Things that Social Media Girls Need to Know

When we talk about social media and teenagers (social media girls and boys), we heard about the ways social media ruins teenagers by disrespecting them, or teaching them to disrespect people online, start quarrels, and make these teens feel alienated bored. In addition, when they shower, eat breakfast and walk to school, many of them start their morning by taking their phones and watching Instagram or Snapchat. Social media have significant advantages and disadvantages to mental and physical health, especially for teenage girls. There is something you need to be aware of, no matter whether you are a teenage girl or a mother of a teenage girl.

Things need to pay attention to

Cyberbullying

Either online or offline, cyberbullying has been a source of psychological distress for teenage boys or girls. According to many reports posted by organizations between the social platform and teenage health and happiness, researchers found that cyberbullying and the lacking of sleep time leads to a higher risk to get psychological distress, especially for the teenage girls who are more vulnerable to teenage boys in mental health.

What's more, researchers said the more these teenagers indulged in social media, the less time they spare for their sleep and exercise, which are the most essential part of their psychological and physical health. The decrease in psychological health conditions is more likely to trigger more cyberbullying and more and more teenagers will be hurt by this cyberbullying.

Self-harm and Suicide

Many research investigating teen suicide rates in these decades show that there is a larger percentage increase in American teenagers, especially the teenage girls aged from the fourth grade to the eighth grade. Psychologists point out that one of the most common factors that cause teenagers to commit suicide is the excessive pressure from social media. There is some evident data pointing out a pact that there is some connection between the increased use of social media and the great increase in the suicide rate. More importantly, there is much other research investigating the circumstance that teenage girls use social media and indicating the fact that teenage girls are more likely to be cyberbullied because of their higher frequency of using social media. Worse still, when these negative behaviors such as being cyberbullied cannot be solved, they will feel upset, and frustrated and will self-harm, harm others even commit suicide.

Sexting, or sex texting

Most teens have a lot of ways to contact with social media and all of these can be used without being known by their parents. It's quite easy for these guys and girls to share intimate photos and videos themselves. They may send sex texting as a way to be famous, to get attention, to get more fans, or so on. The nude photos and sex videos of celebrities encourage these teenage boys and girls to do this to some degree. However, those kids don't know that the intimate photo they send is not actually intimate. They will be spread all over the world. If these pictures go public, your children will be much more likely to be humiliated and laughed at. Your teenage boys or girls will feel embarrassed and their self-image and self-respect will be damaged, which will lead to depression and other psychological diseases. What's even worse is that according to the laws and regulations of some states, your children will be faced felony charges, which will have a dreadful effect on the college applicant or job seeking.

How to teach your social media girls to get rid of social media danger?

First, girls help girls and boys.

Many research reveals that cyberbullying is more likely to happen between friends than strangers. Therefore, we need to teach them to be kind to each other. Through Internet mentoring, they will be encouraged and make a great change on the Internet. Typically, when teenagers feel stressed or cyberbullied, the person they want to seek help from is not an adult but a peer. If your children can give a hand to those teenagers when they are down or in trouble, they will possibly feel better.

Cut off a toxic relationship

The way that makes your children safe and happy on social media is to cut off toxic relationships with those cyberbullying. As an old saying goes, you are who you hand with. Therefore we need to teach our girls that consider carefully who are their true friends and who are the so-call friends. If a friend becomes an enemy, it will frustrate our girls, and do great and everlasting harm to girls' psychological health. Tell them to focus on quality not quantity and consider carefully when they receive a friend request.

Strengthen quick digital recovery ability

We can never guarantee that our children won't be harmed on the Internet and that they won't harm others on social media platforms. Therefore we need to remind them that not everyone is a kind person. When they get harmed on the internet, what they need to do is to tell their parents immediately. If necessary, they can seek help from the police with their parents and punish the bullies on the other side of the screen.

Protect well their own privacy

Sometimes the willingness to share is not a good thing. We need to tell our children that people who share too much on the Internet will be less likely to be emphasized by others, and other people are most likely to neglect these kinds of people even if they need help. Therefore, these teenage boys and girls are supposed to think twice before they send anything to the Internet and consider the long-lasting effect. When the teenage girls send a message that requires them to send sex photos, they can definitely say no and immediately tell their parents about it. Also, we need to tell boys to stop asking for nude pictures and think about the consequence.

Final words

It's difficult for our girls to be happy and safe on social media. They also need some guidance and protection from the adults. Talking to your girls and boys frequently and knowing what they are doing is also important.