How TikTok ruins the magic of Christmas for Spanish children

Children and the Internet is a topic that has been written about numerous times, highlighting the dangers it poses to education, trust, protection, and respect for minors. We are well aware that content designed by and for adults often contains a high number of prejudices due to its explicit images and inappropriate treatment when viewed from a child's perspective. Social media is not exempt from these issues and has become one of the most damaging distribution channels.

Stories and reels, mainly from Instagram and Tiktok, have become capsules where everyone can freely express their opinions. And it is in this freedom of expression where the first of the problems that minors face lies. Parents from all over the world, who allow their young children to explore social networks, now complain that their little ones are discovering secrets that they may not should know. In this way, many have suddenly been left without the magic of Christmas.

Regarding this, Imma Marín, a pedagogue and president of Marinva, a consulting firm specialized in education and communication through play, comments that visualizing content is inappropriate for children, as they “should not be on TikTok, or watching what their parents do with gifts, or watching pornography, or watching anything at all.” She is very emphatic about this, noting that the 14 years that many networks consider suitable for use are insufficient.

“We consider that at seven years old, they can't go out alone to buy bread, but instead we leave them alone with a cell phone in hand,” laments Marín, denouncing a serious inconsistency that often occurs due to a lack of awareness of the danger.

This exposure to the screen, which makes endless material available to any child, is the sole cause of many minors assuming inappropriate information and content for their age, advancing their knowledge several years beyond what was usual.

These days, when many adults talk about the difficulty of finding gifts, or simply narrate how their children were losing their Christmas innocence, this type of content can be viewed with all kinds of consequences for children. In the past, schoolmates - usually older ones - were the ones who used to reveal or, at least, question the existence of certain magical characters. Now, it is the parents themselves who, due to their posts, recount in great detail who “pays the party.”

However, the dangers do not end here with the magic of Christmas. Children are exposed to other risks “because a child's brain does not fully mature until the age of 25, so the harm done to them is extremely high,” explains Marín. The consumption of certain audiovisual productions leads to high levels of excitement that result in nervousness, crying, lack of control, and other behaviors that lead to poor conduct in children. And it is precisely because, for this consultant, everything is meticulously studied to satisfy our craving for dopamine. “The algorithm behind any social network is designed to keep you engaged; it is based on Skinner's behaviorist studies, where I give you a reward that is also random and you don't know when it will arrive,” explains the expert.

Regarding this, the person in charge at Marinva believes that children grow up so quickly due to the fast pace of life we lead. “It seems like we live so rushed that we want children to grow up faster, as if childhood were a measles that should pass quickly,” the educator denounces, while lamenting that all studies indicate that “play is being abandoned at increasingly younger ages.” In this sense, “if a child fully experiences their childhood, we could say they will be a better teenager, and if that teenager lives their adolescence as such, they will become a more mature adult,” Imma Marín asserts, while adding that “we must allow each stage to unfold in the best possible way and let children be children for as long as possible.”

So following this maxim, let's be cautious and use the right words and arguments to keep the little ones away from screens. Only then will they be safer from the threats that await them on the Internet.