Poverty and Social Media: The Solution
Bullying in schools has always been an issue. Middle school especially is when bullying becomes incredibly problematic. It’s an awkward time with many changes occurring for everyone. In today’s age, those problems are even worse in the days of phones and social media. Kids are given devices younger and younger, and while in the moment parents may think it’s a good idea to distract them so they can have a break from the stresses of adulting, children become reliant on phones and social media when they reach middle and high school without knowing how to behave online.
Oftentimes, children are born into unfortunate situations that they cannot control. Poverty is one of those situations. Kids who are born into families with parents who do not make much money are more likely to spend time on devices, phones, or computers than those who come from a middle or higher class family.
This isn’t the fault of the poor. It’s the fault of many of the politicians in our government. Many families are living paycheck to paycheck, just getting by. People simply are not paid enough. Many parents work more than one job just to provide the necessities for their children. Republican lawmakers to this day still believe that the minimum wage is perfectly fine with where it is at. The Democratic party is the only party that votes time and time again to keep the minimum wage at a livable amount so that all Americans can thrive without worry of being able to provide for their families. The Better Deal has many Democrats pushing to increase the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour, and they continue to cosponsor the legislation to make this a reality. If the republican party is the party of “Americans first,” then why do they continuously vote against raising the minimum wage, especially during the time of skyrocketing prices and inflation? It certainly doesn’t seem like an America first agenda.
How does this relate to overuse of social media and cyberbullying? A device or tablet is an easy distraction, not even just for those who are lower class, but because parenting is difficult. Giving children a device allows them to be occupied with something while they get a break from all the stresses of adulting.
If the minimum wage was raised, parents would have more time to spend with their families because they would not have to work more than one job, spend less time stressing about where more income would be coming from, and not have to worry about when their child would eat next By having that extra time with nights and weekends off, that is less time that a child has to be with a stranger babysitting them and more time with their parents to go out to the park, go to dinner, and just all around spend quality time together.
Studies have showed that increasing income would be more valuable to children in low income families as well as younger children, leading to less behavioral problems as well because then children have more time to be parented and not just stay on those devices that they then become reliant on as they get older and social media is mixed into the picture, feeding into their already addictive behaviors.
Once social media becomes prominent in children’s lives, and they already have been using devices for extensive amounts of time, especially with parents who aren’t around much, they may be more inclined to misbehave online to others or not sure how to respond to being cyberbullied.
Many early adolescents between the ages of 11-14 note having experienced cyber- bullying. 95% of adolescents, age 13-17 in the United States note having access to a smartphone, with almost half using online platforms (Snapchat, Instagram, etc.) many times a day. In today’s day and age, this makes sense. When everyone has something that you don’t, you feel out of the loop or left out. When parents see that their children are struggling with making friends, they feel sympathetic, potentially making them go against their better judgement and cave into buying a phone or tablet earlier than anticipated, which is yet another reason why cyberbullying starts so early.
By implementing cyberbullying prevention programs into our schools as early as elementary school, making sure that all students are knowledgeable of the effects of social media and too much time online, and states beginning to take action when it comes to the age that children are allowed on social media, we can begin to lower our country’s mental health crisis among young adults and hopefully create much happier and healthier generations of children for years to come. Our government can also begin to act by raising the minimum wage so that all parents, including lower class parents who work multiple jobs, have more time to spend with their families and children instead of just resorting to devices.
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