Swear words and exhibitionist culture on social media threaten children

Child Development and Family Counselor Expert Yonca Yiğit drew attention to the negative emotional and behavioral effects on children of the swearing language and exhibitionism culture normalized for the sake of popularity in the digital world.

The advancement of digital technology and social media usage dropping down to younger age groups leads to serious changes in children's behavioral attitudes. Emphasizing that evaluating children's social media usage solely through the time spent in front of the screen is a major misconception, Yonca Yiğit stated that the actual issue to be examined is what children imitate in the digital world, which behaviors they begin to accept as normal, and which emotional needs they try to fulfill.

Stating that trends spreading on popular platforms with millions of users such as Instagram and TikTok deeply affect not only children's clothing, dancing, or ways of speaking, but also the communication they establish with each other and their understanding of boundaries, Yiğit noted that heavy rhetoric has turned into a means of communication among children. She conveyed that heavy insults used among children to exist in a peer group are increasingly normalized, and this situation is the most prominent indicator of cyberbullying shifting from the digital space to real life.

Pointing out that the need to be accepted, feel a sense of belonging, and not be excluded by peer groups during childhood and adolescence is of vital importance, Yiğit emphasized that children can give up their own values just to be included in a group. Stating that the popularity of a behavior does not make it innocent, the counselor expressed that when children see their friends using heavy insults or drawing attention with sexually suggestive trends, they begin to imitate the same behaviors.

Yonca Yiğit stated that repeated negative behaviors approved by the environment blunt children's mechanism of questioning right and wrong, and instead of thinking that the behavior they perform might be wrong, the child begins to believe it is normal because it is accepted by their friends. Touching upon the psychological dangers brought by the process, Yiğit noted that the real major danger is not that a child does a wrong behavior once, but that they begin to see that behavior as normal and necessary for the sake of being accepted.