Facebook, Twitter and other social media Web sites are adding to the increasing stress level of young children.That's what founder of Project Happiness, Randy Taran, believes.Taran and members of her team are in T&T for training workshops and to hold discussions as Project Happiness is set to be integrated into the school curriculum next month.She was speaking to the media yesterday at the Ministry of Education, St Clair, to discuss her programme, which seeks to educate children on emotional resilience and happiness.
"There are increasing stresses on young people today and this is global. There are stresses to get into the right schools and a lot of competition... economic stress on families that ripple into student life and their ability to focus," Taran said.She added technology was also a contributor to stress among young people."Students are inundated with technology, Facebook, Twitter and other social media Web sites," she said, and while those sites connected people to each other, she felt they also caused a disconnect.
She added: "It scatters their attention and we are seeing that their ability to focus is compromised."Another thing is that there is a pressure on social media to present the perfect face of the perfect life."They have to show themselves looking good at the best places with friends and so on and that's a lot of pressure for young people to appear a certain way and it focuses on external goals and external appearances rather than the inner life and what might be meaningful."
Taran said little respect was given to developing meaningful pursuits or the inner life of a child."We need to switch that around. We need to make it cool to be kind and cool to help in your community," she added.