Should Kids Be Allowed To Have Social Media?

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A continuing question of parents of tweens and teens (including mine) is ‘should my kids be allowed to have social media?’. The answer is yes. While there are some cons to social media, the pros are greater. There are many reasons why adolescents should have Social Media, including that it cheers them up, boots self-esteem, helps them make new friends, and it helps socially isolated people or shy people connect to others. Social media helps to boost teens and tweens’ self-esteem. One in five teens says that social media makes them feel more confident, compared to the four percent of teens who say it makes them feel less confident. Eileen Masio, a mom of two in New York, said that her daughter always gets positive feedback from others, like ‘you are so pretty’, and ‘you’re beautiful’ [1, 2, 6]. …show more content…

Shannon Kyle, a mother of a teenage girl, said that her daughter became friends with an Australian girl her age and they talked about the different ways of life. Over half (52%) of teens say that social media helps their relationships with friends, compared to the just four percent who have said it negatively affected their relationships. Some sources, including Social Media, Social Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives and the Pew Research Center's Teens, Technology and Friendships, say that social media helps to strengthen relationships with friends. You can have hundreds of friends on Facebook, even if they are not all friends on a daily basis. 72% of teens use social media to connect with friends, and 83% of those teens say that it strengthens their friendships. Socially isolated people or shy people can make new friends through social media. More than a quarter of teens say that social media make them feel less shy, and 28% report feeling more outgoing [1, 2, 3, 5, 6

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