Social media has changed the way that people view the world, especially your children. You can visually travel to every corner of the earth after scrolling through social media for 10 minutes and even be struck with desires to go places you’ve never even heard of off a simple picture or video post. Let’s face it, after all that time spent on social media, your children probably know more about hotspot destinations and traveling the world than you do. The emergence of platforms such as Instagram and YouTube have created a travel explosion that previous generations never had the pleasure or privilege of experiencing. With so much so fast, in such a sudden large surge, is the combination of youth, social media, and travel a good thing or bad thing?
Let’s start with the good news first. What’s something we’re always preaching? DREAM BIG. Being exposed to a multitude of different countries, cities, and cultures a day opens your children’s mind to a world beyond their everyday lives. Social media has a unique ability to showcase an abundance of content in a matter of minutes. Travel content often stresses on dream destinations and experiences, which gives your child the ability to visualize a dream and strive for it as a long-term goal. The process of striving for such a long-term goal is special because our children don’t always get the opportunity to set large goals at such a young age. This goal requires lots of planning and commitment to make traveling to a destination for an experience a reality. It is this exact learning process of setting a long-term goal and realizing the steps that need to be taken to achieve that goal that makes travel content on social media so beneficial for youth. Dreaming beyond the world that your child lives everyday is important, and travel content allows them to do exactly that.
Onto the bad news. Hard to imagine there could be any negatives after realizing all of the benefits that your children could experience through perusing travel content on their phones. Even though travel is much cheaper than it used to be, the exposure to such luxurious travel destinations and experiences and the creation of such large travel goals, it can become a budget-busting ordeal. More often than not, social media influencers are attempting to create a brand of themselves that showcases experiences of wealth and luxury. The reality that reaching those unrealistic goals may not always be possible can be discouraging and downright unfair at times.
It comes down to perspective. There are a ton of benefits to youth using social media to explore travel curiosities and expand their minds to get a better understanding of all the world has to offer. Like much of the stuff that you and your children see on the internet and social media, you should take it with a grain of salt. Don’t believe everything you see and make sure you’re realistic about taking things to heart. Happy travel browsing, keep dreaming big!
