Children are being exposed to an online world they are not yet ready to handle.
As time goes on and current generations begin to get used to the concept of social media and how it works, most people use it to gain social status, express themselves, or even just in response to boredom. The use of online platforms grows daily, nowadays averaging at 5.66 billion people daily. That’s roughly 69% of the global population.
A large percentage of these numbers are a younger audience. As social media attracts the attention of younger generations throughout the world, the minimum age to use these platforms has gone from 13+ to most users being 8-12 while on platforms such as Tiktok, Instagram, and Snapchat.
This becomes an issue as children are being exposed to things across the internet that might negatively affect their brains long-term as the brain hasn’t fully developed yet.
Jackson Elkin (11) insists that young children shouldn’t have access to social media, claiming it’d be overall better for the environment.
“I was on YouTube at 5-6 years old, and I think young kids shouldn’t be on social media, we tried to use youtube kids and that didn’t work, so I think we should just leave social media to teenagers because universally it’d be better for everyone and the environment,” said Elkin.
As more and more children are exposed to “brainrot,” (short form content that offers little to no intellectual stimulation) the more people will use them for profit by creating ads. Then causing microtransactions for children to buy. For example, on the very popular video game Roblox children are being exposed to brainrot daily, all because social media started the trend.
Miles Lawson (11) believes young children using social media will negatively affect their brains and ruin the thinking ability they will need in the future.
“The first time I used social media was in 7th grade. I think it’s better that kids don’t use social media because doing so can ruin their cognition and their cognitive skills, and it’ll kind of just fry their brains,” said Lawson.
When a younger audience is exposed to brainrot, their mind is influenced by what they see & hear within the content they view, causing them to have long term negative effects on their brains.
