We all enjoy entertainment, whether it is watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games, or playing sports and doing recreational activities. But the entertainment that we have started to become engrossed in is social media. The University of Maine reports, “The average time spent on social media daily is 2 hours and 24 minutes.” As for myself, I would say that I spend a bit more time than an average person and find myself endlessly scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube to find something interesting or inspirational. Technology is unavoidable and necessary to function in our daily lives. We consume media from video tutorials or stock analysts posting on YouTube, or audio from podcasts talking about current events; both are considered social media applications because of how they are uploaded and shared.
Though we are all using technology and connected by social media, there have been studies about the mental health of teenagers using social media apps, causing many problems with mental development and social life of teens. The World Health Organization talks about how adolescent individuals have had an impact by social media, affecting their mental health and experiencing negative consequences such as disregarding other activities such as chores or exercise or other hobbies and extracurriculars. “The report defines problematic social media use as a pattern of behaviour characterized by addiction-like symptoms. These include an inability to control social media usage, experiencing withdrawal when not using it, neglecting other activities in favor of social media, and facing negative consequences in daily life due to excessive use.”
Recently, several countries around the world called for a ban on social media for adolescent teens to prevent the disruption of their mental health. Connellan writes, “The first to do it, Australia set a global precedent in Dec. 2025 with its world-first social media ban for children under 16. The Online Safety Amendment (social media Minimum Age) Act requires social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X, and Snapchat to implement age verification and take “reasonable steps” to prevent kids under 16 from creating accounts.” This was just one country that started the ban on social media and implemented these policies into their system. The ban on social media for kids was a viable idea for the countries permitting the use of this policy, but the policy didn’t stick. Connellan also writes, “However, these laws have also come under severe criticism for efficiency and their impact on digital privacy and free speech. Plus, kids are already finding ways around them.”
Social media is both a good and bad thing that can depend on the content you engage in and how much time you spend watching. It seems hopeless to keep children away from social media with all their intellectual knowledge and tech savvy brains. Instead, technology and social media collaborators should combine their expertise to create an authentication software that would be able to identify the age of an individual without breaking any policies or laws, but that is a hypothetical and not quite a possibility yet. With AI, we might be able to regulate the internet and prevent young adolescent teens from becoming addicted to an application that will cause harm to them. Until then, it is up to the parents and children to set expectations of social media usage.
