Did you know that today is Social Media Kindness Day? This day has been set up in honour of the late Love Island UK presenter Caroline Flack. Sadly, Caroline was reported to have suffered from online abuse and “trolling” which contributed to her state of mind and subsequent death. Today reminds us of the importance of social media kindness. You too can raise awareness by posting an image of social media with a heart on it.
However, for our supply teaching staff, we have summarised here some points about social media and how it may affect your pupils.
Children and teenagers may experience the following:
- Bullying via social platform.
- Pressure to send nude photographs of themselves.
- Unrealistic stories about other people lives.
- Rumour spreading.
- Increased peer pressure.
- Unwanted images sent to them of violence or of a sexual nature.
- Idealised images of people that are not realistic (the perfect body etc. but really, they have used filters)
- Inadequacy due to people only posting ‘good’ stories about themselves.
- Increased materialism and the need to have more.
- Reduced feelings of contentment and satisfaction.
To read about teaching pupils media literacy, please click here. Media literacy is the understanding of information via radio, film, tv, gaming, influencers, and especially social media. As it’s so heavily used by so many young people we have a 10 point guide to teach pupils media literacy.