In our society, social media has become the most frequent pastime for children. Social media has given children the opportunity to have instant social interactions with numerous people from all parts of the world. As technology improves and changes within the social media sites, it is important to note the possible negative effects of social media usage as a child. One of those potential effects in children could demonstrate as underdeveloped social skills. As human begins social skills are vital for everyday interactions with family, friends, professionals, etc. Although social media does have certain benefits, it is essential to understand its harmful consequences if children do not have the basic building blocks of communication skills. For this reason, parents should limit their children’s use of social media during mealtime to ensure that their children develop adequate social skills.

Children do not have an understanding of what social skills are nor when to use them. Richards found (2018), “ Meal time is an opportunity for your children learn what types of communication are appropriate at certain times”. This initial contact about communication can help lead the pathway for developing appropriate verbal and non-verbal social skills. Corroborating this, Lawson (2003) stated that parents do play a serious role in teaching their children about social skills. Also, that having the parent play a direct role through playtime, mealtime, and modeling the social skills then the children can practice their new skills. Parents will have to encourage the children to use those social skills during other social interactions.

Social interaction through social media has become the primary way for people to communicate with one another. In previous generation people took the opportunity to communicate with people through face-to-face interactions. Since the recent changes in technology through social media people find instant communication to be ideal (Gapsiso & Wilson, 2015). According to Sampathiro (2016), “In the last two decades, advances in information technologies have substantially altered the way humans interact between email, texting, social networking, instant messaging, and Skype, people now have the resources that would make them possible to spend days or months without coming into face-to-face with another person, yet still remain connected with the world” (Sampathiro, p. 57). Although this kind of instant communication has been incorporated into individual lives at younger and younger age since the changes of technology. As a result of introducing social media to younger children impairs their abilities to develop the basic social skills that they would normally gather during face-to-face interactions early on.

Zelsdorf found (2014) that, “ Social skills involve a collection of verbal communication techniques and non-verbal actions or activities (e.g. listening, greeting others, conversing, etc.) used to interact and connect with others (Dereli, 2009; Samanci, 2010)” (Zelsdorf, p. 2-3). The development of social skills does not come instantly to children, which requires them to learn and practice from face-to-face interactions. With continued social interactions it will enhance the child’s ability to develop those necessary building blocks for communication and lead that child to be a knowledgeable adult. Social skills will be required of any adult to interact with others during their professional life and daily interactions with people. For example, a study states that employers are not pleased with the low interpersonal communication skills when applying for that job, which creates a need for this requirement (Sampathirao, 2016).

As in many studies, the use of social media has created a space that offers communication with other people that they normally would not interact with and create an opportunity for people to feel connected to one another along with discovering other people with common interests (Wheeldon, n.d.). According to Zelsdorf (2014) noted that, “ Social media as a key communication mediator has the potential to enhanced individual well-being by improving social support, increasing the probability of having fulfilling relationships, reinforcing commitments to social norms (e.g., social skills), and generating an enhance sense of meaning and connectedness is life (Seepersad, 2004)”.

Although social media has brought about many benefits for communication, parents should limit their children on social media during social interactions to help enforce the necessary building blocks for social skills. Most often, parents will have to make a drastic change about social media usage during mealtime and implement new rules. A solution for the parents is to have all members of the family place their cell phones and/or any other messaging applications in the other room before mealtime. This will eliminate the possibility of someone looking at their phone during mealtime and create an opportunity for social interactions. Initially this will be difficult to start if the members of the family are no longer children and/or the children are unwilling to cooperate.

If parents opposed this solution of removing the cell phone or other messaging application from the mealtime location than the parents could have everyone turn off their cell phones and place them in the center of the table. Another solution could be that all members sit at the table before starting mealtime and answer the message then process to turn the cell phones off. The final solution for the parents only is to download an application that controls every member of the family phone so you can manually turn off their ability to use any form of social media or texting. These three other solutions could beneficial for individual members of the family that will not take part in the group rule about mealtime social interaction.

Although the initial solution gives each member of the family the control over their own cell phone and/or messaging application. This solution allows for opportunity to communicate that they are completing their message and placing the phone in the other room for mealtime. Also, this includes the parents removing their devices from the situation and modeling what is an appropriate social skill for mealtime. By demonstrating this small gesture in front of children will help educate what is appropriate during future social interactions with family, friends, professionals, and etc.

Social media is a significant part of all stages of life but children are the ones being hindered most from its usage at an early age. Excessive amount of time on social media as children will limit their ability to grow on their social skills. Social interaction among children is key to helping create those beginning blocks for communication and promoting success for them in the future. As parents also play an important role in this journey to ensure that their children access all the necessary opportunities they can provide during modeling.

If parents do not take the time to model the appropriate social skills to show the importance of the development communication skills to their children, then the cycle will continue of poor social skills. The importance of social skills need to be developed from the beginning with children at times such as mealtime, which demonstrate to the children how important connecting during those times is. Also, the children will clearly see their parents interact with one another through their life so that will help build those necessary social skills as well. It is very important that parents play an active role with helping their children develop good communication skills.

As the technology world continues to grow and developing we need to understand the importance of connecting through face-to-face interaction. It proves endless opportunities to have the ability to use social skills in all stages of life. Although there are benefits of having technology, the issues of less communication should be a concern for all individuals. Since technology will continue to grow into more homes, school, and other facilities it should remind an important factor to parents, teachers, and others that communication skills should be taught to young children from the beginning.

Social media can be an area for individuals to express their personal thoughts, feelings, and explore the world through others. Social media allows for individuals to communicate, share information, advertise, and the options are endless of its abilities. In the most recent years social media has become a daily use for many individuals. It has become available and acceptable for all individuals to use daily. As I grew as an individual in this society, I realized that my inappropriate posting needed to be addressed especially for my future employment purposes.

In the beginning of my social media adventure I began with MySpace in 2008. This account is no longer available since I took it down many years ago. MySpace was a social media account that I used to express my feelings about my adoption in 2009. This website allowed for users to post background images and play music on the users profile. The images and music that I chose to post were emotional since this was a sensitive point in my life. Later in that year Facebook had become the most popular use of social media among my age group.

In the last months of 2009 I decided to switch over to using Facebook instead of MySpace since my peers were encouraging everyone to use this form of social media instead. In the beginning I was unfamiliar with this form of social media, which lead my account not to be active for some time. The start of Facebook much different then it is today but as the years went on the site became more user friendly. As years went by Facebook developed and grew into the modern day user-friendly site that it is today. Once I got a better of understanding of this platform I decided to explore this outlet from the basic profile to the information that you can share with friends and family.

When I was around 15 years old the idea of uploading pictures onto Facebook was very popular along with editing them. The images that were posted on Facebook were not photos of myself that I would want to represent my current self. Although, these photos do show how I have grown over the years to become the person I am today. These photos demonstrate how different I dress, look, and presented myself from my past to the present. Also, the captions I would use for the photos have changes along with the photos that I post over the years.

As of today I use several platforms of social media that include Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Time Hop, and Twitter. The main use of my social media is through Facebook. In the beginning, my use of Facebook was to express my emotions about my family, friends, and romantic relationships through posting dramatic comments. The type of vocabulary that was used to express those emotions was inappropriate and disrespectful to those reading it. At this time in my life I was unaware of the damage that can be done by social media posting and the reflection of what you post upon yourself.

In relations to my social media identity and my academic identity are complete opposite of each other with small similarities. There are similarities such as growth and developing a new pathway for my future. My academic pathway has started out as something I did not know if I actually wanted to in regards to early childhood education but with time I figured out my calling in the social work department at Longwood University. Over the years knowledge through education has grown into a new pathway for my future in social work. Through photos on social media it can show the many different locations that I have gone through to help build the new pathway that I am currently on.

The differences of my social media identity and academic identity are substantial. My view on education has always been important and social media did not become important until I used it to see how family members are doing. My academic identity has always been professional since I was an ambassador for my first college. That shaped my academic identity into a professional manner unlike my social media accounts.

These similarities and differences between my social media and academic identity have affected my life in both positive and negative ways. In a positive manner the experience has allowed for growth in my use of social media and remain professional in my academic identity. As the images and post come up through the app Time Hop I realized how negatively these items were and how that was being presented to my family and friends. These posts and images have created issues with friends and family members that ended relationships. My future civic and professional identity will benefit from these positive and negative experiences that I have had through social media.

My life could be described as a rollercoaster. I am someone who has grown up in the foster care system for most of my life. My name is Averie Smith and I consider myself as a Survivor.

I am a Senior at Longwood University in the Social work department. As of now I am currently involved within the Social work community as the secretary for Federation of Students Social Workers and Phi Alpha Honor Society. Also, I am a member of the National Honor Society of Leadership and Success. I transferred to Longwood during my second year of College from Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach.

Throughout my experience in the foster care system I was most curious about the amount of children that suffer from the hands of others. As a child, I did not understand why people could allow for children to get hurt or worse from adults that has no business having children.

When I first applied to Longwood University I went into the field of Special Education with a minor in Sign Language. Previously I worked at a private academy preschool with children that have special needs. I was interested in learning more about this area since I had noticed that this field of work needed more people. But once I got into the major I realized that it was not something I could not complete. My roommate at the time told me about her major in Social work along with the materials. At that moment I discovered a new found love for an area that I knew a great deal about.

As a child growing up in the foster care system I did not know all of the pieces that fit together in order to take care of a child. During the time before I was adopted my files of my whole life had been lost. As a result of this situation my aunt and uncle were contacted about information on my history, which lead to my adoption.  Since my field of study is Social Work I have learned how online information can be more beneficial than paper materials. As a result of this knowledge I have been able to locate much of the lost information about my history growing up in the system and much more.