Children and Social Media Usage: Malaysian Initial Perspective

The rapid growth of the Web has given birth to a heavily emphasized user-generated content platform such as Facebook. As a result, more and more users are utilizing such platforms to share their ideas and opinions to a wider audience. Young children who represents the new generation are also relying on this platform for many of their needs. Our research which was conducted among Malaysian children has found that such reliance is quite evident as well. As this need increases, the exposure to issues such as cyberbullying also increases. A survey was conducted among children from 9 to 12 years old in order to identify such reliance. The objective of this study is to identify the existing level of social media usages among Malaysian children. From the initial results, media sharing and social networking has become the most popular sites among the children. This indicates that further exploration into the usage trends among children as social media platforms becomes more utilized by the younger generation.