JEDDAH: Existing research on the effects of children’s exposure to violence covers a broad range of community, family, and media violence. Psychologists confirms that videotaping children who are abused, ridiculed or suffer from violence is bound to have a negative effect on their psychology and social life.
Such films may lead to lack of confidence, fear and cowardice among children. They may lose self-confidence and become victims of fear and timid.
It will also affect their social relations and academic performance as they will lose concentration.
They feel that their privacy has been violated.
Psychologists say that such negative images engraved on the children mind and may cause ridicule from their friends which may not only distract them from their studies but negatively impact their ability to build relationships with peers.
Dr. Tarek Saeed of King Saud University said.” Some people resort to social media in order to make easy money and they post images and videos which they know will resonate with people’s emotions”.
He said. “I do believe it is not right to photograph our children in embarrassing moments, nor is it our right to post such images online. While children’s rights organizations have some manner of control over these things, we need to monitor the phenomenon closely through concerned agencies.”
Dr. Salma Bahshoun of King Abdul Aziz University said. “We have noticed lately that many children are bullied and abused almost daily, and scenes of this are brazenly posted on social media by their caretakers or parents, but this will surely lead to negative future psychological behavior in the children.”
She said.“We must treat and limit this phenomenon through legal regulations that protect the rights of children as well as providing means for children to file complaints.”
She also called for stricter laws and penalties for those who photograph and flim them, weather for financial reasons or anyother reason.
Wafaa Al-Saadi, a former employee at the Ministry of Social Affairs, said “violence could be psychological or physical”.
Educational adviser Hamdan Al-Oweidi said “ridiculing children or abusing them psychologically, as one too often sees on cell phone images, affects the children’s psyche, personality and confidence in an extremely negative way”.
He said. “Subjecting children to cynicism and ridicule makes them lose confidence and self-esteem, and thus they grow to make use of the same behavior with others. People who engage in such practices are harming themselves, their children and their society.”