Negative Impacts of Social Media

 

As the father of 14 and 12 year old girls, I have concerns over them using social media.  As it stands, neither of them has Facebook, twitter, or Tik Tok.  My kids go to a very highly rated middle school, and I like to think they are safe and secure every day, but they are not.  Middle schoolers are easily influenced and some of the Tik Tok trends are detrimental to their futures.  Early in the school year there was a trend that challenged students to steal stall doors from the bathrooms.  To complete the latest challenge, kids stole bathroom doors and were soon suspended from school.  Only a few years ago, there were kids being hospitalized and dying from the Tide Pod challenge.  In my opinion, none of this is worth a few minutes of internet or middle school fame. 

Ezra Klein’s opinion article in The New York Times titled “Tik Tok May Be More Dangerous Than It Looks” focuses on the danger of censorship and weaponization of social media through algorithms, propaganda, and government control.  He focuses on the fact that Tik Tok is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance and the fact that Tik Tok’s algorithm isn’t disclosed which could potentially lead to the platform pushing an agenda.  The Chinese government has strong-armed businesses in the past if they don’t abide by the government’s wishes.  The most recent example is Jack Ma of Alibaba.  For me, it is important that users take the news regardless of the source with a grain of salt and consider all facts prior to forming an opinion.  All companies have an agenda.  An example I use is that Fox News and MSNBC could be covering the same news story but through different lenses.  It’s important for all of us to know our blind spots and be conscious of their impact on our lives.

References:

Klein, E. (2022, May 8). Tik Tok may be more dangerous than it looks. The New York Times. Retrieved May 10, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/08/opinion/tiktok-twitter-china-bytedance.html