KZN Health MEC highlights social media's impact on children's mental health
KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane has issued a strong warning to parents about the dangerous impact social media is having on the mental health of young people, urging them to be more present in their children's digital lives.
Speaking during the Department's KZN Health Chat multimedia programme on Friday, Simelane made a heartfelt appeal for parents to pay attention to the content their children are consuming online and who they are interacting with.
'Our children become severely affected by social media,' said Simelane. 'You realise that, as parents, we take it for granted, thinking 'it's just a phone.' But you find cases where a child may take their own life… and everyone is left in shock, asking themselves why, and what happened? Were they depressed? Only to find that it's due to the pressure that they had put themselves under, based on what they see on social media.'
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