Social networking these days is the most fascinating, time-consuming, and fun activity when it comes to the use of cell phones connected to cyberspace. The bombardment of technology in the shape of mobile phones in the current world has entirely changed the lifestyle of people worldwide. You don’t have to write a letter and wait until it’s reached its destination and then wait for the response of the person you have sent your letter.
Now, these days technology in the shape of social networking apps has provided such an unbelievable way to instant messaging to communicate with the person you want to. You can send and receive text messages, do chat conversations; audio and video conversations share media files like photos and videos, and send voice messages.
All these activities through social media may seem interesting, but it has a dark side too. In the current world, the young generation that is also known as Generation Z has become addicted and is obsessed with the use of social networking apps such as Facebook, Tinder, Line, Vine, Yahoo, Snapchat, and plenty of others alike.
According to Study: Social networking is not great for mental health
It is no secret any more social media is not great for the mental health of young girls and boys. However, studies have shown several times that it is more vulnerable to a girl as compared to young boys. According to a study addictiveness of young girls and boys to certain features of social messaging apps leads them to certain vulnerabilities such as poor psychological well-being in adolescence. Moreover, it is dramatically true that it’s stronger for girls than boys.
Study reveals that
Researchers from the University of Essex have collected the data of more than 10000 families in the U.K. from 2018 up to 2022. The children in the study were between the ages of 10 to 15 and mental health was assessed through a credible survey that measured happiness and well-being from the parts of their lives such as schools, peers, and other social and emotional challenges.
Results published in BMC Public Health
- Young Girls use social media more than boys do, and their mental health suffers a lot. The young girls with the age of 10 were found to spend 1 hour on the social networking apps on their smartphones connected to the internet.
- 7% of young boys under the age of 10 were found to spend less time compared to girls on social messaging apps.
- At the age of 15, the interest has grown and 43% of teens have found using instant messengers for a couple of hours every single day. However, 31% of young boys under the age of 15 have used social networking apps for at least one hour each day.
- Teens at the age of 10 have found health issues such as lack of happiness and also have emotional difficulties as compared to the young boys.
Social media has put teens at stake compared to boys
If we correlate the vulnerabilities of social networking with the above-mentioned study, we will easily come to the point that young teens’ online security is at stake compared to boys. The more teens spend time on social media using the cell phone the more they will have an encounter with the social media hazards and dangers as compared to the young boys.
Vulnerabilities for young girls and boys faced via social media
Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is a phenomenon that has captured social networking apps and none of the girls or young boys can say that have experienced bullying online. However, most young girls are the victims of online bullying because they are the ones who want to interact with the opposite gender and spend more time compared to young boys in the digital world. Bullying is everywhere such as in schools, and on the streets, and sometimes schools are horrible places to go for both girls and boys.
Cyberstalking
Stalkers are the ones who always chase young girls online and they are mostly adult or teenage boys and even older. They want friendships with teens online and after having a couple of meetings on social media they try to exchange contacts, and personal information and want to meet teens in real life. On the other hand, young boys usually become the victims of child abusers but in quiet few numbers.
Child abusers
Child abusers are the ones that usually chase young children especially young boys online. They visit the number of profiles online that lack security and then get their personal information such as school name, complete name, and home address, and then chase them in real life. Pedophilias are present in a large number of social media platforms.
Health Issues
Having stated above, young girls usually have health issues more than boys because they spend more time on social media platforms. Young girls usually get depression, anxiety, and plenty of others that can put teens health in danger.
What bad habits Girls and Boys got through the digital world?
Sexting
Young girls having an affair online with anyone often get involved in sexting and they spend several hours. Therefore, they put themselves in real trouble and often get teen’ health issues.
Self-Obscenity
Young girls are more likely to make short semi-nude videos compared to young boys and then post them on social media platforms. Reluctantly, young girls usually get themselves into trouble as compared to young boys and often get blackmailed by their intimate partners.
Teen’s sneaky texting codes
It is the habit that young girls are usually involved in more as compared to boys. They used different types of sneaky texting codes to tell their parents to send a hidden message to their friends or boyfriend online. Therefore, it is a real parenting challenge: sneaky texting codes of teens can put teens in real danger.
LH6 = let’s have sex
53x = secret way to type sex
POS = parents over a shoulder
MOS = mom over shoulder
IWSN = I want sex now
Social media trendy challenges
Social media challenges are on the rise such as the burn and scar challenge, the blue whale video game challenge, and plenty of others alike. It is reportedly stated that young teens are more likely to be involved in social media challenges because of their emotional level and often put themselves into trouble as compared to young boys.
How can parents prevent their girls from social media vulnerabilities?
All they just need to do is install the parental control software on their teen’s Android phones and they will be able to keep an eye on the activities to the fullest. Android parenting app enables parents to monitor the social media app activities of kids and teens on the target Android phones with IM’s social media. It enables a user to view IM logs such as text messages, text conversations, audio, and video conversations, shared media files such as photos and videos, and sent or received Voice messages. Parents can use live screen recording of the Android monitoring software and can do live screen recordings such as Facebook live screen recording, WhatsApp screen recording, Yahoo live screen recording, and all others alike. However, the user can do YouTube screen recording, SMS, and email screen recording.
Parents can prevent teens from all social media vulnerabilities with the help of a remote phone controller. They can stop the habit of sexting while teens have found sexting, they can block the internet if the girls are sending semi-nude photos and videos, and last but not the least to block the incoming calls of strangers. Parents can also view call logs on the Android phones of teens and get to know with whom young girls having a conversation.
Android monitoring app further allows parents to bug the Android phone of young girls and they can record the surround sounds and voices with the MIC bug app and can capture surround visuals when teens are having party night with their friends with a spyvidcam bug of the Android spy app. They can also remotely capture images of the surround with a camera bug app of the Android tracking software.
Moreover, they can view the Android browsing history such as visited websites and apps to the fullest. Parents can view the sneaky text messages with messages monitoring of the Android parental control software and can view iMessage, SMS, MMS, BBM chat messages, and heads-up ticker notifications. Parents can also track their young girls’ and boys’ location if they have not come into the home in a given time with a GPS location tracker.
They can track pinpoint location and can view the current and exact location along with the location history and get to know at what place they are present at the moment because over the years the trend of blind dating via social media affairs in young girls and boys is on the rise. So, they may be going to meet a stalker or pedophile, parents can protect them with the android parenting app.
Conclusion:
Young girls and boys both use social media on their smartphones and the teens that spend a few hours in social networking have an increased risk of depression compared to the boys who spend less. However, the CDC monitoring the rise in the rise of teen depression and cases of suicide among young girls as compared to boys. So, parenting has become an essential part of the digital world and parents just need to use the parenting software.