Tips for learning how to use social networks in an educational manner

With the explosion of social networks at the beginning of the 21st century, media such as television are gradually becoming obsolete. Communication is moving towards a much more diversified and personalised model in which the internet user has a wide variety of options for information and entertainment.

Here, education plays a major role. Children and teenagers are accessing devices earlier and earlier. According to a recent study (Raising the smartphone generation), 70% of children receive a mobile phone before the age of 9. At such a delicate age, when cognitive and emotional development is in full swing, how can we control the harmful use of social media?

A wise man once said 'if you can't beat your enemy, join him'. It is not foreseeable that the incursion in to social networking will diminish, especially amongst the younger population. For this reason, at Coruña British International School we would like to give you some ideas on how to make the most of social networks in education.

Get the algorithm on your side

Nowadays, the fine artificial intelligence that regulates these networks provides us with exactly what we are looking for. But we can take advantage of this algorithm in an intelligent way so that it provides our children with mostly educational content.

Not everything that is exposed on the network is bad. Teach your children to use the network correctly from the beginning: follow with them didactic, interesting and educational pages, or hashtags about curiosities, facts and information. This way, even if your child is also consuming entertainment videos, they will be taking advantage of the time they are using them to learn.

Use social networks with them

The next tip goes hand in hand with the previous one. Teaching children to use social networks correctly means that parents and educators spend quality time with their children consuming this type of content. Establishing parental controls to limit the type of content that children can access is essential, although this does not mean always monitoring everything they consume. Respecting their space and privacy from time to time will gain their trust.

Set a good example

The best way to educate is to set a good example. Up to a certain age, children tend to copy the behaviour of the adults they look up to. Therefore, if we want children to use the networks in a moderate and responsible way, we are the first ones to have to do so: limit their use to certain times of the day and do not contaminate other activities with the use of the phone, for example, at lunchtime or during a family walk. Every activity has its time.