Widespread across the internet, a debate about social media asks an important question: at what age should children be allowed to have social media? Although ultimately decisions about online usage are up to the parents, not all children mature at the same rate.
When joining social media, most platforms require you to be 13 years old to make an account. This includes Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and more, but when you scroll through the app you can tell that this age limit does not hold true.
Some children get social media at an extremely young age. A senior at Nipmuc Regional High School says “I got my first phone at six and my first social media account at eight years old. It affected me negatively, I was exposed to bad things, and it made me think differently due to the things I was watching. I grew up faster than I wanted to.”
Today, pre-teens are striving to grow up too fast. On TikTok, a simple search will bring you to hundreds of children under the age of 13 who are trying retinol for the first time or dressing in more mature clothing due to the older teen/adult content they are constantly viewing daily. The skewed, “perfect” image of social media can hurt youths.
This alone should be eye-opening. If older teens (almost adults) are quietly being affected by social media, then younger children are presumably experiencing the same thing. During this time, adolescents are going through developmental changes and it is their key time for growth. When they are consistently shown unrealistic standards, they start to crumble under the pressure of wanting to be “perfect” like the people they see behind a screen.
Scrolling for hours and hours a day and getting sucked into social media is a problem for people everywhere, but especially teens with 95% of them using it. Senior Mallory Barnes says her daily screen time for the week of October 13th averaged eight hours a day. Nobody, especially children should be on their phones for extremely long periods of time, and if no one moderates their usage who is to stop them from getting off?
Such daily routines could hurt development including long nights of no sleep, physical health issues such as straining of the eyes and headaches, and lastly lack of social awareness. If you are only focused on what is happening on your phone you won’t be able to experience the real world around you, and this in turn slows social consciousness which is an issue that can be seen throughout many children today.
Despite the fact there are many negatives to an online presence at such a young age, there are benefits. One benefit of social media is it can be an outlet for children. When no one else is around to support you, social media can be used to express your feelings without judgment. The same Nipmuc Senior said, “I found my people on social media, they were a community I could talk to when I was bullied at school.”
Being able to communicate with like-minded people who have the same interests as you can help elevate your happiness. On these different platforms, you can find people who are similar to you. Instead of feeling like the minority in your community, you can feel like the majority on a platform, and it gives people a sense of belonging.
Another benefit to social media is it can be a good learning opportunity. Using social media can teach kids about how to have a good online presence. This includes the tools you can utilize, building a professional presence, a digital footprint, and more. When a hiring manager is scanning the internet for your existence, it is better to have a platform that shows off your good qualities rather than you not existing and there being nothing at all.
Social media will continue to be a debate for the years to come and children will most likely always be able to work around the restrictions that platforms put out, but in the end, if the parents allow their children to utilize different social media it is up to them because all children are different.
