So 2020 this still seems to be an issue. Parents are blaming another social media platform Tiktok now for high suicides and violence. Here’s a thing, maybe if you actually paid attention to what your kids are doing, you wouldn’t blame the first thing you don’t understand.
It’s been done before. Parents also blamed videos games for making children violent. I played Need For Speed a lot when I was kid , you don’t see me doing drag races at night looking to become number 1 on the most wanted list. I don’t….because our infrastructure is terrible.
I’ve watched ER, House and many many Greys Anatomy episodes. Do you see me operating on people?….and do they live to talk about it ? No. I understand the concern though, there are some crazy challenges out there. But in my opinion if they have a good head on their shoulder and you did your job as a parent , you would have nothing to worry about.
And out of all the challenges they could create, suicidal and violent ones? I mean, if I was a single teenager and I had the influence to create a challenge to make a lot people do what I wanted, do you really think I would waste time coming up with one to let people kill themselves? But that’s just me.
I’m not saying it’s impossible , I’m just saying it’s manageable. But these thoughts don’t come out of nowhere. I believe it was already there and just piling up. And yes it’s hard sometimes to recognize the signs. But we should try to pay attention.
And parents, if you want a sure fire way to make your kids stop using something, use it too. You don’t always have to go to the police. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Facebook. It was al hip and cool (we still use those words right?) when it came out and everyone was on it. But guess what, we got older and kids are keeping off of it! Why? Because their parents are on it. There are numbers that support this…. somewhere.
After Facebook, Twitter, there was Instagram , Vine on Twitter , Snapchat , all of the social media sites which was considered the place to go where your parents aren’t. It seems everyone wants an escape without worrying what others (especially adults) might think. Don’t worry, TikTok will become that place too.
Although I’ve seen a few adults doing TikTok challenges and the number of videos I’m seeing is only increasing. Some are funny, others are pure cringe. But hey, as long as you’re not hurting anyone (except your reputation of course ) , it doesn’t bother me.
Facebook is still the go to social media platform in Suriname and I don’t see it going anywhere soon. So try to be at least a source of good. Same goes for TikTok. And if you can have fun and make people smile, all the more power to you.
But if you need help and have suicidal thoughts , call 118 (in Suriname).
