Negative Effects Of Digital Media On Children

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (2016), today’s children are growing-up being too much exposed in digital media in all forms, including television, social media or Internet, and so on. Media can influence how children learn, think, feel, and behave. Overuse of digital media can place children in risk of negative effects such as obesity, sleep problems, poor school performance, risky behaviors, and cyberbullying. In relation to Santhosh (2016), young minds are moldable, and media can mold the way a child thinks and behaves. They cannot recognize what is good and bad. Medias, especially the Internet, has no control on its scope of information. Websites that have graphic, harmful or obscene content may affect the thinking process

Social media, particularly Facebook, tend children who use it more often to become narcissistic, antisocial, and aggressive. It can also impact their learning since media can be distracting. In accordance with Clarke-Pearson & O’Keeffe (2011), digital media can be used to communicate false, embarrassing, or malicious information about another person. Cyberbullying is a quite common online risk and can occur to any young person online. It can cause a child to experience psychosocial outcome, including severe isolation that may lead to suicide. There are also medias that display multiple advertisements such as banner ads, demographic-based ads, and behavioral ads, that influence not only the buying tendencies of children but also their perspectives of what is normal. Many of them are not aware that they are individually targeted because there are sites that track their Web-browsing behaviors and

They may unknowingly store the scene their brains and try to make sense of what they have seen. Exposure to sexually explicit materials may shape a child’s sexual values, beliefs, and behaviors, and his or her expectations in relationships. It may also increase a child’s social acceptance of high-risk behavior and may prevent a child’s healthy sexual development. As per Tumbokon (2015), television can also have bad effects on children and may inhibit them from being smart. Children who watch a lot of television programs tend to work less on their homework and retain less skill and information when there is a television on the background. Also, they have trouble paying attention to teachers because they are used to the fast-paced visual stimulation they see on television. Kids who watch more than they talk have difficulty in adjusting from visual learners to aural learners - learning by listening. When they don’t have adequate sleep because of television, they become less alert during the day that results in poor school performance, and they may have shorter attention spans. Like social media, television can also promote negative behavior to