EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS: FREE FROM THE SHACKLES OF OVERCOMING SOCIAL MEDIA DISTRACTIONS

Abstract

Social media has become an inseparable part of the lives of teenagers as well as children during their growth period. The habit of playing online games and diving into the world of social media makes this generation, especially Gen Z and Alpha, too complacent in their comfort zone in using social media excessively. This of course becomes a new problem in the world of teenagers and children, especially in my discussion this time in their education. Excessive use of social media can interfere with their learning process and social development. My discussion this time aims to identify effective educational strategies to overcome social media interference in teenagers. Through literature review and interviews with students, teachers and parents as reinforcement in contributing to solving this problem, this study found that the lack of awareness of the negative impacts of social media, lack of skills in time management, difficulty focusing while in the learning process or when doing simple tasks in everyday life, for example children and adolescents are too used to holding their gadgets in any situation, when they eat, travel, even to go to the bathroom, children and adolescents are too dependent on their gadgets, as if they lose direction and have no purpose in doing activities if they do not touch to simply inspect their gadgets, social pressure is the main factor that causes disruption to the daily lives of children and adolescents. Based on these findings, in this case I propose an educational model that combines project-based learning, digital skills training, and parental support. This model is expected to help adolescents develop healthy social media usage habits and improve their academic performance. Therefore, awareness is needed from each individual.