Saturday 9 May 2015

Instagram and self esteem

Well, today was interesting.

I went onto Instagram and decided to check out what your average teenager is doing on Instagram. I saw things that I didn't want to, but I guess its a reality check thing. I saw a lot of photos of young people cutting. A lot of self hate. A lot of body image issues. A lot of social anxiety. A lot of depression. A lot of attention seeking. And all that from starting with #anxiety. Just google (images) "self harm instagram" and you will understand what I mean.

I think we need to make social media a tool for positive self esteem, self loving, etc.

I'm going to critique the cybersmart PD that we did here. I think there wasn't enough emphasis on how to teach students to be positive in their Internet use. I just want to clarify here. By positive I mean, not not negative. (Ok that sentence got away from me a bit). not negative is ignoring the positive. Just being positive and teaching students how to use social media in peace might be a step in the right direction.

Just for some information. Youth beyond blue  is a handy website with information about self harm in particular.

No comments:

Post a Comment