Social media and children

We are in an era where communication continues at full speed. Despite this age of speed, it is quite difficult to keep up with the pace of the agenda in our beautiful country. Our agenda was intense again last week, and as you might guess, it consisted of our athletes' competitions in the Olympics, Yusuf Dikeç's charismatic shot, and the ban on accessing Instagram.

The ban on accessing Instagram has, of course, affected many people and variables, and as these lines are being written, it continues to affect many things. One of the things that made me think the most during this ban process was the situation of accounts sharing content about children on Instagram. Because, both due to my profession and being a mother, I was a close follower of content related to children, and the algorithm naturally directed me to this content.

There were some things that caught my attention and that I wanted to write about, both due to these recommendations and the influence of my social media universe. The first of these was the recent increase in the number of content related to children. In addition to the professional accounts I followed or that appeared in my explore feed, I was encountering a lot of posts about children even on ordinary accounts. While I thought this increase in frequency might be related to the summer vacation, I was a bit surprised and, frankly, did not believe it when my social media expert friends told me that the increase in the number of such posts was actually related to engagement and that such posts were increasing because of engagement.

However, the research I conducted proved my social media friends right, and I saw that content related to children indeed receives more engagement. Moreover, these interactions were not limited to professional accounts sharing content about children; even ordinary accounts with low follower counts would suddenly receive engagement when they shared content about children, and as they produced similar content, they would increase their engagement and turn into accounts with many followers over time. This situation, which initially seemed simple, fun, and perhaps harmless, was actually quite dangerous for children.

I was observing with sadness that in many accounts I followed, children were constantly being photographed or filmed by their parents or caregivers and were practically turning into a content bomb. Moreover, even when I attempted to make a well-intentioned comment to express that this frequency of sharing could create many dangers for children, I received negative reactions, and sometimes I was told that I was exaggerating the situation.

Although I laughed off these comments because I do not take reactions on social media very seriously, I was worried about the children who were turned into content bombs. Of course, I do not advocate for any ban, but as I write these lines, the possibility that social media children who have become content bombs might have been able to take a breath of relief, even if only for a few days, makes me feel good, and I hope that children will not be victimized for the sake of engagement in the future!