In the United States, the average time spent on social media every day for a teenager is 9 hours. Considering that teenagers go to school for about 8 hours a day, that is too much time and that time could be used for more productive activities – doing homework or playing sports to stay healthy would be a better 4 hours spent than being on social media. 

There are some very severe issues that can happen to anyone on social media, which can really affect people’s lives, so what should be the cutoff age for social media?

According to the Pew Research Center, 97 percent of 13 to 17 year olds use at least one of seven major online platforms. The average teen from ages 13 to 18 spends about 9 hours on social media each day, tweens from ages 8 to 12 spend about 6 hours a day on social media.

With how the popularity of social media has risen since 2005 when there were 5 percent of users in the United States, that number grew to about 70 percent in 2019. We can see how in recent years social media is growing and turning into a whole internet world. Which is why we must look into having a restriction on social media depending on the age of the person using it.

In Australia, they have passed a law where platforms must follow the age restriction of not allowing people under 16 years of age to be on their platform. Parents and kids won’t be punished if they are caught using social media while not being the required age, but the platform will be fined around 49.5 million in Australian currency for systemic failures to implement age requirements. 

Australia decided to pass these laws in order to protect the mental health and the well being of children from detrimental effects of social media such as online hate and bullying. In Australia, people are allowed to get a full time job at the age of 16 years old so they most likely believe that is the age in which they are mature enough to handle social media.

There are some pros and cons about social media. First let’s talk about the pros: social media allows people to stay connected with friends or family with email, text, and Facetime.

Another pro with social media is the accessibility of information and research. It allows people to find help and information. If they are working on something in which they need more information they can always go on social media and find a video on how to do things. There are many helpful things on social media but let’s not forget there are always two sides to a story. 

The cons of social media include increased usage which can lead to things like cyberbullying, social anxiety, depression, and exposure to content that is not age appropriate. These things on social media can cause a very heavy influence on anyone and the people who are most vulnerable are kids as they are still developing and don’t know everything.

Kids are very impressionable; they can be easily influenced and persuaded to do anything. Which is why social media can affect children a lot. It can lead them to feel like their life is miserable as social media usually has people posting all about the positive things of their life and not the negative. 

Another thing is that they can also be affected by cyberbullying. When someone posts something and there are random people commenting hateful things which can cause them to become insecure and it can lead them to harm themselves physically and mentally. Kids are the easiest age group for people online to target as they are the most gullible to persuade to do things. This is because they are still learning what is right and wrong which is very dangerous as they have unlimited possibilities with the use of social media.

Social media also has a lot of things that are not age appropriate. There can be things like drugs, graphic content, and also sexual content that can be exposed to kids which is something that should be brought up in an educational setting. 

Kids should learn about these things but it should not be exposed to them by social media. It must be something that a person like a parent or a teacher should teach them about as they won’t be told false information about the topics from a person that is close to them. When exposed to these things on social media it could cause them to think that these things are normal and cause them to try to act like someone online. For example, let’s say that a child saw a group of people on social media posting about drugs. It could lead them to try drugs and think that it is okay to do drugs because they saw other people on social media do drugs. 

I was personally introduced to social media in middle school because that was when I got my first phone. I would say that social media didn’t affect me too much as I only had Snapchat. I would only really see things that my friends would post, but it did expose me to drugs which is something that I hadn’t really talked about with my parents because middle school is where drugs start becoming a problem. You can see kids starting to use and sell these drugs on campus, which is what I was seeing on some of these people’s stories. I would say that I wasn’t really affected by this though because my mother always monitored my activity on social media and she would have me remove anyone that I didn’t know personally. She made sure that I stayed on the right track and that I didn’t do anything that I wasn’t supposed to.

Parents can play a big role in whether or not social media impacts their children by monitoring their activity. It is a lot easier to control the impact that social media has on the lives of their children by limiting what platforms their children have access to. It also allows them to have more control of their activity since reducing the amount of exposure to negative content can help with stopping the influence of social media on their children. There are parents who aren’t involved in their children’s online lives and this is the main reason that they should start to implement an age requirement to social media to avoid all the negative effects. Social media should be for adults as it reduces a lot of the mistakes that children can make on social media which reduces the harm that it causes to people.

Here in the US, it would be better to require people to be 18 compared to 16, as in Australia, because 16 year olds are still very limited in the US. For example, they can work, but they have limited hours and also the type of work is limited as they can’t work with machines. 

Driving is also another thing, as they can get a driver’s permit but they must be in the car with someone 25 or older with a driver’s license in order to drive a car. 

Social media should require that you are 18 years of age or older in the United States because that is the age where you are legally considered to be an adult in the US and which you are allowed to do things like get a driver’s license and open a bank account. 

The current age restriction for social media is 13 years old or older, which is extremely young, but according to COPPA laws social media sites aren’t allowed to collect data from users younger than 13 years old without parental consent. 

In Australia, they have begun to implement this and they have seen great results as it has made sure that holding social media companies accountable for not having good systems if they catch anyone under the age of 16 years old on social media apps, the company could be fined up to 50 million dollars. 

Australia did this in order to reduce exposure to harmful content, decrease addiction & screen time, and fewer mental health problems. Although some people may argue that this is a violation of human rights and that this limits the freedom of expression on people and it’s eliminating their online life. A ban on social media for a certain age group could allow them to ensure their safety as there are many harmful things on the internet that could lead to very severe consequences.

Australia has the right idea with banning social media for people under 16 years of age, but I think that it would be better if the US were to take it a step further and up the age to 18 as you are now legally an adult and you are allowed to make your own decisions once you turn 18. 

Once you become an adult you have more responsibilities and you have to start to do something with your life as your parents aren’t legally responsible for you anymore so you are forced to grow up either you get a job or you continue your education or maybe both. Some might say that there is no major difference between a 16 year old and an 18 year old but I think that it’s not the difference in how mature they are but how differently they are treated by the world by becoming an adult.

If the change were made, young people who are on social media right now would have their accounts removed from the app and they would be required to verify their age by taking a photo of their ID and filming a short video to verify their identity. Once these rules are implemented it would make it easier for the apps to ensure that there are no people under 18 on the app.

With social media apps being 18+, young people would be protected from all the negativity and potential harmful content on social media.

Implementing this would have a lot of benefits as there will be less addiction to social media, less mental health problems, and also more productive activities. With the time that is spent on social media, kids can use it to socialize and do something more beneficial or productive, like play a sport or pick up a hobby that doesn’t involve staring at their phone and endlessly scrolling.