Caught in the Scroll: The Hidden Dangers of Reel Consumption on Kids
In today’s world, digitization has become an integral part of our lives. Almost all services and products we use are connected to the internet and have some digital content attached to them.
Using a smartphone before going to bed is the most common thing for all people. Surprisingly majority of the content that we consume now is reels, shorts, and other small videos. I was surprised by the growth of reels and short videos on all social media platforms and even on professional platforms such as LinkedIn.
Do you ever wonder how this reel revolution is impacting you and your loved ones?
If I were to put down the impacts of reels on children, I can easily call out diminishing attention spans, risk of cyberbullying, negative self-image, sleep disturbances, social anxiety, etc., but what about the hidden dangers?
Let us look into some of the hidden dangers:
Diminishing Responsibilities
It is one thing that isn’t considered while noting the negative impacts of the reel because it is an indirect effect and happens over time. Secondly, there is no direct way to measure it so we tend to ignore it.
Reels take away our attention and not just children but even adults are caught up in reel culture. Just look around you, gyms are full of gym bros & sisters who are more interested in publicizing their physique than being serious about actual gains. Your Instagram feed is a testament to that.
It is not only in gyms but in schools, administrative offices, courts, offices, and even toilets. No institution is left out. Everyone is striving hard to create something new, something sensational to grab more eyeballs. As a result, you can find reels on almost every topic and institution.
For a child, it is quite harmful because they cannot decide if making a reel or focusing on the action is important. The rise of reel culture puts so much highlight on social influence that the actual action is left behind. People are more concerned about creating a short video of their actions rather than adding quality to the service itself. As a result, if any action doesn’t provide social influence then it is ranked lower in the hierarchy.
What about actions that are necessary and don’t give any short-term gratification? Would a child want to do that?
Growing Stupidity
Since there is too much content that gets generated, creators are creating anything that can garner more views. It is fueling nudity, bullying, scams, sensational content, and removing boundaries between personal and public content.
As a result, the people who consume it have also become stupid. A 30-second reel saying you need a credit card to level up your credit scores doesn’t directly convey all the negatives and issues that one may face in owning a credit card.
Something similar is happening with exercise, food, and education. A lot of unvetted content gets published and produced every day. It is fake, unchecked, and very harmful to the audience. If the audience is children then it is even more harmful because they don’t know about the impacts of their actions.
A reel showing someone taking revenge on a bully by throwing a hot coffee on their face doesn’t convey that such an act would be criminal and won’t make you a good person. There are other means to deal with a bully and those means are accepted in a civilized society, the throwing of coffee isn’t one of them.
A lot of content on reels and shorts promotes violence, outbursts, racism, nudity, and cyberbullying.
We have a saying in Hinduism, that ideas become thoughts and the thoughts then become actions. When you see stupid content, your awareness shifts to that stupidity and eventually makes you engage in stupid actions
Losing sense of priorities
Let us go back to my opening statement. The most common thing about humans nowadays is the use of a smartphone before going to bed. Isn’t that alarming? While you could have done anything such as read a book, educate yourself about current affairs, interact with your family for a closer connection, or perhaps focus on your idea to create a business out of it, you are engaging in reels of “running of the bulls” and feeling that adrenaline rush and dopamine release. After successfully wasting 20 minutes on it, you engage in something else and keep doing it every day.
We are losing an entire generation to this technological revolution. People aren’t serious about their goals anymore and it is promoting mediocrity. Oblivious to how reels take away the time, focus, and energy of youth, people are losing the best times of their productive lives.
Missing Connect with Family
For the children aged 1–2 years, who are only absorbing everything and not yet able to make decisions, what would they learn if they were watching their parents elder siblings, and family members engaging in reels?
Just last week I read the news of a mother who was upset about the school because they called her during her only fans session. That’s the peak of stupidity. One can engage in any form of work but losing the basic sense that one works for their family and uplifting of society takes away the soul of work.
It is not limited to that mother but also applies to all of us. A lot of parents, caretakers, teachers, and family members ignore children and focus on their gadgets. They miss the games, and physical activity that these growing kids yearn for. Then these kids also get involved in smartphones and gadgets. In the end, you see thousands of kids unable to express themselves, unfit, unaware, and lost in digital content.
Then there are health hazards
Declining attention spans
Constant exposure to short, fast-paced content like reels can contribute to a decline in children’s attention spans, making it harder for them to focus on tasks that require sustained concentration.
That too when most concentration is the only mantra for success. If one cannot focus on their goal for a long enough time, then they are destined to fail in their lives.
Oddly, we are creating millions of such individuals. The children who are losing their attention span to reels won’t ever know the feeling of completing a book reading in one week because you were content and focused.
This phenomenon of declining attention span has been observed in several studies, such as research published in the journal Computers & Education (2018) by L. Nikken and J. Jansz.
Negative Self Image
It is not a hidden but known danger. Social media life is the ideal life. No one shows their bad days and hard work. Only the good part is published to the audience and it creates a feeling of anxiety in the kids when they can’t achieve it.
Children who consume too much social media, reels, and shorts are unaware of reality and have unrealistic expectations. These things create a negative impact on self-image and lower their self-esteem
Probably there are a lot of other issues that you can think of but to me, these are not less. The big question now is, do you want the future of your kids reeling from reel consumption?
