Children Under the Age of Sixteen Should NOT Have Social Media Accounts
Social media has become one of the largest platforms in world. Every individual that owns a cellphone or a computer has a likely chance of using at least one type of social media! Now, as with everything, this topic has two sides. Social media can be beneficial, or harmful, depending upon the context of its usage!
I believe that all children under the age of sixteen should not be allowed to have any types of social media!
You might ask why, and my general answer would be to let the kids be kids! However, I will also go into depth as to why younger children should not be so succumbed to social media.
The facts that our children are losing their direct communication skills, the apparent signs of social media addiction, and distractions leading to poor academic and other activity performance are all reasons why younger adolescents should not get involved in social media yet! There are a number of other reasons that I could touch on, of course, but we will keep this blog post to these three points!
For my first point, kids tend to be so glued to their phones nowadays that they lack direct communicational skills! Sure, one can look to be “social” on their various social media accounts, but what happens when they get out into the real world and have to interact and build relationships with other people? Pushing back the required age of holding social media accounts would open new doors and help our youth to build a solid foundation of person-to-person connection!
Secondly, and to be brutally honest, sometimes I fall into this category, is being addicted to your online persona. Research has been done to find that social media usage can affect the brain in similar ways to that of drug addiction! Now isn’t that scary? When we receive attention from our own posts, dopamine releases happen in the brain, which induces pleasure. This can lead us to a hunger of wanting more and more “likes” that might not ever get satisfied! Is this what we want for our children?
Lastly, social media can prove to be a major distraction when it comes to school and other extracurricular activities. Teens and adults nowadays are spending hours upon hours a day on their different social media accounts, bouncing back and forth from application to application! This can potentially lead to decreased dedication in studies and other endeavors, which results in poor overall performance in aspects that can affect the quality of their future! Less time on social media equals more time towards things that matter!
Because of the decrease in direct communication skills, scientifically proven signs of addiction, and dwindling academic and activity performances, kids under the age of sixteen should not be allowed to have social media quite yet!
Let’s let our kids be kids and experience the real world, not the world within their devices! Playgrounds, bikes, rocks, sticks, and dirt should be the source of our children’s entertainment!
Caleb's Blog 