Fourth Estate/Brandyn Fragosa
Mason students and professors discuss the question about children using social media.
BY TIFFANY BOGGS, STAFF WRITER
Social media is very popular among youth and it seems the ages are getting younger by the minute.
When mixing children and social media, it is not a good match. I can recall not having much access to social media as a kid. The only form of media I used was YouTube with my older siblings when it was still new at the time. When I got to use it on my own, I was only allowed to look at music videos.
The idea of children under the age of 13 years old using social media does not sit well with me because they are so impressionable and can easily internalize the content they don’t understand.
Especially for young girls in this world of TikTok and Instagram, along with filters making their appearance look different, I feel it leads to self-consciousness about how they’re supposed to look.
Connection is also a big part of social media. If there’s one thing that teens love, it’s communicating with one another online.
Online communication can open the doors for negative encounters with strangers who might not want to be friends. My first social media account was Instagram when I was 20 years old. Now that I’m an active user, I sometimes get direct messages from accounts wanting sexual advantages from me.
My response would be to ignore the DMs because it’s an uncomfortable feeling having a stranger connect with me in such an inappropriate manner.
In my opinion, when teenagers connect with people online, they often don’t reveal their true identities, which can lead to a dangerous situation where teens are at risk of being catfished.
Mason students and professors expressed similar thoughts on children using social media and the dangers that come along with it.
Senior Andrew Daniel Lackabaugh recalls that when he was growing up, he experienced kids around him as early as 13 or 14 years old using social media. He expressed his worry about the mental health aspect of children being exposed so soon.
“For what I see with the younger generation, the amount of information they have access to, that’s a very malleable time in a child’s mind, so you can really do a lot of damage with kids psychologically,” Lackabaugh said.
He also talked about online groomers, recalling a time when a friend of his told him about a man she met online and requested pictures of her as a young kid.
Some students shared mixed emotions about the topic. Freshman Valeria Castro-Rivera said she had her own Instagram account at the age of 10 years old watching art and animal videos. “For me, I didn’t have a lot of restrictions, but I feel like I should of…,” Castro-Rivera said.
Now as a young adult, she questions some of the content she comes across that children have access to. The type of content Castro-Rivera questions being watched by her little cousins are horror clips from TikTok feeds and knowing they shouldn’t be consuming it.
Communication Professor Dr. Megan Tucker gave a teacher’s perspective on how she feels about children having access to social media.
“I would say children under 13 years old should not have access to social media, if they do, they need to have full parental controls there, maybe with them watching it, but they shouldn’t have their own accounts, in my opinion, as a nonparent,” Tucker said.
Dr. Tucker discussed the necessary precautions of oversight by parents and being aware of the types of messages their kids are receiving. This is to ensure their safety due to bullying that happens and certain expectations they might not understand but adults do.
“I would say until they’re like, 15 or 16 years old and have a little bit better grasps on what social media means, they shouldn’t have free reign over it,” Tucker said.
Social media can be a tricky place sometimes and one wrong click of a button can lead to a bad place that no child should ever be in. Children don’t know better, which is why grown ups need to teach their little ones about the safety of internet use and parental practice.
