What Age Should Kids be Allowed on Social Media?

📱What Age Should Kids be Allowed on Social Media?📱 11/10/22

By: Kinley Butler

Have you seen all the kids on social media now? They're always glued to their devices, and never spend time outside, or working on homework. Social Media can harm kids in many different ways, not only their mental and physical health. Parents should restrict their children from social media until they are at least 14.

First of all, younger kids need to focus on school, not whatever their next post will be about. Social media can take precious time away from kids who might need that time to study, do homework, or maybe just spend time outside! Your grades are SUPER important in your first few years of junior high, and when you're younger, it may be harder to manage your time, along with sports, and other extracurricular activities.

Also, kids just need to be kids. Not some famous influencer, just a kid. Social media can almost force kids to grow up faster than kids who aren't on social media until they are older, which isn't good for them. Lilly Rayl states, ¨When you go outside, you can discover so many fun things that you can't find on a device.¨ Also, a lot of time on social media can be really bad for not only your physical health, but your mental health as well, which ISN'T good at all. According to Forbes.com, ¨63 percent of parents do allow their pre-teens to use YouTube, while 54 percent gave the OK to use Instagram, and 49 percent even let their youngsters use TikTok.¨ Which means that a lot of younger children are allowed on social media, which isn't good at all.

A lot of minors are addicted to social media, which is the result of a lot of things combined, including Fear of Missing Out, also known as FOMO. It may also be the cause of always feeling like they're needing to post something, or always wanting to scroll through your favorite influencer's social page again. There may be other reasons, but these are the main ones.

Finally, you never know what you could find, or who you could meet on social media. Now that we have our online ¨avatars¨, people could create fake profiles, and use them to trick kids into thinking that they're the kid's age, and not somebody way older than them. I know it's hard to believe that somebody would be that cruel to trick information out of people, but there are some terrible humans in this world, who are just plain evil.

Besides, there are some things on the internet that younger minors should not be able to see. They might become confused, and instead of asking their parents, which they should have done, they dig deeper into the hole that they've created, and might learn some things they shouldn't have

In conclusion, parents should restrict their kids from social media until they are AT LEAST 14, because kids just need to be kids, and focus on school, not whatever their favorite TikToker posted last. Also, kids could find terrible things on the internet, or meet terrible people online, who might find their personal information, and use it for a terrible cause, and put children's lives in danger.

Page updated

Report abuse