Last week, Cosmopolitan Magazine promoted a new Snapchat channel called “Cosmo After Dark,” essentially a pornographic channel.
After an uproar from parents nationwide, Snapchat has already decided to pull the pornographic channel.
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Matt Walsh, blogger, and contributor at The Daily Wire, took to Facebook live to discuss the problem with allowing your child to have Snapchat in the first place.
“Why do you think, when people decide they’re going to invent this tool where you can send and interact with photos and videos that delete themselves after a few seconds,” he said. “I mean, when most people see that feature on the internet what do you think they’re thinking? How are they going to use it?”
The clear implication is that people want to hide something, and of course the most obvious example of something to hide is some form of perversion.
“Of course it’s going to end up being a site that’s overrun by sexual content. It’s one of the primary points in the first place,” He added.
He then posed the question to parents, most likely ones who allow their teens unfettered access to the controversial app: “Why would, we as parents, allow our kids into that minefield?”
“It’s a tool for sexting, there’s no reason your kid should be on it,” he concluded.
Walsh then took it a step further, and said the problem is larger than just Snapchat alone, arguing that “nothing good can come from social media” at all. What some parents argue is the best part of social media, is actually the worst, he explained.
The constant connection social media allows children to have with their peers is viewed as a positive my many, but Walsh argues the opposite. He compares a cellphone to an umbilical chord, always keeping children attached to their friends and says that children are already spending most of the hours of the day with their peers, and they remain completely immersed in their peer culture even when they are not with them.
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“You have no time as a family without any of that stuff,” Walsh says in regards to social media.
He also makes a case for homeschooling children in order to take them away from the negative peer culture that they face in the public school system.
“This is really what lies at the root of suicide and depression epidemic among our kids,” he adds.
He points out that when you talk to an older person, about teenage suicide, they are incredibly confused because that rarely took place during their time. He argues that bullying still took place when they were growing up, but no one resorted to suicide.
“When those getting bullied left school, they went home. They went away from it, they went away from that environment. There was a break, this oasis of time that you weren’t subjected to the opinion of your peers,” Walsh points out.
He wrote:
Studies have consistently shown that all social media is detrimental to a child’s happiness and well being. The recent increases in depression and suicidal thoughts speak to this. Indeed, kids who spend more than three hours a day on these sites are twice as likely to develop mental health issues. And three hours a day is not a very high watermark for most kids. They are already spending nine hours a day staring at screens. It seems likely that at least a third of that time would be allotted to social media, which naturally breeds compulsion and is therefore extremely difficult for anyone, least of all kids, to self-regulate.
Walsh states that social media is at the base of the suicide and depression epidemic that is sweeping the country. He reiterates that bullying has always hap[ned, but children have never been this attached and affected by their peers.
Walsh states:
Children have always been mistreated by their peers. But they have not always been this attached to their peers. It used to be that a bullied child could go home and, at least there, find respite from the cruelty and mockery. Now, there is no respite. Our kids are always together, and therefore always reliant on each other’s approval and acceptance. Whether they are bullied or not, this is an unhealthy situation.
What should you do to protect your child from succumbing to suicidal feelings and depression? Walsh says to ditch social media altogether.
“A child wants to be on social media so he doesn’t “miss out.” But “missing out” is precisely what he needs most,” Walsh added, “He does not need more ways to connect with his friends. He is too connected already. He needs a break from his friends. He needs to have a life and an identity outside of them. He will not find that life on social media.”
Do you agree with Walsh? Is social media so detrimental that you shouldn’t allow your kids to use it?
You can watch the full video here:
https://www.facebook.com/MattWalshBlog/videos/1959084384124662/