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Dangers of Social Media and Guide to Prevent Them

Obviously, technology nowadays surrounds children, especially during this COVID-19 outbreak. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Tiktok and more have already played a significant role in their lives. Social media on its own is not dangerous; it is the manner where children use that can be the prime issue.


For a responsible parent, it is far from enough to just realize the negative impacts of social media. We should definitely take steps to stop them. In this article, we’ve compiled a couple of dangers of social media. More importantly, a detailed guide is introduced here to help parents prevent them.

Part 1: Dangers of Social Media

1. Affect Health

The biggest concern of addiction to social media is that it will lead to health problems both in physicality and mentality for kids. For example, it will interfere with sleep, effect eye sight, increase anxiety and depression, prevent children from getting outside and have real-life interactions. Spending too much time on social media can be harmful in developing brains, personalities and physical development as well. Besides, sedentary activity can be a risk of overweight.

2. Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a bullying act with the help of digital mediums or communication tools. Examples of it include posting hurtful images, making online threats, and sending hurtful emails or texts. Children’s identity and self-esteem are very fragile during early adolescence which makes them so vulnerable to cyberbullying. What’s more, it is clearly a serious issue for people to kill themselves in today’s society.

3. Invasion of Privacy

You must have this feeling that some of the ads on the sites you visit seem to be a perfect match to your interests and that’s the privacy violation ---- the dark side of social media. Sometimes, kids will unwittingly post their private information which will be utilized by people with an ulterior motive.

4. Sexual Content

Adult contents and pornography are available on various social media platforms and teenagers may unknowingly stumble upon it.

5. Economic Loss

It is quite easy for adults to see through deceptive marketing tactics or bogus posts, but children may fall into this trap and hard to get out which sometimes results in economic loss for them.

Part 2: Guide to Prevent Them

We should absolutely do something to protect children from social media. Encouraging kids to be engaged in outdoor activities and making screen time a privilege are tried and tested tactics. You can always resort to parental control apps like PanSpy or FamiKit to assist you.

1. Encourage Outdoor Activities

Encourage kids to be involved in outdoor activities like ball sports or hang out with friends so as to reduce their screen time.

2. Make Screen Time a Privilege

Establish family rules and make it clear that screen time is a privilege that needs to be earned. This could be hard at the very beginning, but it will eventually benefit children.

3. Use Parental Control App

If you find family rules or precepts make no sense for children and they still stay on social media, it’s time to use parental control apps to figure out their app activities and set time restrictions on their devices. There are parental control apps like PanSpy and FamiKit which enable parents to view kids' app activities and limit screen time. Here I would like to demonstrate how to set up parental control with PanSpy which is specialized in tracking social apps like WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, Kik, Facebook, Skype, WeChat and more. Parents can use this app to know what their kids share on these social platforms and block app use. Moreover, it enables you to set key words alert and time restrictions. Just follow the steps below to get it done with 3 simple steps.

How to Use PanSpy?

Step 1: Create a PanSpy Account

Visit PanSpy Official Website to create an account. Just tap on Sign UP button on the top right, enter your authentic email address instead of target one’s and make a password of it. After a while, you’ll receive a confirmation link in your email box. Once you activate it, you can follow the setup wizard to finish setup procedures.

Create PanSpy Account

Step 2: Install PanSpy App on Kid’s Device

Go to kid’s device and then enter panspy.me on browser to install PanSpy app on it. Then login your account which you previously registered with to authorize PanSpy to access data on monitored device according to instructions given on screen. Finally you are able to decide to keep the app icon or not. If you have any problems during the set-up, you can simply refer to this page.

Note: There is no need to root target device.

Step 3: Start Tracking and Setting Restrictions

After install PanSpy app on target device with permissions required fully authorized, just go back to PanSpy console panel(both available for desktop and mobile) to start tracking, setting key words alert or time restrictions as well as blocking the app use.

spy phone calls without knowing

Video Tutorial

Summary

Above we listed the main dangers of social media with guides to prevent them included. If you are looking for parental control apps to figure out kids' phone usage or limit their screen time, PanSpy or FamiKit are good choices.

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Reminders: All apps or tools introduced in this article shall be for legal use only. Please follow the Terms & Use and End User License Agreement (EULA) before trying any of them. Any consequences of improper use should be borne by users.