Social media has become a significant part of youth’s lives. Their day starts by checking their phones for new likes and comments and ends with checking out the posts of their friends, celebrities, and role models. Social media is also serving as a marketing platform for many new-age businesses and startups.
Its extensive use among the youth is becoming a subject of concern for psychologists, researchers, and mental health experts. Too much use of social media is reflected by the signs of aggressive behavior, anxiety, sleeping disorders, feeling of isolation, and suicidal thoughts.
In recent times, it has also become a site where a lot of cyber crimes and cyberbullying take place on a day-to-day basis.
Spread of hate speech
Hate speech is one of the main issues mushrooming on social media platforms. The primary reason is that the perpetrator can do it anonymously which makes it very difficult to find the real identity of the person and take action against it accordingly. Although, these platforms provide an option for reporting the person can anytime come back with a new profile.
Young people who become the target of hateful comments tend to develop self-esteem issues. The youth on social media looks for external validation and when they do not get a positive response, it tends to give rise to self-worth issues.
Social media is not a safe space, especially for children and teenagers, and can adversely affect their behavior and mental health from very early on in their life. Young people are most of the time unaware of how to react to this negativity and start taking these attacks on their identity, gender, and appearance personally and letting it affect them resulting in low self-worth This negativity can of suicidal thoughts.
Parents should have control and check on their kids profile regularly to make sure they aren’t experiencing hate speech and should immediately report the person if something like that is taking place.
Use of social media in cybercrimes
Social media platforms are extensively used to propagate cybercrime. The availability of personal information of people makes it easier for criminals to get access to a lot of data. The trend of fake profiles or phishing is widespread on social media platforms.
Personal information of the user is used to cultivate these fake profiles. Young people feel that they can be themselves on these online platforms and tend to put personal or sensitive information out in public.
Reportedly, 5 million cyber crimes are taking place every year. The youth is being exposed to criminal activities cyberbullying and immoral behavior dailyhey are not personally experiencing it, they might get exposed to it through someone else’s profile.
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A lot of use of social media and it contribution to people and their businesses but the downsides are becoming very severe too. The youth should be aware above to react to hate speech or bullying that they face on social media. They should know to take action immediately against the person perpetuating it. High privacy and security have be maintained to not become a victim of these criminal activities. Young people should not put out too much personal or sensitive information in public.
There are many laws against cybercrime and cyberbullying but young people have to learn how to use some to take action against these crimes to make social media a relatively safer space.
Conclusion
Everything comes with its pros and cause but people have to learn how to use the tools wisely to make their life easier. The youth is becoming a key to all these bad vices and are being exposed to toxicity on daily. Parents should avoid letting their children create social media profiles from a very young age as children are the most vulnerable to such hate. Using social media in a way such that it keeps people connected to their friends and family but at the same time it does not affect their mental health or disturb peace of their mind. This criminal activity speech is not avoidable but precautionary steps can be taken to lessen the possibility.
