The world that children are growing up in today is vastly different to the world a decade ago, and today’s youth are facing more stress anxiety than ever before. The jump in technology over the past few years has been “so much so fast” that children in this generation are facing far greater stress levels than the previous generation, and this difference between generations has never occurred before, ever. Generally, there is a more gradual change, but because technology has made a huge leap, one of the results is more stress for children.
For younger kids, symptoms of stress develop mainly because of their dependence on media, like video and television. Almost all kids nowadays are exposed to a lot of moving images in the form of movies and television shows, and this has helped make children very dependent on fast moving images to the point where regular life just seems slow and boring. This perception of reality has increased the stress level that kids face when having to deal with situations like school and extra-curricular activities.
As children get older their stress anxiety tends to come from the overuse of different electronic gadgets. Often they become isolated within their electronic world, and then they struggle to function in socially acceptable ways in real interactions. Even kids in elementary school now have cell phones and gaming devices that they carry around with them everywhere they go. These items present a problem when the devices are not available for students when they want them, therefore causing their level of stress to greatly increase.
This type of stress anxiety increases a great deal when children reach their teen years, where surviving in high school means being connected through social network sites like Facebook and Myspace. Different circles of popularity have always existed in school, but now that social networks can connect everyone, there is a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety for teenagers to be in the right crowd or risk being ostracized by an entire school, or even beyond that.
The best thing that we can do for children who are experiencing stress anxiety, as a result of technology changing their world, is to recognize the source of the problem and set up appropriate boundaries. It is best if these boundaries are set in place early on, so that kids grow up with minimal exposure to movies and television, and they are monitored when using handheld electronic devices to prevent overuse. If this happens, then these kids will be far more likely to feel less stress when dealing with social networks when they are older.