Social Media Impact

I’m more concerned with the impact it all has on younger uninformed minds tbh such as 8 to 16 year olds.

I always wonder if the people touting themselves as "influencers" actually use the products/philosophies their pushing on a daily basis in their everyday life?

I can't honestly believe that Gwyneth Paltrow has faith in some of the Wellness tat she advertises.

Oreo

I’m more concerned with the impact it all has on younger uninformed minds tbh such as 8 to 16 year olds.

Well, that’s strictly parental responsibility now the new laws have been passed.

I understand your concerns, but these age groups can be protected and monitored at home and at school.

Those who are far more likely to be “influenced” and even “radicalised” are likely to be the older ones, who in turn then have access to all kinds of other things generally unavailable to younger people.

I completely understand people of the age group you mention can be groomed by sexual predators. However, sadly, particularly sexual grooming, is far more prevalent face-to-face and likely to be people these poor children already know, including family members.

Margs

I always wonder if the people touting themselves as "influencers" actually use the products/philosophies their pushing on a daily basis in their everyday life?

I can't honestly believe that Gwyneth Paltrow has faith in some of the Wellness tat she advertises.

Pretty sure she doesn’t.

But is far more than just endorsing a product I’m concerned about.

I’m more concerned about the use of AI on social media, spreading so Michael misinformation, tweaking and creating images that are not representative of the real person in the real situation they purport to show as factual - or openly a cruel attempt at humour, with no pretence that it is accurate. It’s not only young minds that may believe what they read as factually correct, we need only to compare right- and left-wing reporting in national media.

So far you can easily tell what pictures are AI I m sure there will be a time you won’t but for now most of the posts using AI are very obvious

The solution is to teach children to be critical of what they see and to be capable of deconstructing social media ads and understand what they are trying to do.

I reckon, I period a term from junior school up and one period every week of one term at 13,

It is no different to what most of us did with our own children when they were small, when watching tv adverts. Looking at them, talking about them and asking what the purpose of the adverts were and how they did it.

Social media is on an infinitely large scale and more complex, but the skills needed are still essentially the same and would not be time consuming to teach in school and could be subsumed into other lessons