Keep Your Children off Reels
Danger lurks.
It took a few years, but I have finally started watching Facebook/Instagram Reels. While some videos I’ve seen are funny and others show amazing stunts, some videos pose a serious danger that can only be seen when opening the comments.
It all started with watching videos of a little boy doing amazing dives off large dirt piles into a river. This is something I loved doing as a child. I spent most of my time as a child swimming and playing with other children and we often did stunt dives into water. From me watching this, my reels became filled with similar videos. I’d often show them to my son and tell him I’d done a similar dive as a child. My son has been working on his dives at a local pool (much more sanitary btw) and him seeing other children completing them is encouraging.
I found one boy who spoke very fluent English in his videos and was going to see if I could let my son talk with him under my supervision. When I went to the comments though, it made me fear for the little boy’s safety. Most of the comments were heart emojis or comments stating that he was cute. Being that he was a kid and it is common to say a kid is cute in a perfectly innocent way and the hearts could have meant they loved what he was doing, I originally didn’t think anything of it.
