Children under the age of 14 shouldn’t be allowed to have social media by Lucy Trotter

Social media usage by kids can have an extremely negative impact on them and shouldn’t be allowed until they are responsible enough. I may sound uptight, but as someone who’s had social media since the age of 12, I’ve witnessed some of the sad longer term affects it can have. 

Starting off on how addictive social media is, during developmental years it’s important to be creative spending time doing what you love and learning. While social media and the internet can be positive and even inspirational, it takes away from what’s more important. Backing this up with the book The Digital Delusion by Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, it talks about when humans conversate in person, your brain releases oxytocin. When texting, you lack this essential part of human interaction. Instead its evil replacement, also known as Tachykinin comes into play, a biological marker of isolation. You should be interacting with peers when you’re at those young ages, making the term “social media” ironic.

Most images shared on the internet are fake or heavily edited which many kids don’t have the critical thinking skills to understand yet. They also may not understand that people often only share the highlights, and their lives don’t look that way 24/7. This causes a dip in self esteem, and feelings of FOMO. Different social media platforms have users trying to drag other users down with them, whether that’s with specific mental health issues or the topics of physical appearance. I’ve personally witnessed the comeback in being extremely thin to the extent where one becomes ill. When you open a comment section on one’s post of themselves where they appear sickly, it’s not difficult to find little girls expressing how they wish they looked that way. Which is quite frankly very scary.

  Social media, all-in-all, will bring a child down when they deserve to be lifted up. Scrolling for hours on end comparing yourself to thousands of people is a likely outcome of this. Being aware that the internet doesn’t have this negative effect on everyone, it’s still a high risk. I’m sure many parents would like to protect their children from this until they are slightly older and have the ability to critically think. Both parents and the law shouldn’t let kids be influenced by the dark and gross side of the web, it’s disturbing. Action needs to be took, make it illegal if you want to keep your children safe.