Does social media affect children?

Moin, I wonder what all the social media does for the long-term effects on children. As e.g. The children who now grow up from 8+ with mobile phones and all the apps like Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat etc.

Since there's constant competition for likes, followers, etc. That can't be good at such a young age, can it?

There was already a documentary on Netflix about how much social media have already changed life for the worse (film: The dilemma with social media)

What do you think about that?

I also saw the documentary.

I think it's terrible that children grow up with something like this. Starting with the ideals of beauty. Insta models process their pictures so well that you can hardly see them. Big bottom, narrow waist, big breasts. Men definitely need to have a six-pack and perfectly fitting hair. Impurities don't go at all. When I compare my 12 year olds back then with today's 12 year olds, I can hardly believe it. I'm 21 now and some 14 year olds look older than me. We never had this compulsion to get as many likes as possible on a number of platforms as children.

I think in summary you can say that we still had a childhood, the new generations somehow lost them as a result.

When young children see this perfect life of influencers, it is by no means good. As a result, there's a constant striving to be "perfect", but the children can't directly recognize that it is not real. Unfortunately, I also let myself be influenced later, which led to low self-confidence. Whatever it is to be on social media at a young age doesn't work out well.

I find it terrifying how much you define yourself by how many likes you get. I once had an intern who was devastated because she only had three likes on a picture, just thinking about how she can get more and that she hardly dares to go to school with so few likes. That was so ridiculous.

A friend even killed herself because she couldn't stand not being perfect.