Social Networking Is Not Safe for Children

Social networking is ubiquitous in today's culture; even elementary school children operate blogs and join social networking sites such as Facebook. Millions of children place highly personal information on these sites, and spend hours a day interacting with people on social networking sites. While it is true that social networking can sometimes have a positive impact on children's growth and personal development, the time spent on the Internet in relation to social networking is often excessive and impedes children's development in myriad ways; this paper identifies negative effects of social marketing, manifesting in self-esteem problems, children with disabilities, and problems in education.

Social networking often has deleterious effects on children's self-esteem. Facebook, for example, can make children feel as though they have hundreds of "friends." This can create an over-reliance on attention from others, and make it so that children lose the ability...
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