Shy kids can use media to talk
By: Cole Wojtasik and Bethanie GIbson
Pros
Pros:
- Let's shy students get out and talk to the world.
- Let's shy student make friends.
- Helps shy people get over social anxiety.
Evidence
- They can avoid awkwardness that is epidemic to making friends by allowing them to gain familiarity with others and build friendships online.
- Studies have shown that more time spent with social media is related to increased virtual empathy,"meaning that expressed through technology, they show compassion.
- The best predictor of virtual empathy was the time spent on Facebook and the use of instant messaging.
- More of both types of empathy means more social support, always a good thing for children.
- Introverted young people can gain comfort and confidence in social interactions in several ways.
- Shy children can use social media to overcome what is perhaps their most difficult challenge, namely, initiating new relationships in a low risk environment.
- Introverted children can also practice social skills with the relative distance and safety afforded by social media.
Reasons our evidence supports our claim.
- The more friends you make, the less likely you are to be shy.
- Shy students can become more social, because if they are very compassionate online, they can be really compassionate offline. Because in order to be compassionate offline, you actually have to talk.
- Some shy students have gotten over their social anxiety via Facebook and instant messaging, meaning any type of social media is helpful to shy students.
- If you gain more empathy on and offline, you can have the potential to be friends with everyone you meet.
- If they gain comfort and confidence in social interactions online, they can gain the comfort and confidence offline to talk to try to make new friends.
- This supports our claim because if shy people can go on social media to overcome their most difficult challenge, they do it a school or where ever.
- If you get practice, you get confidence and feel more confident to do what ever you are practicing for, in this instance, social skills.