possible to support healthy habits for them long-term. Introducing sports, brain engaging hobbies, creative embarks, and educational daily teachings can help children grow up surrounded by a strong base and healthy dopamine receptors. Meaning, they will not be as predisposed to a short attention span and the need to be plugged in. However, as they grow up and become adults with free will, it is important to recognize the pattern and effects social media has when too much time is spent on it. It is impossible to remove technology from our lives as it has become a lifeline of communication and culture. Nevertheless, it is important to strive to hold onto engaging hobbies, time management and most importantly the disciple to stop scrolling when one recognizes the brain becomes latched and performs what we refer to as 'doom scrolling' which is mindlessly scrolling for minutes sometimes hours on end.
In resolution, the effects of social media and screen time for kids start to negatively affect them from the moment they can process information. More importantly even suggesting no screen time for kids under 2, reaffirming just how important it is to create human impressions on children to help them develop empathy and emotional regulation. As they grow, online safety becomes a larger and larger concern, leaving them exposed to graphic and sexual content. Including the risk of online predator encounters who specifically target young audiences and trick them, sometimes even exploiting them. On top of safety issues, social media poses a threat
to self confidence and the reality of what one sees online. Influencers showcasing a fake reality of a dream life that is not acquired realistically most times and oftentimes sacrificing their own personalities and desires to fit in with a certain crowd. The rise of young sex work pushed and specifically targeted to freshly 18 year olds, promoting lavish lifestyles and often leaving out the detrimental effects it can have to ones future and ones mental state is also undershared and overlooked with few creators speaking the truth of the situation and the rarity of success. Social media poses multiple threats to child development, safety, and personal upbringing because it can be an unsafe space designed to hook kids in for hours ruining dopamine receptors causing issues in daily life, exposing them to safety threats and false promises of reality they see their favorite influencers marketing towards them.
What was the growth and early development for a child like before technology existed and was used in daily activities? Before turning on "Bluey", a highly popular childrens cartoon, maybe they colored, played outside, or simply sat doing nothing and found something to do. There was creativity sparked in their brain everyday to find something meaningful throughout daily life. Now, how does that compare to the children that are raised in today's culture? Children are naturally creative, inspiring and always searching for the next adventure and part of this adventure is the journey to find it. With the rise of technology, and not just phones but computers, tvs, virtual reality, ai, and an overload of reliance on technology to keep the world moving creates a need for these items, something one would not be able to exist in normal society very well without the collection of them. This reliance has transcended onto children and more often than not one sees the dependency start from a younger and younger age. Sure, kids use crayons, and play outside, jump rope, and do goofy things, but this attention span and need to search out for an activity is quickly dying and being replaced by fast acting entertainment. Children do not sit in silence and trace the clouds finding shapes, or count the ants that walk across the cement path outside their house anymore simply because they do not need to. In one click bright colors, flashy titles, interactive games, and funny videos are simply right at their fingertips luring them in. Now, the clouds just look like clouds and counting ants just seems tedious and dull. It does not end at home though, this dependency starts to reach them whenever their mind feels bored or unfulfilled; sitting at a restaurant, in long lines, car rides, simply any fray spaces in between our activities leaves room for a craving of immense immersion. One that cannot be fulfilled without the overflow of quick, easy to digest, entertainment. The age of being bored is over, boredom is no longer forced, something that is a part of life, but is now a choice
and for young impressionable minds this concept transcends throughout their life. Not even counting the emotional repercussions this has on young developing minds, but also the effects noticed as they grow up continuing to have more negative experiences from a screen addiction. To touch the surface, not only can it be a huge safety issue, exposing young kids and teens to pedophiles and other unsafe content but, the rise of insecurity from social media, specifically targeting girls creates false realities that carry on throughout their lives. Phone addiction takes away from their daily lives and the motivation to explore and create has been replaced with fast acting dopamine hits that no longer give long term happiness; making this addiction rampant and often overlooked. The misuse of social media on brains will have lifelong damaging social and mental effects.
Social media is a fairly new development that not only arose so quickly but so aggressively. Technology went from channel tv, simple phones (like blackberries) with elementary games, phone calls and short texts, to an extension of our lifeline. According to Shooting Reels, Facebook went from a small site for Harvard students in 2004 to 100 million users by 2008. This is just one example, Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram and many more sites were created and gained popularity, making it normal to share every aspect of one's life online, appealing to fads and making life look 'aesthetic' to other people. Online video games became more complex and popular as well, specifically for kids. One example is Minion Rush, an online game based around the franchise Despicable Me. This game features little yellow characters called Minions who in the game jump through obstacles, collect coins, and duck under lazers to complete levels. It is highly fast paced and includes bright intriguing lights, goals, and a much
higher paced activity designed for kids. It could be described as hard to look away from and for young susceptible minds, they can become easily addicted. Kids are also directly targeted by influencers through social media, Jojo Siwa is an example of this. She has over 11 million followers on instagram alone, her merch contains her popular line of bows, to shirts, toys, collectables, songs, t-shirts, really anything you can think of; all of which brightly designed and marketed towards kids encouraging them to spend more time online checking up on their favorite influencers and seeing the newest fad before they can even realize they are a product of targeted consumerism. Compared to 20 years ago this is a massive change, kids were never targeted the way they are now, their lives forever changed from the minute they are able to truly process information. There is very little time one sees morning cartoons substituted with morning drawings, video games substituted with playing with toys, even in school technology is introduced very young, submerging them in video projects and online teachings.
With the growing development of technology being used for young kids, so does the issue of attention spans that affects their lives. The Cleveland Clinic discusses this in a research project they did, saying they, "...Found that the students who reported using digital media many times a day were more likely than their peers to show these symptoms...Inattention, such as difficulty organizing and completing tasks...Hyperactivity-impulsivity, such as having trouble sitting still". This affects more than just schoolwork, doing laundry, making meals, going about day to day activities are now more increasingly difficult. It is important to note that the long term effects social media has on the brain has not yet been fully researched due to the fact that it has been so fast growing in such a short amount of time. UNICEF says babies learn the most from
human interaction, wedging a screen in between this crucial step of could cause issues later on including lowering their range for empathy. Patricia Kuhl does research on babies' brain development associated with learning and screen time, she says in their study they find that babies do not learn from a screen...at all. Meaning, no matter how interactive or educational these games are, these children are not learning anything from them and can only retain information from real human experience. The world health organization recommends no screen time for children under 2 and less than an hour from 2 to 4. Learning concentration and focus early on are key to successful lives, a large part of this learning is taking the time to process. The constant flow of images and interactive material leaves no room for the absorption of this information. Additionally, the room for boredom is crucial as it teaches kids how to deal with frustrations and control the impulse of the need for more, which technology just feeds into. Charles Nelson, a Harvard neuroscientist says, ""Until babies develop language all communication is non-verbal, so they depend heavily on looking at a face and deriving meaning from that face,". Recognizing these face to face communications play a tremendous role in learning empathy and identifying social cues, reinforcing the concept that social media stunts learning from a young age, even before school is in question.
Continuing, as children are more active on social media it can turn into a safety concern. While as the internet has guidelines it can be unfiltered and hateful, aggressive, gory, racist, sexist, and sexualized content can still be posted and viewed by young audiences. A study by Sharedhope says that 42.1% of kids have viewed online porn, their study targets children between 7-16. Furthermore, 1 in 12 have exchanged sexual messages online. Porn addictions are becoming increasingly popular especially in boys and the rate at which they are being exposed to
graphic content just escalates to younger and younger ages. In continuation of this, exposure to violent actions; some seen through sexual acts talked about above, has been traced to having effects on emotional learning and emotional regulation. Meaning exposure to these types of content early on does have lifelong effects that work their way into their brain. In a Harvard study, they say "Exposure to violence is associated with elevated risk for a wide range of mental health problems in children and adolescents, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder". This study was done based around the principles of tracking how early exposure to violence affects threat ,safety and environmental emotional cues. An increased predisposition to online violence can leave them vulnerable and expose them to emotional manipulation by online predators as well who solely look to target younger kids whose brains are easily malleable to the environment around them. Taking advantage of this, predators can put children in very dangerous and sexually vulnerable situations, oftentimes children are unaware of the grooming taking place during these conversations. In a news report by KOAA they take a deep dive into warning parents about child predators and the methods they use to hook kids. FBI agent Herrick says, "'Individuals who are conducting this kind of activity have multiple online profiles. They can pretend to be a 16-year-old boy or girl, they can pretend to be anyone, especially in the online gaming environments where they're offering cheat codes, they're offering access to coupons or to get further advanced in a game,'". Herrick explains how they can easily manipulate young and vulnerable children using multiple methods to act as their friends, to get close and gain trust, often resulting in parents not knowing the depth of the situation until it is too late. Child predator offenses can result in lifelong damaging mental effects, the article
explains nearly 500,000 predators are online everyday, 89% of which target their audience through chat rooms or some form of online messaging.
Furthering the topic of mental health and online exposure, with an increased viewing of more, more, and more, comes an inescapable feeling of insecurity that is projected onto young audiences before they have those concepts in their head. Objectively children do not pick apart and judge their own personal features with disdain. They are not predispositioned to insecurity at this level until being made aware through social media from influencers for brands trying to sell products that can 'fix' their 'issues' when in reality they are not issues in the first place, just objective standpoints deemed unfit by society and capitalized on to flow money into the economy and brands pockets. Particularly for girls, body shapes go in and out of being the fad, in the 2000s it was being as skinny and 'fit' as possible, while in the 2010s the idea of what they call slim thick came to play and the rise of bbls and plastic surgery to increase butt size and slim down the waist came about. Through social media these fads flow much quicker and new trends emerge trying to sell an idea of what the dream body is. Drink chia seed water, apple cider vinegar shot in the morning, probiotics, seamoss pills, intermittent fasting, kefir instead of dinner are all examples of propaganda pushed onto young girls when in reality the influencers pushing these are not medically backed and oftentimes have genetics to thank for their shape. On top of genetics, influencers are not transparent in portraying their lifestyles, some claim to live a lavish life, clubbing, designer bags, staying slim, pilates, nice apartment, when in reality many influencers have come out to describe this as an untrue realm of what really happens, stating most struggle to make ends meet, skipping meals (which can lead to eating disorders and further issues), selling themselves out to keep this lifestyle, and most importantly lying to their
audiences often doing things just for show. This creates a harmful reflection for girls, influencing them to buy into their lifestyle, specifically the rise of OnlyFans; a sex work app where you create your own account and charge a monthly subscription to make money. Many girls promote their OF through social media and show a luxury life, including going through what they do each day and explaining it only takes a few hours and then off to Bora Bora they go for their weekly vacations when in reality sex work is a serious industry and only a small majority of OF workers make decent money from it. Ads to promote this as an easy lifestyle pop up everywhere. For example, an instagram ad from Hushhushcreators reads "They bring all the traffic to my page...Music to my ears! I signed up the next day. They are recruiting more models now. It's your perfect time to try. Drop them a message," and below is a link to their website. It is appalling how easy and carefree they make it sound, reassuring girls it was the best decision and how simple it is when in reality it could not be more from the truth. Throughout all these lies, heavy editing can also take place. Influencers buy followers, and edit their body to make it look more curvy or skinnier than they appear, including using facetune to change facial features and fine tune their face to have it match the beauty standard to as close as they can come.
The big question is asked now, how can one protect one's kids against all of this? To start, short-term solutions are required to think long-term. It can be as simple as limiting screen time and only allowing x amount of time per app, limiting the reach and exposure to this kind of content they will see. Certain aspects of social media can be beneficial to parents, giving them a much needed break. With this pause, parents can better handle stressful situations as they are not as overstimulated. However, moderation is key and finding the right social media platforms for
kids is just as important. A popular show called Mrs.Rachel has become highly recommended by parents because it is incredibly educational for children. Instead of Spongebob or any dopamine grabbing show, Mrs.Rachel benefits the children's minds. It is finding this balance and resources that one can control certain aspects of these effects on their kids.
However, it is just as important to teach kids from the get-go to live their life as screenless as possible to support healthy habits for them long-term. Introducing sports, brain engaging hobbies, creative embarks, and educational daily teachings can help children grow up surrounded by a strong base and healthy dopamine receptors. Meaning, they will not be as predisposed to a short attention span and the need to be plugged in. However, as they grow up and become adults with free will, it is important to recognize the pattern and effects social media has when too much time is spent on it. It is impossible to remove technology from our lives as it has become a lifeline of communication and culture. Nevertheless, it is important to strive to hold onto engaging hobbies, time management and most importantly the disciple to stop scrolling when one recognizes the brain becomes latched and performs what we refer to as 'doom scrolling' which is mindlessly scrolling for minutes sometimes hours on end.
In resolution, the effects of social media and screen time for kids start to negatively affect them from the moment they can process information. More importantly even suggesting no screen time for kids under 2, reaffirming just how important it is to create human impressions on children to help them develop empathy and emotional regulation. As they grow, online safety becomes a larger and larger concern, leaving them exposed to graphic and sexual content. Including the risk of online predator encounters who specifically target young audiences and trick them, sometimes even exploiting them. On top of safety issues, social media poses a threat
to self confidence and the reality of what one sees online. Influencers showcasing a fake reality of a dream life that is not acquired realistically most times and oftentimes sacrificing their own personalities and desires to fit in with a certain crowd. The rise of young sex work pushed and specifically targeted to freshly 18 year olds, promoting lavish lifestyles and often leaving out the detrimental effects it can have to ones future and ones mental state is also undershared and overlooked with few creators speaking the truth of the situation and the rarity of success. Social media poses multiple threats to child development, safety, and personal upbringing because it can be an unsafe space designed to hook kids in for hours ruining dopamine receptors causing issues in daily life, exposing them to safety threats and false promises of reality they see their favorite influencers marketing towards them.
