What effect is social media having on our children?

Social media is a big part of our world. It’s a great way for families all over the world to stay in touch with one another, but at what age should children be given access to social media?

Just to clarify social media to me are platforms such as You Tube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. I read an article not long ago about children who are addicted to their iPads. Children as young as four were seriously addicted to playing games and watching videos on these devices.

Our twins are nearly five years old, and they do play on our phones and the iPad. They’re only given them in the evenings for at most an hour, and I always monitor what they’re watching/accessing. We have a number of apps downloaded such as pony puzzles, Cbeebies and You Tube Kids.

I think the educational apps are great. The Jolly Phonics app is a favourite of mine!

However, one of the things that I find most infuriating is the content of the videos deemed acceptable to be viewed by children of this age.

As I write this post, M is currently sat next to me watching a video of a girl who is wearing a long blonde wig pretending to be Rapunzel. I guess the girl in the video is around 15 years old, and I do wonder whether her parents are aware of the kind of message she’s giving out to young girls with the content of her videos.

She starts out by saying that she’s Rapunzel and that she’s trapped in a tower. She wants to leave the tower, but her mum won’t let her. She returns to her room with a mobile phone and raves about how wonderful the phone is, and she talks about what apps are on it. Firstly, I feel this is kind of pressure on kids to have phones is ridiculous. My girls asked me when they could have their own phones. They’re four!

Anyway, what happens next was the part that most annoyed me.

Another child took the role of the ‘Royal Hairdresser’ and she proceeded to cut the girls long blonde wig until it was pretty short. Rapunzel then gets upset and says that a prince won’t love her now as princes only like girls with long hair.

What kind of message is this giving to our children? More importantly to our girls?

That boys will only like you if you look a certain way and therefore that they should conform to this look in order to ‘get a boy’?

Also, what message is this giving out to boys about the way in which girls look?

I think is so wrong! I’m almost tempted to start making my own videos aimed at children just so that I can break down these barriers!

I think that toys such as the DC Superhero Girls are great and a definite step in the right direction towards showing young girls that they too can be strong and powerful, not just boys. I haven’t seen the TV show so I can’t comment on that though, but I do like the DC Superhero Girl dolls, although I wish they had more realistic body shapes, like the Barbie fashionista dolls who come in curvy, original, tall and petite.

There are so many things which annoy me about the generation that our children are growing up in. I’m already a campaigner for ‘gender free toys’. The fact that boys can’t play with pink toys or that girls can’t play with tractors or cars annoys me, but when these big manufacturers create their adverts which are so directed towards girls playing with dolls and pink toys, against boys playing with cars and blue things, it just makes me feel angry!

I’d love to hear what you think!