Southeast Missouri State Psychology Professor Discusses the Importance of Time Management on Social Media Platforms
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – Local law enforcement agencies say they are noticing people posting things that can get them in trouble on social media. Just this week Scott City police made an arrest after a social media post surfaced on Facebook the post included an individual with a gun.
Chirs Griggs told Fox 23 about how they used Social Media to help find the person who posted the image of the firearm. “That particular situation, social media kind of alerted us to that throughout the investigation. At that time you know our officers were taking, a common sense approach to that.”
Chief Griggs is warning people about their content posted to their social media platforms and says how it can all be traced back to you.
“Just be careful of what you’re putting out there again it is an open book if I can see any of that, you know in a lot of times law enforcement get tips because of activities and social media”
Monitoring screen time can be beneficial when it comes to watching what you post. Shawn Guiling is a licensed psychologist and an assistant professor at Southeast Missouri State University, he says there is major importance in finding the right balance to screen time.
As the presence of screens, technology and social media continue to become more prevalent in today’s society it is important to take a step back and evaluate screen time for not only yourself but your loved ones.
Shawn Guiling is a licensed psychologist and an assistant professor at SEMO and he told Fox23 about the importance of finding the right balance of beneficial screen time for kids of all ages
” If you have a teen who wants to use social media and you’re not sure how to had a monitor that working with other families on how they would monitor that and then have a sort of a universal plan so it’s like the whole neighborhood is handling social media certain way, or limiting the amount of time or having a certain time so that the students aren’t feeling Like they’re missing out compared to their friends.”
Guiling went on to encourage the idea of matching the same amount of screen time for educational purposes as opposed to social media purposes for younger kids. Encouraging this idea because he says there’s a correlation between time spent on social media and the levels of anxiety a person experiences.
“As much screen time used as educational purposes versus just social because there is plenty of research that suggest that the more people spend online social media and not just teens that anxiety raises that the depression can be further further exacerbated in younger children deficits in socialization deficits in using their language to express themselves because the social media of doing that for them.”
In terms of how long a child should be allowed on different devices, Guiling talks about how it varies based on the age range of the child. “But limiting it to the average that was reported was like 3 1/2 hours a day so certainly limiting it more. I think the American pediatric Association had talked about no more than really 18 months certainly not before 18 months and certainly like no more than an hour by up to age 5, but that’s even different from what the surgeon is currently talking about which is waiting till middle school which seems gonna be very difficult for a lot of families.”
Guiling also talked about how time spent on social media can cause people to become less empathetic towards others saying, “there’s also this idea that spending time online can reduce empathy for others because you become desensitized, and that would obviously depend on the content.” Guiling then said “but some of the content that is under fire and under discussion that lowers mental health also makes you less likely to think about others and how things are experienced and how their experiencing things so it certainly can be an important contributor to mental health issues. “
Guiling capped off by saying that one of the best ways to incorporate a limit on social media use is by allowing your child access to the platforms in 15 minute intervals each hour.
” Intervals so so some of the research talks about instead of this long period of sort of absorbing social media have a 15 minute chunk each hour or spread out through the day. I’m just modeling healthy usage. The idea that if you’re always on the phone or always using your social media then how can you expect him not to Being aware of their social and emotional state so that you can see if there’s if there’s need for intervention that they’re getting sucked into some some feeling or depression.”
