Many people living in this day and age use technology for everything. This is especially common through the means of social media.
Social media is defined as web sites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts.
Kids as young as four or five up to elderly people are now intertwined in some way shape or form. Almost a third of people are now using mobile phones, email and even social network websites to talk to their loved ones, instead of sitting down to have a conversation. One in five admitted they only get to know what certain family member is doing by checking online.
Social media is one big source that can give you an advantage or disadvantage to having a relationship with your child.
Most adolescents and teenagers today use Facebook. Some adolescents and teenagers would say that they are addicted. Social networking is everywhere and can be accessed from just about anywhere, but when you have parents that are over protective you are quite limited to your sources.
For example parents today are very concerned for the lack of privacy these websites offer. Children as young as nine and younger are connected to the worldwide technology.
Most young adults today did not have that luxury children have today because parents were concerned about the things their children would get involved with.
With the use of internet and technology today, parents will monitor their children’s activity, and by doing so, the child really has no privacy. For this reason, the relationships between children and their parents diminishes significantly.
Social networking is a connection that just can’t be broken. It tends to draw people away from the real world. Many people focus on social media to distract them from their real life problems. Doing so it has caused people to care less for personal relationships with their friends and family, it is an outlet for people to leave the real world.
Social networking allows people to ignore their feelings, and obligations to the people around them. When people are without internet it makes them anxious about the updates and responses that are waiting for them to check.
Parents are becoming aware of many disadvantages of social networking sites including their effect on a child’s ability to concentrate. Constant online communication affects children making it difficult for them to communicate and concentrate when away from the screen.
It is important for parents to monitor their children’s online social interactions and place a time limit on how long they can spend on the computer. Social networking affects children to the extent that social networks sometimes encourage interpersonal relations that are unrealistic.
A child’s online interactions with people who could influence them in a negative manner may expose them to quite serious threats and potential dangers.
Sometimes a child’s online social interactions may not be appropriate. Hiding behind a screen gives them the opportunity to say anything. This freedom could result in fights or online bullying.
Overall social media seems to have a negative impact of families and their relationships with each other.
Social Media has managed to create a numerous amount of downfalls concerning the way human beings are choosing to live their lives.
For example, in today’s society, individuals have managed to become completely isolated from the world revolving around them. Instead of communicating the way we’ve grown up to communicate, we rely heavily on the internet.
Besides this fact is the trust aspect of what social media can cause within a home. At some point, parents start to lose trust in kids based on what they display on social networking sites, or things they reveal about themselves, that the parents had no idea about until “discovering” it online. Also, the kids too, start to lose trust in their parents because they feel as though their being ease dropped on, like they can’t get any privacy.
But people don’t realize, once you get involved with social media, you kind of lose out on privacy.
Lastly, adding on to the trust as well as the brief mention of communication, comes the way families talk to each other in general. Remember when parents and their children actually held a conversation? Face to face? At this point in time, that no longer exists.
Now when family members talk they most likely do so through a text, a wall post on Facebook, or a tweet on Twitter.
Not only this but, when there a problem, children no longer go to their parents for comfort or support, they’d much rather vent on a social media site. Since social media has managed to change the comfort ability individuals used to have when it came to sharing their emotions.
It’s been proven that the overall reason people choose to talk more through a networking site is because of their emotional invisibility, which otherwise means, their fear of people seeing or knowing exactly who they are or what they have to say, they make it easy on themselves by saying things in the electronic way.
It seems like because that is the “easier” way that the outcome would be good but instead, electronic interactions often end up worse because in today’s society: we meet other individuals online, we enjoy being apart of blogging sites, and were entertained by not really having to interact with the real world at all.
At this point, there is no way for individuals to live life normally; reality has been taken over by social media.

so,we blame the Tool then?

It is not about blaming a tool but discussing its impact as a whole.

I have noticed UFO sightings are down

This site classifies as social media.

OP, is your rant copied from your blog? If so, kinda funny that a rant about social media is on a blog....hell, and on this social media site lol.

And if the rant isnt from your blog, lets give credit where its due, shall we?

http://macleighob.wordpress.com/social-media-and-its-impact-on-families/

I second what Rebel says!!

gehan, your profile says you are married. Is it fair to say that your participation here might bring harm to your family?

I’d imagine it could....

I found it amuzing considering the rant.

So I have a question, what is your definition of Normal?
I ask because if you go by the Websters definition, then any person (age 5 to dead) in a first or second world country without a smart device of some sort is not normal. I myself an not "Normal" because I have what I like to call a dumb phone. All you can do on it is make phone calls and text and I don't feel I'm missing out on anything, in fact I feel my life is a lot less stressful without it. And before you ask I have had a smart phone (S6) because it was given to me by the company I worked for. Granted it's got some things that came in handy but over all I hated it.

For all of you out there that think a tech future is a great thing I have one word for you "Idiocracy" (Drops the mic and walks away)

Booom, nice catch Reb. Man that was pretty smart. I was woundering why it was so long winded.

so,,,it is a long piece especially without punctuation

but I think it is summed up with the same question that has been asked about most forms of art


does the art/media reflect the culture or does the culture mimic the art/media?


as age old as whether the egg or the chicken came first


I would have to say , in my observation, the media reflects the world, but it reflects it in disproportion, regurgitating much more of the negative than the positive

then the culure mimick the media as if it is representative of 'normal', giving media the power to also shape the culture

wasn't done in a vacuum and could be pointlessly debated until the end of time.

It's not like "families" (makeup, socioeconomic stratification, expectations, size, etc.) were some kind of static object that was just fine, functioned one single way until all of a sudden this big "social media" tsunami came and and changed it all.

I mean

So does suburbanization, allowing television to raise kids, not being directly reliant upon your neighbors to provide food and security, helicopter parenting, short term living in one community like kids moving to another city or state for college and somewhere else entirely for their career, or even religious indoctrination.

that's awesome

Social Media and its impact on families

For families that have family members living far away from each other, with some in other countries because they had emigrated, the social media and communications revolution has provided a way for them to keep in much closer contact than previously possible, which I believe is a good thing for families.

Yes. Technology created this condition. But it is our responsibility to use it in proper way. Nobody can escape for this. we have utilize
this on the basis of the difference between knowledge and wisdom when we are using this technology and its development.

well, before facebook, etc.. there was radio... people were glued to the radio,... then along came tv... same scenario. Instead of playing cards by candlelight, or reading by the light of the moon, these inventions allowed us a whole new view into what others were seeing/doing/..
Now we can interact, not just view.
IMHO, families need to set aside time away from social media and focus on the family union and dynamics; get to know each other..
aahhh, progress..

well said and i do agree on your point to focus on family union and dynamics..