Social media age limit?

The U.S. surgeon general is now warning parents against allowing children 13 or younger to use social media. ABC News’ Derricke Dennis has more on the possible risks.
#socialmedia #parents #abcnews

[HappyHappy-sqij]

Yeah…parents really shouldn’t be waiting on the government to tell them how to parent. We’ve known this for years

[bubwalxifan]

Have you seen how grown "adults" act om social media? Hell, 40 might be too young for some people

[EM-fdxe]

I thank God that there was no social media when I was a kid.

[cee_el]

They should all require some form of ID in order to apply for an account. Anyone can easily lie about their age. I’m sure us older ones here all did that before too. Now looking back, I do think starting social media at the age of 12 didn’t seem appropriate. There was this one guy who looked like he was in his 30s and he kept trying to add middle school age girls. What a creep

[cjsmith]

In 2007 when I signed up for Facebook as a high school freshman, I wasn’t aware of the damage it was doing to me. It’s the worst thing to plague the earth.

[RubiMercuri]

It already affects brain chemistry on adults. Social media in general is incredibly unhealthy and toxic. Just yesterday I was hearing a radio ad about taking legal action on social media's if you ever felt it affected you or a family members life in anyway. It's about time people started taking a serious stand on this issue. Some people are blaming their problems on mental health issues but Social media is the cause of their problems. I deleted all my social media's almost a month ago and before that I used to blame my innatentiveness on adhd which was affecting my college performance but ever since I deleted them I've been doing amazing focusing on my current classes. We need to fight this now or it will be too late in the future people will become so incredibly addicted that it will feel nearly impossible to stop. They purposely make these platforms to be addictive. They're no on our side

[EmelyPhan]

I thought that all social media had a age limit at 13+ all because teachers and adults were saying that. Also, I had a device with a internet connection and my parents didn't really monitor my access since I was 12 and had social media since I was 13 with people around my age lying about their age when they are 10-12 and younger. I am nearly 23 and I wish I didn't any of this at that age until I was high school.

[SpecialEdTalk]

I agree. My kids didn't have smart phones until they were seniors in high school.

[Lawlzinator]

Social media should be banned in general

A blight on mankind

[agawdsparadise]

I mean if we are being honest when you first made Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, IG and Tumblr you had to be 18 years old they have just slowly gave less and less fucks about the age restrictions lately

[chanabayla]

I'm a product of the late 70's-80's where there was NO social media..we were better off

[AlbertKimMusic]

as someone who's grown up with social media myself, I think this is the most plausible idea

[eagledice]

It's too much honestly the world is being destroyed by social media

[eamerrill]

13 is too young, but parents need to be educated and help their kids with proper use, including age. Parents need to be parents, it's not someone else's job. They make phones that can make calls and texts and they can take pictures and videos, but there is no internet access and no app store.

[christfollower]

Everyone want to control there kids but have no control on themselves. Let’s first get it right as adults and lead our kids by example.

[crashouttjayyx]

the internet in general needs to have a age limit (other than for educational use) bc what good does it do giving a 4 year old an ipad connected to the internet? sure it may keep them distracted while you fail at your job of parenting, but you need to find something else. the amount of game matches i play with my headset you can hear that these kids are no more than 11 years old. sad world we live in...

[xx_Joker_xx]

I am going to take a moment to speak about this because it is something that I am very passionate about being an internet developer since the 1990's. First, you need to understand that younger generations do not feel the issue the way that older generations do, because it's always been this way, they do not know of anything different. If they do not know anything different, they can not see that it's a problem. For most people, the internet is a play ground... social media is their outlet. They don't take it very seriously and will post most anything they find a bit humorous no matter how accurate it is or who else may also be looking at it. Adults get online to bully other adults because they do not take it very seriously. Adults also have self esteem issues and seek to feel better about themselves from their posts (Likes). Usually that post belittles a category of people or the post is to make their lives seem better. Kids are watching and they learn this behavior at an early age. This results in seeking validation via the internet... and that's a problem.

We've seen kids die from doing "challenges" that they are told make them seem "cool". Eating Tide pods, snorting condoms up their noses, attacking random people on the streets... on and on. I've heard it time and time again... parents say, "my kid would never do that" or "my kid is too smart to do that". Until they do. And when they do, it's too late. Parents need to also get off their high horse and be an actual parent. Sorry, parenting is not always convenient or easy, but it is necessary. The internet is NOT a good place for kids without close supervision... period! Stop making the internet the primary care giver for your child.

None of this addresses the predator danger that there is. Predators are just waiting for your daughter or son to logon and share their photos. Seemingly harmless to the parent... but wait... there is a school emblem in that photo? A predator can recognize that school, friend your child and pretend to be another kid. Getting them comfortable in talking to them for weeks, even months. Asking for more personalized photos. Which your child has learned will get them more likes and they will gain popularity in doing so. Or... the radicalization begins. Whatever the objective of the predator may be, social media makes it so easy.

Instituting a single account or ID for everyone is not a good solution at all. This will place even more power into the hands of the people who are benefiting from all of this already. I've seen some want it connected to a U.S. Social Security number even. To me, that screams control of the people. If everything you do, everyone does, can be seen from a single account... they can see it via your phone, they can see it via your smart car, they can see it via smart home appliances... it will all be connected. "I have nothing to hide", you might be saying. Until, you speak out against someone you shouldn't ... with that kind of information the data can be used to construct whatever crime they want to. If you trust big tech or the government that much, you need to learn more about history. It's not a conspiracy... it's happened in different ways in the world's history.

I hope people think really long and hard before they support a particular stance in this area.

Thanks!

[jacobt]

As someone who completely cut out social media a few years ago, I love my choice. I don't care to see photos of where people are going for vacation, I don't care about opinionated posts with zero context. When I used social media, I didn't even post stuff, I just scolled through and looked at what was there, and one day was like, "Ehh." Then, I deleted my accounts, not just deleting the apps them selves. I kept snap chat, and only six people added since it's one of the methods we use for communication. I made a new Facebook purely for my fish keeping hobby and have Reddit for asking and finding answers. But yeah, I'm glad I ain't addicted to social media, but I am a little addicted to YouTube (I view youtube as its own niche of social media that I need to wane myself from).

[Owl-of-Minerva]

YES. Forced time limits for the rest of us who are hooked.

[travelguy]

I remember in high school and early in college, I didn't even use MySpace. I remember when someone told me about Facebook, I was like, what the heck is Facebook. Now, as an adult, what I do like about social media is getting information you don't get from the news. I also discovered new business, activities, events, etc.