Adverse Effect of Vlogging on Children
We depend on our smartphones for work, school, our personal and social lives.
When was the last time you left home without your phone and kept on going? The internet has
become a significant part of our daily lives. So too has social media and it is having an impact
on today’s children. As we all love watching or performing pranks, making fun content, making
informative content for education purpose, experimenting new things and filming our daily
lives. But what if it reaches its level to extreme do we concern about it how will it affect our
lives after lots of views? Let’s see, in this article we will be discussing about some incidents.
Many parents love documenting their children’s milestones and antics on social
media but experts say the quest for the perfect post can surmount common sense, sometimes
to the detriment of kids. Several high-profile family vloggers have recently exemplified how
easily this can happen: Few months back, Jordan Cheyenne, a California-based creator with
more than 500,000 YouTube subscribers, issued an apology after she accidentally uploaded a
clip of herself coaching her 9-year-old son to cry over the family dog’s health diagnosis. “Act
like you’re crying,” Cheyenne instructed the already-distressed boy who said, “Mom, I’m
actually seriously crying”. “Let them see your mouth…” she replied. “…Look at the camera”.
The clip went viral with social media users branding it “disturbing” and
“disgusting” — descriptors Cheyenne didn’t exactly deny in a response on Today. “I want
people to know that I’ve deleted my channel,” she said. “People think I deactivated my channel,
but I deleted it. I have no sponsors, no pay, no monetization. I’ve given up all of that to be
behind the scenes and extremely present with my child and get us both into counselling”.
Cheyenne is not the only parent influencer to make headlines. In 2017, Heather
and Mike Martin of Maryland, who ran the YouTube channels DaddyOFive and
MommyOFive, apologized for “making poor parenting decisions” by pulling extreme pranks
on their five children that sometimes resulted in hysterical tears. The channel featured them
with five of their children Jake, Ryan, Cody, Alex and Emma. The family was basically known
for the pranks that the parents pulled off on their children, especially their youngest son, Cody.
After the channel started growing, the parents took extreme steps to gain more views and
subscribers and started uploading videos of them physically and mentally abusing their
children.
In one of their videos Michael is seen spraying disappearing ink on the floor of
his son Cody’s bedroom before scolding and literally shouting at him for his misbehaviour and
conduct, to a point that Cody breaks down and starts crying. After making him cry, Michael
reveals it was all a prank and that the ink was a disappearing one. Cody’s statement after the
prank “You made me go through all of this just for a stupid prank” hints at how emotionally
hurt and traumatized he was after the prank. The family mostly targeted the younger kids,
Emma and Cody and broadcasted their miserable conditions after the pranks and abuse in front
of thousands of people, on YouTube. In another video the dad asks Jake and Ryan to steal
Emma’s favourite toys and asks the boys to beat Emma and Cody with the toys. Michael films
them for about 8 minutes without helping the kids or asking his elder kids to stop beating them.
Emma locks herself in the bathroom and comes out only after the father yells at her telling her
how her room has been destroyed. She talks about killing herself in the same video.
Emma: “I am freaking tired of this house. I wish I could die.”
Dad: “what?”
Emma: “I want to kill myself. You guys are making everything horrible for me” The video had
about 902k views.
There is so much positive family content on the internet and social media is an
excellent tool to connect parents by offering support and resources. But engaging children in
such a public manner poses a risk to their privacy and emotional development. Still, the desire
to create click-worthy and monetized content can sometimes push parents with popular
YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok accounts to make decisions, the impact of which might not be
realized, even by those with the best intentions. “Children learn their value and morals through
observing ‘influential others’ in their life”. “This is referred to as ‘social’ or ‘observational’
learning. A teacher demonstrates a particular construct and the learner mimics behaviours
related to the construct.” In other words, a child being coached to “perform” for a video through
their emotions may get the message that their real-life feelings don’t matter.
Another concern with the family vlogging trend is security. “The very nature of
vlogging allow the public to view everyday interactions means little-to-no privacy and can
expose families to inherent risks of stalking, physical harm, and even identity theft”.
“Recognizing risk needs to be a significant consideration when exposing one’s physical life to
the digital world.”
Finally, it’s important that parents let their children know they are included in content posted
to social media, show them the final product before posting — and respect their wishes if they
have objections.