Nghe An students seek solutions to create a safe environment on social networks

The dark side of social media abuse

"Hot trend" is a popular trend that is popular and attracts many people, including students. Besides the positive effects, the appearance and spread of "hot trends" have created many consequences, leaving many unpredictable consequences, especially when many students after learning "hot trends" tend to "follow" but do not have enough knowledge to distinguish right from wrong.

Forum of Dien Thap Secondary School students and hot trend issues among students. Photo: MH.

Researching hot trends, a group of students including Pham Quynh Giao and Ho Thi Khanh Huyen from Dien Thap Secondary School (Dien Chau) have collected statistics and discovered: There are nearly 10 languages ​​on social networks that are commonly used by students such as "con cai lieu", "toang", "u la troi"... Besides, there are quite dangerous hot trends that many students are following such as the trend of "scare children on social networks" - a harmless joke, but this trend can easily affect children's psychology, "blue whale challenge" is known as "the game of death" if not followed as required, it can affect you and your family.

Or recently, among young people, the trend of vaping, also known as "electronic cigarettes", "heated tobacco" is spreading, considered a "trendy" trend. Notably, the age group using this type of electronic cigarette is very young, mainly junior high school and high school students.

Through distributing survey forms to over 1,400 students at many schools in Dien Chau district, this group of students also realized that there were many interesting figures because over 70% of students used hot trends as a trend but in reality, students did not fully understand its harmful effects.

Talking about this, student Ho Thi Khanh Huyen - hot trend research group of Dien Thap Secondary School (Dien Chau) said: There are both positive and negative hot trends, and there are also many harmless hot trends, but if you "follow the trend" without selection, it will lead to competition, wasting money and time. On the other hand, because currently the rate of students using smartphones is quite high. Therefore, using hot trends and using social networks regularly will make students waste a lot of time, greatly affecting their studies, losing the purity of Vietnamese, negatively affecting school communication and the risk of exposure to unhealthy challenges.

Information on social networks, if not verified, can be dangerous for students. Photo: MH

Social networks and the development of technology and smartphones are greatly affecting school-age students. That is also the reason why the impacts of social networks in many different forms are the topics chosen by many students to participate in the Science and Technology competition for high school students. With the topic Researching the current situation and proposing solutions for safe and effective use of TikTok network for high school students in Cua Lo town by two students Mai Tu Anh and Truong Thi Thuy Nhi - Cua Lo High School, they made a very thoughtful statement: Currently, many students can spend 1 - 3 hours using social networks, but up to 85% use it for entertainment.

Meanwhile, watching any videos on social networks, including unverified videos, has negatively affected speech and other worrying behaviors such as following challenges, dangerous games... greatly affecting health. Through a survey of nearly 1,000 students from Cua Lo High School, Cua Lo 2 High School and the Continuing Education Center, up to 31.3% of students chose the result of having experienced online violence and sexual assault when using and watching videos on social networks and 43.6% of students were followed by TikTok. This also shows that students mainly choose content based on trends and entertainment without caring about the reliability of the videos and lacking skills when using them.

Building a healthy and safe network environment

With just a smartphone and an Internet connection, all student activities inside and outside of school can be easily recorded and shared online. Of these, beautiful and meaningful images can be spread. On the contrary, bad and offensive images can also be easily shared on social networks and cause many negative reactions. The recent fight between female students on social networks in some schools is a clear example.

Organize healthy playgrounds to help students not depend too much on social networks. In the photo: Sports competition of students of Cua Lo High School. Photo: NTCC

Improper use of social networks has negatively impacted students' psychology, emotions, and thoughts, leading to considerable pressure at school age. Student Nguyen Vu Truc Chi - Doi Cung Secondary School (Vinh City) once admitted that she "was once a victim of bullying throughsocial network”. Faced with this huge pressure, Truc Chi chose to stay silent and stay away from all information on the internet and no longer use social networks for personal use. Sharing more about this, Truc Chi said: I feel that the pressure from social networks is very large and greatly affects my studies. Meanwhile, how to behave appropriately is a limitation for us students. Fortunately, in my case, I was supported by my mother and given useful advice, not to confront but to look at the situation calmly and tolerantly.

How to behave with social networks in a healthy and safe way is also an issue that many young people, teachers and schools are concerned about.

Currently, 100% of students in our school use smartphones. We cannot prohibit them from using social networks. Therefore, the current solution is that we must guide them on how to use social networks appropriately. At our school, students have organized a program to guide high school students on how to use the social network TikTok through seminars.

In addition, build and distribute a handbook on safe and effective internet usage, build a communication corner on internet usage instructions on the student safety bulletin board. In particular, the school organizes a Tiktok contest with the school and students will create their own good and meaningful clips to share to spread beautiful images and beautiful stories.

Teacher Dang Cong Huan - Vice Principal of Cua Lo High School

Access to the Internet and social networks in Vietnam is very convenient. Photo: Document

In order to raise students’ awareness of the issue of using hot trends and overcoming the unreasonable use of social networks, Dien Thap Secondary School (Dien Chau) organized a forum for students in the school to share their thoughts on this issue. From there, solutions were also proposed to deal with unhealthy trends entering schools. Instead of letting students follow bad phenomena on social networks, the school regularly launches presentation and letter writing competitions for loved ones.

Teacher Le Xuan Loi - Principal of the school shared: After a period of implementing the contests, we have noticed positive changes in students. Directing them to many collective, school and class activities helps them gradually limit their use of social networks and enrich their school life, moving towards a more positive lifestyle.

In order to build a healthy and safe educational environment, since 2021, the Department of Education and Training has planned to strengthen management and political and ideological education for students in the online environment. Thereby, it has required schools to strengthen management and political and ideological education for students in the online environment to improve their capacity and skills in exploiting and using information in the online environment, ensuring it is healthy and useful. Minimize the impact of harmful and incorrect information on the online environment on students.

The Department also requires 100% of schools and educational institutions to organize propaganda, education, and guidance for students to exploit and use the network environment in accordance with regulations, serving research, study, and healthy entertainment. 100% of schools must build a team of cadres and teachers to manage and provide political education to students on the network environment.