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81% of U.S. adults – versus 46% of teens – favor parental consent for minors to use social media

More than 40 states and the District of Columbia are suing Meta , the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging its platforms purposefully use addictive features that harm children’s mental health.

Amid this news, U.S. adults and teens are more likely to support than oppose requiring parental consent for minors to create a social media account and requiring people to verify their age before using these platforms, according to a pair of new Pew Research Center surveys. But adults are far more supportive than teens of these measures, as well as limiting how much time minors can spend on social media.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand American adults’ and teens’ views on ways social media companies could limit minors’ use of their platforms. This analysis uses data from two separate surveys, allowing us to compare the views of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 with U.S. adults ages 18 and older.

For the analysis of teens, the Center conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, via Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents who were a part of its KnowledgePanel , a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey is weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income and other categories. This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

For the separate analysis of adults, the Center surveyed 8,842 U.S. adults from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, 2023. Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP). This online survey panel is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the  questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

Here’s a closer look at the findings from the two new surveys – one of adults and one of teens – which we conducted in late September through October, before the states’ lawsuit against Meta.

Adults’ views on social media policies aimed at minors

Most U.S. adults (81%) say they support social media companies requiring parental consent for minors to create a social media account. About seven-in-ten favor requiring people to verify their age before using social media sites (71%) and setting limits on how much time minors can spend on these platforms (69%). Only about one-in-ten adults oppose each of these three measures.

Still, some adults are uncertain. For example, roughly one-in-five adults are unsure if companies should require age verification (18%) or set time limits for minors (17%).

Views among adults by age, party and parental status

Many social media companies do not allow those under 13 to use their sites. Still, there’s a growing movement to develop stricter age verification measures , such as requiring users to provide government-issued identification. Legislators have pushed for mandatory parental consent and time restrictions for those under 18, arguing this will help parents better monitor what their children do on social media.

Our survey finds there is strong bipartisan support for these types of policies. Clear majorities of Republicans and Democrats – including independents who lean to either party – support parental consent, time limits for minors and age verification.

Majorities of adults across age groups support social media companies introducing these measures. But young adults are less supportive than their older counterparts. For example, 67% of those ages 18 to 29 say social media sites should require parental consent for minors to create an account, but this share rises to 84% among those ages 30 and older.

Additionally, majorities of parents and those without children back each of these measures, though support is somewhat higher among parents.

Teens’ views on social media policies for minors

Building on the Center’s previous studies of youth and social media, we asked U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 about their views on these measures.

Teens are more likely to support than oppose social media companies requiring parental consent for minors to create an account (46% vs. 25%). There’s even more support for requiring people to verify their age before using these sites – 56% of teens favor this, while 16% oppose it.

But their views are more divided when it comes to setting limits on how long minors can use these sites. Similar shares of teens support and oppose this (34% vs. 36%).

For each of these policies, about three-in-ten teens report being unsure if this is something social media companies should do.

How adults’ and teens’ views on social media policies differ

Adults are considerably more supportive of all three measures we asked about than are teens.

While 81% of U.S. adults support social media companies requiring parental consent for minors to create an account, that share drops to 46% among U.S. teens.

Adults are also about twice as likely as teens to support setting limits on how much time minors can spend on social media sites (69% vs. 34%).

But majorities of adults and teens alike support requiring people to verify their age before using social media sites. But on this, too, adults are more supportive than teens (71% vs. 56%).

Note: Here are the  questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

• Social Media
• Technology Policy Issues
• Teens & Tech

Monica Anderson is a director of research at Pew Research Center .

Michelle Faverio is a research analyst focusing on internet and technology research at Pew Research Center .

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Social Media and Harm to Children

Published August 31, 2023

By Clare Morell

1. Severity of the Problem

We have a severe public health crisis on our hands: America’s children and teenagers are literally dying from social media. They are more depressed and anxious than ever before. New data from the CDC shows that nearly 3 in 5 teen girls felt persistent sadness in 2021 . . . and 1 in 3 girls seriously considered attempting suicide. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that for the first time in 15 years the mortality rate for 0–19-year-olds actually increased two years in a row. For decades, advances in healthcare and safety drove down death rates among American children. In an alarming reversal, rates have now risen to the highest level in nearly 15 years, in large part driven by suicides and drug overdoses. Researchers say “Social media has helped fuel this by replacing successful relationships with a craving for online social attention that leaves young people unfulfilled, and exposes them to sites that glamorize unhealthy behaviors such as eating disorders and cutting themselves.”

We now live in a country where 11-year-olds are committing suicide. How can a child feel so hopeless at the age of 11­­—with their whole life in front of them—that they think life isn’t worth living?

Many of these problems trace back to the root design of Big Tech platforms. We have to understand that Big Tech is a predatory industry, like casinos, alcohol, and tobacco. Its products are designed to addict and exploit our children and their brain’s vulnerabilities. They want their users to be addicted. They are not looking out for the user’s well-being. Rather, they prey on human vulnerabilities, especially those of children, in order to maximize their profits. They do this by seeking to extract as much time, attention, and data, as possible and sell it to advertisers. They design their “free” products to be maximally addictive. As a result, studies show that kids’ brains are literally being rewired by social media and its dopamine effects. Children’s attention spans and ability to focus for longer periods of time are declining. ADHD and autism are on the rise. Dr. Victoria Dunkley, who wrote the book “Reset Your Child’s Brain,” would require that patients undergo a complete digital detox for 4–6 weeks before she would begin treating them for ADHD or autism. She found that the majority of symptoms would resolve on their own just by completing a 4–6-week digital detox. In some cases, the symptoms resolved entirely, because they were not actually underlying ADHD or autism, but rather screen-induced symptoms that mimicked those conditions.

Beyond the physical and mental health crisis social media is creating among our youth, the content available and bad actors present on social media platforms are both very dangerous to children. TikTok and Instagram have been shown to send teens down rabbit holes of eating disorder content and sexual content. Pornography is everywhere, and it’s not just on PornHub and other adult sites—it’s also on YouTube, Spotify, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and SnapChat.

Predators are all over social media, trying to befriend and groom young girls. A private study found that nearly 1 in 3 teen girls have been approached by adults asking for nudes on social media. The presence of teens on social media presents not only a mental health concern, but also a safety concern.

The problem is severe on several levels, from the design of the apps and rewiring of kids’ brains, to the severe mental health effects, the presence of pornographic and inappropriate content, and the predators and cyberbullies eager to exploit vulnerable children.

All of this leads to a larger problem: social media and smartphones have put our country on a trajectory toward civilizational crisis. We are allowing an entire generation to grow up online. They have become dopamine robots. They don’t know how to form real-life relationships. The ever-present distraction and escape mean they don’t have to confront real-life disappointments and emotions. They aren’t building the skill of resiliency. They are never bored and can always be entertained, neutering their natural abilities to be imaginative and creative. We are losing what it means to be human. And what does this mean for the future of marriage and family formation, the building blocks of civilization? They are becoming utterly destabilized.

2. The Current Legal Regime is Not Up to the Task

Sadly, current federal law has been unable to address the myriad dangers that social media presents to our children.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998 was supposed to allow parents to control the interaction between websites and children, but due to several loopholes, it has been largely ineffective. It set the de facto age for social media to 13, which is much too young. And because of its knowledge standard it has been very difficult to enforce against social media companies for allowing minors under even that low age of 13 on to their platforms. We know 9–12-year-olds are all over these apps without consequence.

Section 230 was meant to not only be a shield from liability for internet companies but also a sword against illicit content, empowering platforms to remove content like pornography to protect children. However, bad court rulings have unreasonably expanded Section 230 to protect social media companies from liability even if social media companies know of unlawful content its users are distributing and fail to take it down. The companies are protected for removing unlawful content but there is no penalty for them if they don’t. Section 230 is all carrot and no stick when it comes to preventing harm to children.

3. A Collective (Government) Solution Needed

Thus, the current state of affairs means that the burden rests solely on parents to try to protect their children online. While some think this is enough, the reality is that parents increasingly have limited control over and insight into what their kids see and do on social media. Even the best private parental control software can’t give parents access to everything. For example, TikTok and Snapchat don’t allow third-party parental control apps access, and Instagram doesn’t allow access to direct messages, where a lot of dangerous activity happens.

Furthermore, the problem of social media is not a private one. It’s been shown that social media use by even a few children in a school or organization creates a “network effect,” so even those who do not use social media are affected by how it changes the entire social environment. For example, if all the teens in a class are interacting and socializing through Instagram and a few in the class are not on Instagram, those few can still experience negative impacts of social media indirectly, feelings of loneliness and isolation, depression, and anxiety. The harms of social media need not flow through individual users, but can affect children by changing their peer social dynamics. Even if parents choose to fight the difficult individual battles to keep their child off these platforms, it is not enough to shield them from all its effects.

Finally, not every child comes from a good home with loving, involved parents who are trying to shield them from the harms of social media. There is actually a screen-time disparity. A survey in 2019 found that kids from lower income homes (less than $35,000) spend on average 8 hours and 32 minutes a day on screens, which is on average about 2 hours more than kids from high-income families (over $100,000) who spend more like 6.5 hours a day.

There are times when society recognizes that something is so harmful and dangerous to children and society itself, that it shouldn’t be left to the sole discretion of individual parents. Presented with dangers like alcohol, smoking, gambling, or driving cars, we rightly set age limits and put meaningful protections in place. For the sake of both children and the common good, the nature and severity of the dangers posed by social media require such a collective solution.

4. State Legislation

Recently, states have begun to step up. Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas have all passed robust social media bills into law this past year. All of these bills draw on contract law to require parental consent for minors under 18 in their states to form social media accounts, since creating a social media account and agreeing to terms of service is akin to entering a contract. Utah also requires full parental access to minors’ accounts for effective oversight, as well as an overnight shut down of social media from 10:30 PM to 6:30 AM, and requires companies to treat minor accounts differently than adult accounts by limiting their appearance in search results, disabling direct messaging with accounts that aren’t “friends,” preventing the collection of minors’ data, and prohibiting targeted advertising and targeting or suggesting groups, products, services, posts, or accounts to minors. The law also creates a private right of action for parents to bring suits for violations and for harms caused to their children from social media. These are strong steps, but states can only go so far on their own without the help of Congress.

5. Solutions for Congress

There are some protections Congress alone can enact. I will briefly outline a few of these solutions:

• Raise the age for social media to 16—or even better, 18. This could be done by updating COPPA, or by employing a separate vehicle. An across-the board, enforceable age limit would place the burden where it belongs: on the social media companies themselves. Age-limits have a long precedent and would empower parents to make social media for young teens a non-issue, freeing them from the pressure to give consent for kids to form an account. Along with raising the age, we need a federal age-verification solution. The success of any changes and proposals will hinge on an effective and secure way to verify age. The age limit also needs to be more enforceable by changing the knowledge standard from actual to constructive. This would involve empowering state attorneys general and/or creating a private right of action for parents so enforcement is not all on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
• Require parental consent and mandate complete administrator-level parental access for any minor social media accounts or any online account. Parents should have full access to minor’s communication channels and the right to consent to them forming one. This would also help get rid of the issue of secret or second accounts that parents don’t know about.
• Give parents an online right to protect their children by mandating that online companies interoperate with and give access to their software to third-party software, parental control apps, etc. This will allow for effective private-sector solutions.
• Reform Section 230 to add a Bad Samaritan carveout . Attorney General Barr recommended this to Congress in the Department of Justice’s 2019 Section 230 proposal so that companies no longer can receive Section 230 immunity if they are knowingly distributing criminal content.
• Require age-verification for pornography websites . Last Congress, Senator Lee introduced an age-verification for porn sites bill that would require major porn sites, often linked to through social media, to verify and ensure that a user is over 18. This should be reintroduced. This would directly challenge the Ashcroft precedent, but 20 years later, with the nature of the internet so changed, it is worth challenging.
• Regulate the online porn industry. Again, last Congress, Senator Lee introduced the PROTECT Act which would require porn sites to verify the age, identity, and explicit consent (signed consent form) of every individual appearing in uploaded material. This would protect against online child sexual exploitation, prevent traffickers from profiting from non-consensual abuse, and protect victims of revenge porn. This approach goes after the supply side. Any bill should include a strong enforcement mechanism by giving parents a private right of action to bring lawsuits on behalf of their children against tech companies for any violation of the law. And empower state attorneys general to bring lawsuits so it is not all up to the FTC to enforce these bills. These companies aim to maximize profit, so there must be a sizeable enough threat to their profits for them to correct their behavior and follow the law.

Lastly, a bold idea:

• Regulate smartphones. Increasingly, in my research, smartphones are at the root of many of the problems posed by social media and online porn, because of the constant access they provide to these platforms and websites. Social media would not be nearly as dangerous if it were only accessed at certain, limited times from a computer. A recent study by Sapien Labs found that adults who acquired their first smartphone at younger ages are now worse off in measures of mental well-being than those who acquired smartphones at a later age. Smartphones are clearly a technology that require maturity and training to use safely. We have precedents for this with other technologies, such as the car. Recognizing children were not mature enough to operate automobiles, we imposed an age requirement for driving a car, and a licensing system that requires proper training and skills before operating one. Now that we see the dangers to children from smartphones, the government could similarly regulate their use and ownership by minors, such as creating an age limit for purchase and ownership and requiring a class or certification in order to be able to own one. At the very least the government could help incentivize strict regulations on smartphones and phones during the school day, by tying public school funding to a requirement that no phones be allowed during the school day or on the school grounds. Furthermore, regulations could be imposed on smartphone manufacturers and app store operators to make these devices and their apps safer for children. There are regulations to safeguard children from harmful toys, food, playgrounds, medications, furniture, and clothing. But there is a concerning lack of regulations for devices on which children spend hours every day. Simple regulations like imposing requirements for the app store age rating systems, requiring app risk disclosures to be accurate and visible for parents, and prohibiting in-app advertisements from promoting mature content to children would all make a difference.

6. Current Bills

• Protecting Kids from Social Media Act , introduced by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Senator Katie Britt (R-AL), would ban social media for all children under the age of 13, require companies to do meaningful age-verification, obligate parental consent for any minor under the age of 18 to form an account (consent that can be revoked at any time), and ban the use of algorithms to recommend content to a minor’s account. This bill would be a very strong step in the right direction to give parents final authority over their children’s social-media use. It would also prohibit social-media companies from using algorithms to feed content to users under the age of 18. Another critical strength of the Schatz–Cotton bill is that it would require social-media companies to conduct age-verification of its users. The bill would create a government pilot program to develop a secure method of age verification via a new “digital identification credential,” which will be designed to attest to a user’s age without requiring that he or she provide Big Tech companies with any underlying identifying information or government-issued ID. The bill stipulates that Big Tech’s participation in this program is, however, voluntary. The bill provides several avenues for enforcement, which would make it truly effective in ways COPPA has not been. The bill not only empowers the FTC but also state attorneys general to ensure Big Tech’s compliance on behalf of their residents. State attorneys general are often nimbler and can act faster than a large government agency such as the FTC.
• Kids Online Safety Act , by Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) and Senator Blackburn (R-TN) aims to make social media platforms design their products with children’s safety in mind. The bill if passed would require that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features (like autoplay and other notifications), and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would also be required to enable the strongest settings by default. It also would give parents new controls to help support their children (and enable those by default) and identify harmful behaviors, and provide parents, schools, and children with a dedicated channel to report any harms to kids on the platform. The bill also creates a responsibility for platforms to prevent and mitigate a list of specific harms to minors in their design and operation of their products, services, and features, such as promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol). KOSA is a strong bipartisan solution and passed out of the Commerce Committee unanimously. It now awaits a floor vote.
• COPPA 2.0 , by Senator Markey (D-MA) and Senator Cassidy (R-LA) would update COPPA, originally passed in 1998, in the following ways: it would build on COPPA by prohibiting internet companies from collecting personal information from users who are 13 to 16 years old without their consent; ban targeted advertising to children and teens; revise COPPA’s “actual knowledge” standard, covering platforms that are “reasonably likely to be used” by children and protecting users who are “reasonably likely to be” children or minors; create an “Eraser Button” for parents and kids by requiring companies to permit users to eliminate personal information from a child or teen when technologically feasible; establish a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Teens” that limits the collection of personal information of teens; and establish a Youth Marketing and Privacy Division at the FTC. Changing the knowledge standard for COPPA would make it easier to bring cases against the tech companies for violations. And while updating the age is good, unfortunately this bill would treat the new 13 to 16-year-old age group differently. Parental consent is not required for this group like for under 13 year-olds, rather they are capable of giving their own consent. This means the changes would not cause social media companies to raise the age of social media, since parental consent is still tied only to the age of under 13. COPPA 2.0 also passed out of Commerce Committee and awaits a floor vote.

Clare Morell is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she directs EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing Project . Prior to joining EPPC, Ms. Morell worked in both the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and non-profit sectors.

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Parents need help regulating their children's social media. A government ban would help.

The kids off social media act would prevent kids younger than 13 from accessing social media and prohibit companies from programming algorithms for anyone under 17..

Parents worry about a lot of things.

But one of our persistent concerns is our kids' smartphones. We justify their use by embracing their necessity. How else can we communicate about school pickups and sports practices?

With that comes access to various minefields, from gaming to social media. As they go off to school and other activities, we wonder if they see things they shouldn't, talk to people they shouldn't or rot their brains with excessive screen time.

The remedies are obvious, just hard to implement: Don't get kids a phone, ban social media or allow social media with boundaries and parental controls. A new federal bill might help parents find a solution.

Parents, children face challenges with social media and smartphones

We know now that excessive social media use increases depression and anxiety . A 2023 surgeon general advisory found that 40% of children ages 8 to 12 are on social media .

Social media and smartphone use have become so commonplace and ubiquitous that it truly does seem hard, if not impossible, to police, given everything parents have going on, including working a full-time job, maintaining relationships, and caring for themselves and their children.

Biden, Trump need extremists to win. It's pushing average voters away.

I have four children, and I'm constantly ruminating over the question: What is more important than my child's physical safety and emotional well-being?

Three of my children have phones, so I've banned social media altogether. They also have limits on their screen time and can't keep their phones in their rooms overnight. I still check their phones regularly but confess that constant surveillance has become an omnipresent task that provides endless questions and few solutions.

What's the best way to help our kids navigate technology?

There are ways to hide social media apps and bypass parental controls. Once kids become teenagers, they're not sitting in the living room 24/7 under parental supervision. They're often in school, with friends, working a job, on an athletic team or maybe playing an instrument. They're busy but still on their phones.

Most parents know that social media use, especially multihour daily use, isn't great for their teen's emotional health , but they still feel ill-equipped to help their teen handle something as big as social media has become. "Did you see that TikTok?" has to be one of the most common refrains in high school now. In fact, fitting in with their peers is probably the only upside to social media if conformity is a plus (it's not).

The downsides are worse than most parents realize. In January, Congress grilled the CEOs of Meta, TikTok and others and revealed that sexual predators are rampant and other negative behaviors like bullying and eating disorders are magnified. Worse, all the executives knew this existed, and while they seemed to be genuinely trying to curb it, their own efforts fell short.

So do parents need the government's help?

This issue is so pressing that it spurred a Republican and a Democrat to co-sponsor legislation that would essentially ban social media for young kids.

If passed, the Kids Off Social Media Act would prevent kids younger than 13 from accessing social media, prohibit social media from programming algorithms for teens under 17, and give schools the ability to block access to social media.

It's part of multiple attempts by lawmakers to place guardrails around the internet for children, including the Kids Online Safety Act .

Congress fails us again: Congress voted against funding a cure for cancer just to block a win for Biden

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, both dads, have paired up to unveil the Kids Off Social Media Act in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

"It’s really hard to be a teenager today. And it is incredibly frightening to be a parent today,” Cruz told The Washington Post . “This legislation is trying to take a meaningful step to protect our kids.”

If passed, it's easy to see how parents everywhere, as well as school administrators and teachers, might sigh a breath of collective relief. However, it seems well within their purview to ban smartphones during class and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi – something that schools in Florida have already done and more are considering. The legislators say they haven't met a parent who doesn't support the bill because they feel pressure for their kids to be on social media.

“The reality of life is there's a moral hazard. And no parent wants to be the one that forces his or her child to be excluded from the school social scene, to be ostracized from their friends," Cruz told me. "And so I've had multiple conversations with moms and dads who are frustrated. They don't want their kids using these devices on these social media sites. ... But I think parents as a whole would much prefer that all the kids be protected. And this bill was designed to strike a compromise."

As a parent, I welcome a federal social media ban for kids

Parental rights advocates on the left might argue that social media helps marginalized children or is their only outlet, even at a young age. Others on the right might balk at a bill that intervenes with their own role as a parent . It's also antithetical, some might say, for a Republican to sponsor a bill allowing a government bureaucracy to intervene in a child's daily habits.

Social media companies won't like the bill, either; they'll claim it's unconstitutional. Cruz, like many conservatives, has departed from the more libertarian, live-and-let-live stance.

As a parent, I have yet to see how rampant social media use for kids under 13 is helpful or good for them, so I welcome a targeted and carefully crafted ban. It takes the issue out of parents' hands, just like laws about driving, alcohol consumption or tattoos. The Federal Trade Commission's enforcement of the ban is tied to the bill, so the FTC couldn't deviate from the text, preventing a slippery slope of additional bans.

Parenting is already challenging. Figuring out how to balance a tool that has become necessary and harmful makes it more so. Kids like mine wouldn't need an adjustment period, and if the bill passes and 11-year-olds become distraught because it's enforced, that might underscore its importance.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY.   She lives in Texas with her four kids.

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It Was a Mistake to Let Kids Onto Social Media Sites. Here’s What to Do Now.

By Yuval Levin

Mr. Levin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a contributing Opinion writer.

Parenthood has always been fraught with worry and guilt, but parents in the age of social media have increasingly confronted a distinctly acute kind of powerlessness. Their kids are unwitting subjects in a remarkable experiment in human social forms, building habits and relationships in an unruly environment designed mostly to maximize intense engagement in the service of advertisers.

It’s not that social media has no redeeming value, but on the whole, it is no place for kids. If Instagram and TikTok were brick-and-mortar spaces in your neighborhood, you probably would never let even your teenager go to them alone. Parents should have the same say over their children’s presence in these virtual spaces.

We may have the vague impression that that would be impossible, but it isn’t. There is a plausible, legitimate, effective tool at our society’s disposal to empower parents against the risks of social media: We should raise the age requirement for social media use, and give it real teeth.

It might come as a surprise to most Americans that there is an age requirement at all. But the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, enacted in 1998, prohibits American companies from collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent, or to collect more personal information than they need to operate a service aimed at children under 13. As a practical matter, this means kids under 13 can’t have social media accounts — since the business models of the platforms all depend on collecting personal data. Technically, the major social media companies require users to be older than 12.

But that rule is routinely ignored. Almost 40 percent of American children ages 8 to 12 use social media, according to a recent survey by Common Sense Media. The platforms generally have users self-certify that they are old enough, and they have no incentive to make it hard to lie. On the contrary, as a 2020 internal Facebook memo leaked to The Wall Street Journal made clear, the social media giant is especially eager to attract “tweens,” whom it views as “a valuable but untapped audience.”

Quantifying the dangers involved has been a challenge for researchers, and there are certainly those who say the risks are overstated . But there is evidence that social media exposure poses serious harms for tweens and older kids, too. The platform companies’ own research suggests as much. Internal documents from Facebook — now known as Meta — regarding the use of its Instagram platform by teens point to real concerns. “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” the researchers noted in one leaked slide. Documents also pointed to potential links between regular social media use and depression, self-harm and, to some extent, even suicide.

TikTok, which is also very popular with tweens and teens, has — alongside other social media platforms — been linked to body image issues as well, and to problems ranging from muscle dysmorphia to a Tourette’s-like syndrome , sexual exploitation and assorted deadly stunts . More old-fashioned problems like bullying, harassment and conspiracism are also often amplified and exacerbated by the platforms’ mediation of the social lives of kids.

Social media has benefits for young people, too. They can find connection and support, discover things and hone their curiosity. In responding to critical reports on its own research, Facebook noted that it found that by some measures , Instagram “helps many teens who are struggling with some of the hardest issues they experience.”

Restrictions on access to the platforms would come with real costs. But, as Jonathan Haidt of New York University has put it , “The preponderance of the evidence now available is disturbing enough to warrant action.” Some teen users of social media see the problem, too. As one of Meta’s leaked slides put it, “Young people are acutely aware that Instagram can be bad for their mental health yet are compelled to spend time on the app for fear of missing out on cultural and social trends.”

That balance of pressures needs to change. And as the journalist and historian Christine Rosen has noted , preaching “media literacy” and monitoring screen time won’t be enough.

Policymakers can help. By raising the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act’s minimum age from 13 to 18 (with an option for parents to verifiably approve an exemption for their kids as the law already permits), and by providing for effective age verification and meaningful penalties for the platforms, Congress could offer parents a powerful tool to push back against the pressure to use social media.

Reliable age verification is feasible. For instance, as the policy analyst Chris Griswold has proposed , the Social Security Administration (which knows exactly how old you are) “could offer a service through which an American could type his Social Security number into a secure federal website and receive a temporary, anonymized code via email or text,” like the dual authentication methods commonly used by banks and retailers. With that code, the platforms could confirm your age without obtaining any other personal information about you.

Some teens would find ways to cheat, and the age requirement would be porous at the margins. But the draw of the platforms is a function of network effects — everyone wants to be on because everyone else is on. The age requirement only has to be passably effective to be transformative — as the age requirement takes hold, it would also be less true that everyone else is on.

Real age verification would also make it possible to more effectively restrict access to online pornography — a vast, dehumanizing scourge that our society has inexplicably decided to pretend it can do nothing about. Here, too, concerns about free speech, whatever their merits, surely don’t apply to children.

It may seem strange to get at the challenge of children’s use of social media through online privacy protections, but that path actually offers some distinct advantages. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act already exists as a legal mechanism. Its framework also lets parents opt in for their kids if they choose. It can be a laborious process, but parents who feel strongly that their kids should be on social media could allow it.

This approach would also get at a core problem with the social media platforms. Their business model — in which users’ personal information and attention are the essence of the product that the companies sell to advertisers — is key to why the platforms are designed in ways that encourage addiction, aggression, bullying, conspiracies and other antisocial behaviors. If the companies want to create a version of social media geared to children, they will need to design platforms that don’t monetize user data and engagement in that way — and so don’t involve those incentives — and then let parents see what they think.

Empowering parents is really the key to this approach. It was a mistake to let kids and teens onto the platforms in the first place. But we are not powerless to correct that mistake.

Yuval Levin, a contributing Opinion writer, is the editor of National Affairs and the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.”

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Kids under 13 would be barred from social media under bipartisan Senate bill

Dustin Jones

The majority of teens say they use social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube at least once a day, according to a recent survey. Some say they use the sites constantly and that quitting social media altogether would be difficult. AP hide caption

The majority of teens say they use social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube at least once a day, according to a recent survey. Some say they use the sites constantly and that quitting social media altogether would be difficult.

A bipartisan group of senators announced a new piece of legislation this week geared toward protecting children from aspects of social media they say are contributing to the mental health crisis impacting America's youth.

The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act would set the minimum age of social media users to 13. For teens between the ages of 13 and 18, parental consent would be required, and platforms would be banned from using algorithms to recommend content to those young users. Adults would have to create an account for their teens, providing a valid form of ID to become users on a platform, according to the bill.

Children under 13, however, will still be allowed to view content on social media sites, the bill says, as long as it doesn't require an individual to log in to do so.

There are four lawmakers sponsoring the bill, Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Alabama's Katie Britt alongside Democratic Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Connecticut's Chris Murphy, who say America's mental health crisis weighs most heavily on adolescents, especially young girls.

"The business model of these apps is simple, the duration of time the user spends on the app and the extent to which they engage with content is directly correlated with ad revenue," Schatz said, arguing that companies want users to spend long amounts of time on their platforms but the results can be "catastrophic."

"Social media [companies] have stumbled onto a stubborn, devastating fact: The way to get kids to linger on the platforms and to maximize platforms is to upset them," Schatz told reporters at a press conference announcing the bill on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Shots - Health News

The truth about teens, social media and the mental health crisis.

Cotton, meanwhile said many social media companies claim to not allow kids under 13 on their platforms, and instead rely on self-reporting methods, which can be easily bypassed by children.

During the announcement, Britt said it's important to take a step back so parents can teach kids how to use social media for good while staying safe. Social media, she noted, can be difficult enough to digest for individuals well over 18.

"As adults, how many of you have struggled with what someone has posted on social media, or what someone has said or what someone has done?," she asked.

A majority of teens say they use social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube at least once a day, and others admit to using the sites almost "constantly," according to a recent Pew Research study . Over half of the teens polled said it would be hard for them to stop using social media.

The new legislation will put "parents back in control" of what kids experience online, Cotton said. He said if an adolescent is too young for other real world experiences and responsibilities, from signing contracts, opening a banking account and watching rated R movies, then they are too young to witness some content on these platforms.

Schatz said, "The growing evidence is clear: social media is making kids more depressed and wreaking havoc on their mental health," adding, "while kids are suffering, social media companies are profiting. This needs to stop."

Teen girls and LGBTQ+ youth plagued by violence and trauma, survey says

The senators cited disturbing results from a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study , which found 42% high school students surveyed experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness over the last year.

Twenty-two percent seriously contemplated attempting suicide, with one in four young women going as far as to formulate a plan on how they would carry it out.

Murphy, a father of two, said the warning signs of social media's impact on kids are abundantly clear and that now is the time to take action.

"This is a reality that we don't have to accept. The alarm bells about social media's devastating impact on kids have been sounding for a long time, and yet time and time again, these companies have proven they care more about profit than preventing the well-documented harm they cause," he said. "None of this is out of Congress's control."

A statement issued by several advocacy groups that focus on the safe use of social media raised concerns about the legislation. They include Common Sense Media, Fairplay for Kids and the Center for Digital Democracy, which said though the bill is "well-intentioned," some aspects take the wrong approach.

The advocacy groups said they support the banning of algorithmic recommendations targeting minors; however, they believe the bill is burdensome to parents, creates unrealistic bans and could be harmful to kids in unhealthy living situations.

Montana becomes 1st state to approve a full ban of TikTok

"By requiring parental consent before a teen can use a social media platform, vulnerable minors, including LGBTQ+ kids and kids who live in unsupportive households, may be cut off from access to needed resources and community," the group statement reads.

The group also said the minimum age requirement tied to parental consent jeopardizes an adolescent user's privacy. James P. Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, said in the statement that the group appreciates the senators' efforts and they look forward to working with them in the future, "but this is a life or death issue for families and we have to be very careful about how to protect kids online."

Steyer recommended social media companies shoulder the responsibility for making the internet a safe space for kids to avoid making the government the middle man between parents and their children.

Children under 13 would be banned from social media under bipartisan Senate bill

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday introduced legislation that aims to protect children from any harmful effects posed by using social media.

The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media apps, such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, and would require parental consent for 13- to 17-year-olds.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said earlier this year that 13 is too young to join social media.

The bill would ban social media companies from recommending content using algorithms for users under the age of 18. It would also require the companies to employ age verification measures, and instructs them to create a pilot project for a government-provided age verification system that platforms could use.

Under the measure, the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general would be given authority to enforce the bill's provisions.

"Big tech has exposed our kids to dangerous content and disturbed people," one of the bill's sponsors, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said at a news conference. "Moms and dads have felt helpless while their kids suffer, sometimes leading to devastating tragedies."

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii., another lead sponsor, said that the bill is a "commonsense and bipartisan approach to help stop this suffering" that has resulted from teens using social media.

"By instituting these simple, straightforward guidelines, we’ll be able to give the next generation of children what every parent wants for their child, which is a chance to grow up happy and healthy," he said.

The other two main sponsors are Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., who said her family "constantly" has conversations about social media.

"We have to take a step back and as parents say, how can we protect our children, teach them how to use this tool, to use it for good, and to be intentional in doing that?" she said.

Some of the most popular social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram require that users who create accounts be at least 13 years old. While TikTok requires that users who post content be at least 13 , it also offers "a curated, view-only experience for those under age 13 that includes additional safeguards and privacy protections." The company says it partners with Common Sense Networks, a media company whose mission is to create media that's safe for kids and families, to ensure that content for that age group is appropriate and safe.

Lawmakers recently grilled the CEO of TikTok at a congressional hearing about the company's age requirements and mechanisms put in place to protect children from dangerous content.

In a press release Wednesday, the group of senators pointed to mental health data among young people, contending that there's a clear link to social media. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 57% of high school girls and 29% of high school boys felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, with 22% percent of all high school students reporting they had seriously considered attempting suicide in the preceding year, the lawmakers noted.

Other studies in recent years have suggested that social media has been linked to a rise in mental health disorders in teens and depression in adults.

In February, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill that would set the minimum age limit to use social media at 16. And recently, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox , a Republican, signed two pieces of sweeping social media regulation into law that require social media companies to get parental consent for minors using their services.

Rebecca Shabad is a politics reporter for NBC News based in Washington.

Liz Brown-Kaiser covers Capitol Hill for NBC News.

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The Case for Banning Children from Social Media

By Jay Caspian Kang

There are times when I wonder what it would take to separate my six-year-old daughter from her iPad. Like so many parents these days, my wife and I have ceded some of our child-raising duties to a device that, despite having multiple safeguards turned on, still has a terrifying proximity to all the worst things on the Internet. We set limits on it like a lot of other people do, and generally feel bad every time we see her with her nose buried in an episode of Pokemon or “ Is It Cake? ” (a game show in which contestants bake realistic cakes, and judges guess whether an object is cake or not). I feel bad because my kid is spending her days the same way I do: staring at a screen. But what I worry about more than anything is what will happen when she gets older, and her screens go from “Is It Cake?” to the chaos of social media.

Poll after poll shows that a lot of parents are worried about what their kids consume and how they communicate with one another on the Internet. Earlier this year, Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General of the United States, said that he did not think children under the age of fourteen should have access to social media. Last month, the state of Utah passed two bills that address this concern, dramatically restricting kids’ access to social-media platforms. The new laws will require anyone under the age of eighteen to obtain parental permission to maintain or create accounts on any social-media site, and grant parents full access to their children’s accounts. There will also be a social-media curfew for minors, unless otherwise amended by their parents, and restrictions to make it more difficult for teens to send or receive messages from people outside of their existing networks. Additionally, any “addictive” features placed on these platforms would have to be removed from underage accounts. Details on how the state plans to enforce these policies are still hazy— most would involve the state fining or suing social-media companies —but there’s considerable support on both sides of the aisle for these kinds of restrictions . At the federal level, there is a bill floating around Congress called the Social Media Child Protection Act that proposes to do much of the same.

The civil-liberties implications of these restrictions are considerable and largely self-evident. The A.C.L.U.’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology project sent me a statement that said the Utah bill and many like it around the country would “restrict the ability of teenagers to explore and make up their own minds about everything from gender identity to safe sex to politics without parental knowledge or involvement.” Under the Utah law, an L.G.B.T.Q. child living in a household with disapproving parents might have fewer resources to find community and support because their parents would be able to look into their messages; children in abusive households would have a harder time using messaging platforms to seek help. Minors will also find it harder to access news. They will probably see fewer protests around the world and fewer videos that might inform them in one way or another, walling them off from online communities of people who care about the same things they do. They, in effect, will almost certainly be isolated from many of the ways people form political beliefs these days, especially those that fall outside of the mainstream.

The potential chilling effect of the Utah bill extends beyond children; its most galling civil-liberties concerns have implications for adults, too. Because Utah residents might have to verify their age using official government identification, adults without I.D.s may effectively be barred from creating social-media accounts as well. “Every adult will have to verify not just their age but their identity, because we don’t yet have a simple way of verifying your age without verifying your identity,” Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told me. “It’s like getting carded to use the Internet.” Without any cover of anonymity or privacy, adults in Utah may become much more hesitant to express their beliefs online or to even seek out sources of information that might, for whatever reason, seem unseemly or potentially toxic. They will be much less likely to comment on anything, really, because they understand that their real identities have been linked to their accounts.

These bills will likely face considerable constitutional challenges. Previous attempts to block minors from accessing Web sites via broad legislation, including the Child Online Protection Act, from 1998, have been struck down on First Amendment grounds. Since social-media companies will have a difficult time knowing whether a child is in the state of Utah, especially with the proliferation of easy-to-use V.P.N.s that can mask a user’s location, it will be nearly impossible for a company like Twitter or Facebook to perfectly comply with the law. A host of other concerns remain unanswered: Will adults not be able to create private or secondary “burner” accounts and have to solely rely on I.D.-verified access? Will the state block access to social-media companies that do not comply?

Supporters of the bills may point out that movie ratings, which, in many instances, bar minors from entering screenings of R-rated films, have been part of our society for decades. But the Classification and Rating Administration ( CARA )—the body responsible for ratings—is not part of the government, nor does the government have any real say in whether an unaccompanied minor can watch a film or not, regardless of its rating. That decision is made by private theatres that adhere to the CARA . The Utah bills mark something entirely different: the state telling private companies to effectively bar young people from engaging in speech.

How you feel about all this will likely come down to whether you believe that social-media platforms are addictive products—like cigarettes—marketed to kids or that they are vital and intractable parts of the national conversation. If they are just modern cigarettes, they can and should be regulated or even just outright banned for young people. But if they’re a vehicle for expression, then the government should do what it can to protect the free-speech rights of minors.

The difficulty, of course, is that these two visions of social media are not mutually exclusive in any way. Social media does seem uniquely harmful to young people, but it is also the way in which they express themselves and find friends and confidantes. Most people seem to agree that social media is bad for young people. They have read the studies about teen misery; they have witnessed some child or another being completely entranced by their phone. Most people also appear to agree that something should be done to protect kids from what sure seems like an addictive product. But almost none of those people really know what that something is, nor would they, presumably, be willing to curtail their own online consumption to help save the kids.

As such, the Utah bills could be seen as almost admirable—not for their actual specific actions, which are just too unconstitutional and logistically clunky to be taken seriously, but for the simple fact that they are trying to use the powers of government to address a societal problem. They are treating social-media platforms as if they were a harmful, addictive substance and are effectively arguing that it’s worth curtailing civil liberties for the betterment of society. In doing so, they have asked a provocative question about whether the government should distinguish between the vessel for speech from the speech acts that are performed within it. Sometime in the near future, I imagine a host of politicians will follow Utah’s lead and call for stricter regulation for kids.

President Biden has already made considerable gestures—although it should be said, not much more than gestures—at either revoking or reforming Section 230 , the current law that gives Internet companies a level of legal immunity against the things that are said on their platforms. A bipartisan push in the name of protecting the children and scaling back the power of social media would likely be politically popular, but would, in all likelihood, immediately be challenged in the courts. This February, the court heard arguments in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh , and while neither case is expected to yield a sweeping decision on Section 230, both will likely signal how the justices feel, in general, about weighing speech demands against perceived liability. A repeat of the nineties, when concerned lawmakers tried to legislate online protections in the name of child safety but were ultimately struck down by the courts, seems well within the realm of possibility.

If we cannot legally restrict social-media companies from children without stomping all over the First Amendment and creating a nightmare for any adult who wants to log in to a site without submitting their government I.D.—and I really don’t think we can—it will be up to state and cultural institutions to put out as much anti-social-media messaging as possible, much like they did with smoking. But they will likely have to act without judicial support, which, when it came to cigarettes, allowed for a host of taxes and restrictions on Big Tobacco. Even then, it seems unlikely that messaging alone can work against the allure of social media, especially if adults never turn it down themselves. Parents, myself included, may just have to do the unthinkable and rip the screens out of children’s hands and our own. ♦

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The Law Should Not Require Parental Consent for All Minors to Access Social Media

Numerous state laws passed this year, and bills proposed in Congress, would set onerous new restrictions on what young people can do online, depriving teenagers of their First Amendment rights to express themselves, access protected speech, engage in anonymous speech, and participate in online communities. They also enforce a presumption that parents of minors do not want them accessing social media. These laws would require people under a certain age, usually 18, to obtain parental consent before making an account on some of the most popular platforms on the planet, many of which are useful for young people to access educational resources, community, political speech, and more. In doing so, they would also violate the same core First Amendment rights of people of all ages by requiring identification to access important global platforms. 

Utah and Arkansas   have already passed such laws. When they go into effect in March 2024 and September 2023, respectively, anyone under eighteen will be required to obtain parental consent before accessing social media. The same would be true nationally under the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act , which was recently introduced in Congress. And though it doesn’t directly require parental consent for social media, the Kids Online Safety Act , too, would require platforms to implement “parental supervision” tools that would force them to verify child-parent relationships. Once the Utah and Arkansas laws are in effect, young people will not be able to access social media using a login without a complicated approval process that would require parents and guardians to share their private information with social media platforms or third-party verification services. 

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TELL CONGRESS: OPPOSE THE KIDS ONLINE SAFETY ACT

There are some differences in these laws. The Arkansas law only applies to new accounts, for example, while Utah’s law also creates dangerous privacy invasions by in some cases requiring parents to have access to children’s social networks and private messages. Still other laws, like one put forward but not yet passed in Connecticut would apply to those under 16 instead of 18. But parental consent is an aspect of each of the laws, and likely of others that may pass this year. 

How Would Parental Consent Laws Work? 

Parental consent laws like these would force parents to offer some sort of proof that they consent to a child’s use of social media. None of the laws outline any procedures for how this would be done, and they all establish these consent requirements as if it's an easy thing to implement. 

These systems don’t necessarily take into account a large number of non-traditional families.

But if the laws are meant to have any teeth, an adult would have to prove not only that they approve of a minor’s use of social media, but that they are a parent or guardian of the child. Confirming the identity of a user online is a complex issue . Doing so while maintaining the user’s anonymity is even harder. There is no obvious system for doing this currently in place on social media, nor is there one that would not be onerous to a parent. Put simply: if you had to prove who your parents were to an online platform, how would you do it? The systems that currently exist are often used to satisfy requirements under COPPA (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule) that protect privacy of those under 13. Though not comprehensive, current methods include: 

• Providing a consent form to be signed by the parent, returned by mail, fax, or scanning
• Requiring a parent to use a credit card
• Having a parent call a telephone number or have a video conference
• Having a parent provide a form of government issued ID compared to a database
• Providing knowledge-based challenge questions that would be difficult for someone other than the parent to answer
• Verifying a picture of a driver's license of other photo ID submitted by the parent and comparing that to a photo of the parent

There are significant problems with each of these methods. First, these systems don’t necessarily take into account a large number of non-traditional families. It’s unclear whether they will function for children with different last names than a parent, those in foster care, and those whose guardians are other relatives. Second, some of these methods may rely on devices that not all families may have. And third, all of these methods likely require parents to share personal information with third-parties or platforms. In that way, parental consent laws run into similar privacy problems as age verification laws .

The end result of laws requiring parental consent would be a huge number of young people—particularly the most vulnerable—losing access to these platforms, solely because they cannot satisfy the arbitrary requirements necessary. Still other minors would lose access because parents may not have the time to complete the verification requirements, or because their parents do not wish to share more private information with the companies.  

There are significant problems with each of these methods

And though it is painful to think about, there are many scenarios where a parent might not wish their child to access social media because they do not have their best interests in mind. In Utah, where the first social media parental consent law was passed earlier this year, there were 9,695 children confirmed as victims of abuse and neglect in 2022 , with the largest percentage, 36%, being 12 to 17 years of age. The majority of those responsible were parents. Social media can play a critical role for young people to access resources and support in these circumstances, and laws like these may block them from access entirely. (Utah’s law, which also requires that parents have access to young people’s accounts and messages, creates even more concern in these situations.)

Parental Consent Laws For Social Media Deprive Young People and Adults of their First Amendment Rights

As mentioned, some parental consent requirements do exist in the law already, of course. COPPA protects the privacy of people under 13 by requiring parental consent before certain private information is collected about them. COPPA’s concern, however, is with privacy and the exploitation of children’s data. Under these newer parental verification laws, the government’s interest is in protecting children from viewing harmful content—but 99.9% of that content is likely legal speech, and thus these laws affect First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that states and Congress cannot use concerns about children to ban them from expressing themselves or accessing information. Most recently in Brown v. EMA , the Court ruled that while the State might have “the power to enforce parental prohibitions—to require, for example, that the promoters of a rock concert exclude those minors whose parents have advised the promoters that their children are forbidden to attend, . . . it does not follow that the state has the power to prevent children from hearing or saying anything without their parents' prior consent” (564 U.S. 786, 795 n.3). In other words, although states and Congress can give parents tools to help, the state cannot substitute itself for parents and prohibit all minors from engaging in First Amendment activity.

To cite just one example of the type of important legal speech that minors could be blocked from engaging in or receiving, look no further than the most recent activism by young people against police brutality and gun violence. A Nashville protest against police brutality organized by six teenage activists who met on Twitter drew an estimated 20,000 participants in 2020. The Enough! National School Walkout , organized primarily online, involved students walking out from their classes for exactly 17 minutes in over 3,000 schools, and had nearly one million student participants. And the March for Our Lives —also primarily organized via social media—was among the biggest youth-led protests since the Vietnam War era, in which somewhere between 200,000 to 800,000 people participated, and all speakers were high schooler age or younger. 

Though these laws are often described as protecting or upholding “parental rights,” they do the exact opposite

But it is not only young people whose rights will be harmed by these laws. All users who do not verify their age to a platform could be blocked from using it. Forcing websites to require visitors to prove their age by submitting information such as government-issued identification would potentially deprive tens of millions of Americans who do not have government-issued ID from access to much of the internet, deprive all users of anonymous access, and force everyone to share more private data or be blocked from the service. 

Parental Consent Laws For Social Media Deprive Parents of their Right to Raise Children Without Governmental Interference

All of these laws rest on a single assumption: parents should not be allowed to choose to raise their children as they see fit without governmental interference, including to allow their kids to use social media without hitting a ban or parental consent rule. Though these laws are often described as protecting or upholding “parental rights,” they do the exact opposite: they remove  parents’ ability to decide for themselves what they will allow their child to access online, the vast majority of which is legal speech.

Though not perfect, platforms already have safety features that accomplish many of the goals of these laws. Instagram allows parents to supervise the accounts of young people. TikTok allows parents to pair their accounts with their child’s account to set safety features. These features may not stop young people from accessing the platforms, but they do offer an option for parents who are interested in supervising their children online. 

What Should Lawmakers Do?

Laws restricting young people’s access to social media are en vogue in part because of a series of recent studies that some have interpreted to indicate that social media use can cause mental health issues in young people. But other studies show just the opposite: Common Sense Media found that teens who are already at risk or dealing with mental health challenges are more likely to have negative experiences with social media, but those same teens are also more likely to value the benefits of social media, like finding resources, community, or support. 

The outcomes of social media use depend on the individual child

In another study often cited by lawmakers which was conducted by Meta and leaked by Frances Haugen, twice as many respondents reported that Instagram alleviated suicidal thinking as said it worsened it; three times as many said it made them feel less anxious as said it made them feel more so; and nearly five times as many reported that Instagram made them less sad as that it made them sadder. 

And just this week many of the country's leading experts on children and social media use released a report declaring that social media “is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.” The outcomes of social media use depend on the individual child, and parents must make their own decisions for that use. Given that “the effects of social media likely depend on what teens can do and see online, teens’ preexisting strengths or vulnerabilities, and the contexts in which they grow up,” it is certainly not the place of Congress to set a rigid and universal standard. 

Social media’s toxicity is a real issue. But young people are not the only ones affected, and solutions that limit their rights in egregious ways are not solutions at all. Laws that insert the state into a family’s right to decide what level of independence a young person has, and block young people from accessing legal speech, will not solve the problems these complex social issues, which exist both online and offline. 

According to a 2016 Pew report , less than half of parents used parental controls, and only 16% used monitoring tools on their teen’s phone. Whether that’s because most parents choose to allow their teens to have freedom online, or because they are unaware of the options, is unclear. But EFF supports the development of tools that are easy to use for parents and young people so that they can decide what they can access online. We also support laws that strengthen competition and interoperability, which would give us all more options to better control our own experiences online. 

In addition, we support privacy for everyone—including young people—online. Comprehensive data privacy legislation would remove some of the worst incentives that social media platforms have to capture the data and attention of every user in dangerous ways . Laws that force all users to share even more data with platforms move us in the wrong direction. 

In the meantime, EFF will continue to fight for the rights of all people to both share and access legal speech online. 

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Should social media be banned for under-18s?

We ask whether it is now time to regulate social media use in the UK in the same way as alcohol and tobacco.

Social media should be banned for children under 18.

A controversial point of view perhaps, but one that is growing around the world.

Utah became the first US state to ban social media use among under-18s last month . “We’re no longer willing to let social media companies continue to harm the mental health of our youth,” said governor Spencer Cox.

And TikTok recently announced changes for users under 18 , including limiting screen time.

Social media can be fun. It can even be bizarre, such as the recent claims of Banff Academy pupils identifying as cats and defecating on the floor .

But ultimately, it also puts youngsters at serious risk of harm .

Having been a part of our lives for more than 15 years now, is it now time to regulate social media use in the UK in the same way as alcohol and tobacco?

Have your say: Is it time to regulate social media use among children?

The P&J put the question to two experts, who had contrasting views.

One said social media was a positive tool for children to ‘find themselves’, and compared concern over its use to similar worries about the effect of television 50 years ago.

The other compared social media to the Wild West and called for greater regulation, including increasing the age limit.

Sarah Pedersen is a professor of communication and media at Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen.

She thinks it’s too easy to focus solely on the negative aspects of social media, and that not enough is said about the positives.

‘We don’t talk enough about the positives of social media’

“I don’t think banning social media for under-18s would be the right thing to do,” she said.

“Yes, there are lots of bad things about social media, but perhaps we don’t talk enough about some of the positives.

“It’s part of the identity formation process, it’s about discovering yourself and your tribe, and things you have in common with others.

“It’s also positive for people in remote communities, for example LGBT+, who are able to find support in a way our generation was never able to.

“We can’t just say ‘oh, there are some bad things and therefore we shouldn’t have it’. There are loads of good things as well which we tend not to celebrate.

“We tend to point the finger at social media and say it’s destroyed communities. No, it’s just changed things.”

‘The genie is out of the bottle’

In any case, says Prof Pedersen, social media has become such a feature of youngsters’ lives that any ban would be “impossible” in practice.

“The genie is out of the bottle – we cannot put it back in.

“You can’t just cut them off. It just goes underground. Banning it just makes it even more enticing.

“Do not tell me that all of Utah’s teenage population has just gone, ‘Absolutely, you’re right, I won’t go on TikTok.’

“That hasn’t happened, it’s just been made illegal. Just like there aren’t states in America where people under 21 don’t drink.”

‘Parents have been trying to ban things forever’

Parents have always worried about the impact of ‘new’ things on their children, according to Prof Pedersen. Social media is simply the latest.

“My parents used to try and ban me from watching STV,” she said. “I just went round to my friend’s house to watch it.

“There have been parents trying to ban things forever.

“It has changed childhood, but then 50 years ago we’d be having the same conversation about TV, and before that radio.”

Parents who have concerns over social media should be proactive, instead of relying on schools to educate youngsters on the pitfalls. Often, that means getting on social media themselves.

“It’s to do with parents actually stepping up and being a parent,” said Prof Pedersen.

“Your child gets to have an Instagram account, but you get to follow them on it.

“Just as we make the decisions about when they can walk to school on their own, or when they’re allowed to go into town on their own, we also make decisions about social media. You don’t just let them run free, you go with them.

“I think part of the problem is that parents may be on Facebook, but they’re not on TikTok or Instagram.

“Well, I’m sorry, but maybe you’re going to have to be in order to monitor what your kid does. If you’re worried about it, that’s what you should be doing.”

Body image, self-harm, anxiety: kids ‘too young’ for social media

Dr Petya Eckler is a social media researcher at the University of Strathclyde.

While she thinks raising the age limit from 13 to 18 is perhaps a step too far, she thinks social media should be restricted to age 16 and over.

She cited the example of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 , as what ultimately can happen when social media isn’t regulated properly.

“There’s now lots of evidence about the harms done to young people by social media,” said Dr Eckler. “These include negative body image comparison, self-harm, and anxiety.

“Thirteen is just too young, particularly for content-sharing sites like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

“At 13 and 14, kids have a lot of maturing to do. Their social emotions are stronger than older kids, and they’ve got a lot of cognitive development still to do.”

‘It’s like the Wild West’: call to regulate social media like broadcast media

As the current age limit is so low, Dr Eckler said more needs to be done to hold social media companies to account.

“Social media companies need to take a lot more responsibility in cleaning up their act, and have more safeguarding for young people.

“There needs to be more regulation, and less profiting from the insecurity and instability of our children.

“Social media should be viewed the same way as broadcast media, and regulated accordingly.

“Love Island comes with body image issues, but then because that’s on TV it’s regulated, and people can complain.

“Ultimately, social media companies should be expected to behave in the same way as we’d expect the BBC or Channel 5 to behave.

“They need to be held to account, because at the moment social media is like the Wild West.”

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Should children under 16 be denied access to social media apps?

Utah rep. chris stewart says social media use leading to depression, anxiety among children.

By Dennis Romboy

Tweens and teens spend as much as nine hours a day scrolling through social media, gaming, online shopping, video chatting and texting on their cell phones.

And an increasing amount of evidence suggests all that screen time is taking a toll on their mental health.

“The statistics are clear we’ve got a generation of young people that are the most distressed, anxious, depressed and tragically suicidal than any generation in our history,” said Rep. Chris Stewart, who was recently named co-chairman of the bipartisan Mental Health Caucus in Congress.

The rise in anxiety and depression, he says, can be almost directly correlated to when Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and began marketing initially to girls and then boys as young as 9. The Chinese app TikTok, he said, was designed as “emotional heroin” for young people.

“We just think we’ve got to do something,” he said.

Stewart, a Republican, believes he has a solution to the mental health crisis among adolescents: Make it illegal for social media platforms to provide access to children under 16. He intends to introduce legislation that would make social media companies responsible for age verification of their users.

The law wouldn’t displace parents’ decisions about their children’s social media use but help them avoid something harmful, he said.

“The government is involved with regulating when my children can drink, when they can smoke, when they can drive,” Stewart said. “We think society has a responsibility to protect young people and government should help in protecting them.”

Since 2000, the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act has required websites and online services to get parental consent before collecting data of children under 13. But it is rarely enforced. Stewart’s bill would basically raise the age to 16.

Stewart said he expects social media companies will “hate this” but that he’s willing to take their arrows “if we can do some good here.”

“They know if they can get someone addicted to social media at 9, they’ve got them for the rest of their lives,” he said.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, didn’t have a position on Stewart’s yet-to-be-filed legislation Monday, but pointed to steps it has taken to protect young people, including age-appropriate default settings, tools to encourage teens to spend time away from Instagram, and continuing to bring age verification to the platform.

“We have the same goals as policymakers,” according to Meta. “We have long advocated for clear industry standards in areas like age verification, and developing experiences that are age-appropriate.”

NetChoice, a tech industry group that includes Meta, Google, TikTok and Twitter, says education for both parents and children is the answer, not the “heavy-handed” government regulation Stewart is proposing.

Such laws are not only unenforceable but violate the First Amendment, said Carl Szabo, NetChoice vice president and general counsel.

Also, he said there’s a reason Congress set the age at 13 in the federal law. There’s an emotional and social differential between a 13-year-old and 15-year-old, who typically can drive a car, attend high school and is becoming less dependent on parents.

“This is well-intentioned. I think parenting in the 21st century is incredibly challenging,” Szabo said of Stewart’s proposal. “Now is there something that could be done? One-hundred percent.”

Szabo pointed to Florida and Indiana lawmakers considering legislation to require social media education in schools. The materials, he said, would be presented not only to kids but to their parents.

“Let’s see how that goes first,” he said.

The better approach, Szabo said, is to not try to replace parents as California has done with its Age-Appropriate Design Code Act.

Modeled off standards in the United Kingdom, the  California law  requires the highest privacy settings to be turned on by default for minors. It also says that online services targeting kids under 18 must assess the risk of harm to those users that could come from potentially harmful messages or exploitation. It’s set to take effect in July 2024.

“California has stepped in between parents and their teenagers,” Szabo said.

NetChoice sued California over the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment. “There’s a First Amendment right for teenagers. There’s a First Amendment right for the internet,” he said.

Stewart said his legislation has Democratic co-sponsors and his initial talks with the White House have been encouraging.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about big Big Tech “abuses” last week, President Joe Biden said Democrats and Republicans can find common ground on protection of privacy, competition and children.

“Millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma and mental health. We must hold social-media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” the president wrote.

A Pew Research Center survey found 95% of 13- to 17-year-olds have access to a smartphone.

Between 2009 and 2017, the number of 8th graders using social media every day rose from 46% to 78%, and the time high school students spent online doubled. Common Sense Media estimates that children ages 8 to 12 spent five and a half hours a day on screens in 2021, and teens ages 13 to 18 spent nearly nine hours a day, according to research compiled by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University.

A study by the two institutes found that teens who devote more than eight hours a day to screen time were about twice as likely to be depressed as their peers who were on screens less often than that.

In the past decade, anxiety, depression and teen suicide have surged, especially among girls, since the mass adoption of smartphones around 2010, according to University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox, a fellow of the Institute for Family Studies and the American Enterprise Institute, and Riley Peterson, an undergraduate in religion and sociology at Baylor University.

Depression more than  doubled , from 12% in 2010 to 26% today for teen girls. Emergency room visits for self-inflicted injuries almost  doubled  over the same period, again for teen girls. And teen suicide among girls has risen to a  40-year high , Wilcox and Riley wrote in a recent Deseret News piece.

“We can’t just turn away from it. We can’t just ignore it. We can’t just pat them on the back and say ‘hey, you’ll feel better’ and ignore it,” Stewart said.

Stewart’s bill would give states the authority to file a civil action on behalf of its residents if a social media platform violates the regulations. It also gives parents a right to sue on behalf of their children. It allows the Federal Trade Commission to impose fines for violations.

Seattle public schools recently sued the companies behind Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, claiming the platforms are largely responsible for a major decline in young people’s mental health.

Szabo said there’s a simple reason that the social-emotional state of not only teenagers but all Americans is at an all-time low. “It happens to do with being locked down in our homes for two years,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. “That seems to be hand-waved away.”

The only lifeline kids had was through technology, he said.

“It seems silly to lay the blame at the feet of technology even though it seems to be an easy answer,” Szabo said. “Society goes through this every time we have a new technology.”

South Australia is pushing to ban social media access for children under 14, but how would a ban actually work?

Children under 14 could be banned from having social media accounts in South Australia, with a review now underway.

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has appointed a former High Court chief justice to examine how the state could implement a ban on platforms including Instagram and TikTok.

So why is South Australia doing this? And how would it actually work?

Why does SA want to impose the ban?

Mr Malinauskas said the proposal was fuelled by concerns that social media was contributing to mental illness in young people.

"We are seeing mounting evidence from experts of the adverse impact of social media on children, their mental health and development," Mr Malinauskas said. 

Mr Malinauskas said he was also concerned about how social media companies were using "addictive" algorithms to draw younger people in. 

The government said it was responding to concerns from experts and the wider community about how social media platforms were exposing children to illegal content and cyber bullying. 

Australian mental health service ReachOut found this year that social media was the biggest concern for parents and carers with children.

"Our kids are being harmed now, and there's no time to waste. I don't want to sit around waiting for someone else. Let's lead," Mr Malinauskas said on Sunday. 

"If you are a social media giant and you are making money off the back of making our children unwell, we will not stop to see change."

What would a ban look like?

Children under 14 in South Australia would be banned from having social media accounts, in what would be an Australian first. 

The government said children aged 14 and 15 would require parental consent to have social media access. 

However, it is still exploring how it could legally go about it.

Former High Court chief justice Robert French has been tasked with examining "the legal, regulatory and technological pathways" for the government to impose a ban. 

How would it be enforced?

That's not clear. 

The premier said Mr French's investigation, which has no deadline, would look at how to enforce the ban.

Mr Malinauskas said while the Australian Constitution states that media is the responsibility of the federal government, mental health falls to the states.

"If indeed the advice comes back to Mr French that this is very difficult for state governments to regulate, then I think it will leave an open field for the federal parliament to act," he said. 

Joanne Orlando, an early childhood education lecturer at Western Sydney University, told the ABC enforcing a ban would not be easy.

Dr Orlando said teenagers would likely access social media through other means. 

"They [teenagers] are very savvy when it comes to technology," she said. 

"Banning just simply is removing one pathway and they'll always find other pathways."

What impact does social media have on young people?

According to ReachOut, about 30 per cent of parents and carers surveyed said social media and internet use had "a lot" of impact on their teenager's wellbeing. 

But Dr Orlando said blocking teenagers from accessing social media would just put issues around social media use on pause until they were older.

"Once they start using it, they still need to be able to understand the kind of content that they're seeing on social media, the way algorithms work," she said.

"Because it's only with that knowledge can we then start to help young people to have a much more in control behaviour with social media so they can understand the content on there."

Catherine Page Jeffery, a media and communications lecturer at University of Sydney, agreed and said blanket bans on social media use could have unintended consequences.

"I think it's really important to remember that managing risks and developing resilience are really important skills for young people to develop and they'll miss out on that if we just ban social media altogether," Dr Page Jeffery said. 

Where else have children been banned from social media? 

Similar laws have come into effect in other parts of the world. 

Last year, Utah became the first US state to pass a law that placed restrictions on children's access to social media, according to AP.

In March, Florida passed a law that blocked children under 14 years old from having a social media account.

Like SA's proposal, the law requires children aged 14 and 15 years old to seek parental permission to use social media.

"A child in their brain development doesn't have the ability to know that they're being sucked into these addictive technologies and to see the harm and step away from it," Florida Speaker Paul Renner said at the time. 

Arkansas followed in April 2023, but its laws do not apply to LinkedIn, Google and YouTube. 

What does the federal government say? 

In a statement, Federal Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said the government welcomed any Australian jurisdiction seeking to keep Australians safe online. 

"The federal government is funding a $6.5 million age assurance trial in the upcoming federal budget to address children's access to age inappropriate content online, including on social media," the statement said.

"We are is also reviewing the Online Safety Act to ensure our online regulator eSafety has the powers it needs to keep Australians safe."

Dr Page Jeffery said it was an issue that needed to be addressed at a higher level than state government.  

"Banning things might seem like the easy answer. I think it rarely is," she said.

"Maybe we need to be legislating, to hold some of these super powerful platforms to a better standard — and that seems like a better approach."

What do young people think?

The ABC spoke to several young people in Adelaide to get their thoughts on the plans.

Amy, 16, said she thought it was a good idea to prevent young people accessing "bad things" on social media. 

"I think it's a good thing. But it would be hard to enforce. I don't think people are going to follow that," Amy said. 

Matilda, 15, said she understood why the state government was interested in banning it, particularly because of the impacts on mental health.

"Especially Instagram and stuff … even just seeing what people were doing and then feeling left out and stuff like that," she said. 

Abhir, 14, said he did not support the proposal and instead preferred the government make platforms safer for young people. 

"You should still be able to have social media but ban some stuff within social media to make it more safe for kids of all age[s]," he said. 

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Why Your Kids Shouldn't Be on Facebook

It’s important that children are very familiar with eSafety rules before they create a Facebook account.

While 13 is the minimum age required to set up a Facebook account, many children under this age set up accounts on Facebook and other social networks by entering in false date of birth information.

Social media has been proven to play an important role in teaching children life skills for the digital age. Parents can help their pre-teens acquire critical eSafety skills by being actively involved with their internet usage on social networking sites that are exclusively for younger children, such as Kidz World, Your Sphere, Togetherville and ScuttlePad.

But for pre-teens, Facebook simply isn’t appropriate.

If you’re on the fence about helping your pre-teen set up a Facebook account, here are some compelling reasons why pre-teens should not be on Facebook.

Helping your pre-teen create a Facebook account is helping them lie about their age.

Not only are you teaching your child that you think it's okay to tell a lie, you will be setting a risky precedent about which rules are “ok” to break.

The minimum age requirement is in place because Facebook wants to keep kids safe.

“We take safety very, very seriously and think that educating parents about protecting their kids online is as important about talking to kids about not opening the door to strangers or looking both ways before crossing the street,” said Maureen O’Hara, Facebook-Corporate Communications.

If you teach your child that it is okay to lie about their date of birth to access Facebook, then they could well believe that it’s okay to lie about their age to access other websites that are not appropriate for children. Teaching your child about how to be safe online involves teaching children to respect age-restrictions on websites.

Facebook exposes kids to adult content.

The minimum age of 13 was intentionally set as a way to safeguard pre-teens from adult content. The majority of Facebook's users are older teens and adults who may post suggestive photos or use inappropriate language for your under-13 child to see.

Kids-focused social networking sites are a safe way for children to be on a social network without the risk of them seeing inappropriate content.

Protect your kids from cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying can have very destructive outcomes for kids of any age, but is particularly devastating for children in the 6-12 age range. Children at this age take words very literally and receive criticism more personally. Combined with the permanence of Facebook content, pre-teens may be greatly impacted by taking harsh words very personally as well as dealing with content, like images, that live forever online.

Again, educating children about cyberbullying and showing them healthy ways to respond if they or someone they know are being bullied online will offer a strong foundation for when they do get on Facebook and other social networking sites.

Facebook for pre-teens can contribute to childhood obesity.

Young kids need to stay active with unstructured play, outdoor time, and plenty of face-to-face interactions with other kids. Spending time on Facebook and other online activities detracts from this active place and may open the door to a more sedentary lifestyle, contributing to childhood obesity.

Additionally, researchers at Columbia University recently discovered that using Facebook may be tied to obesity, for children and adults, due to the negative eating habits that could result from frequent visitation of social networking sites.

So until children reach the age of 13, it’s best for them to stay off Facebook and learn how to be safe and make smart choices online in other ways.

Consider taking our online e-safety training course to help you assist your children even more with making safer choices in a digital environment.

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Should Children Be Allowed to Have Facebook Accounts?

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg claims there is no harm for underaged children to have facebook accounts, that COOPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection) is wrong to ban them from this large social community.

In fact Consumer report survey suggest that 7.5 million users are under 13 as it is. Facebook is a popular social network, on the surface it doesn’t seem dangerous. In ideal circumstances it would be a great place for children to stay in touch with their family and interact with friends. Is facebook safe for our children?

All the Yes points:

Kids already do have accounts, along with pets and imaginary people, parental control, privacy settings and look at myspace/youtube, facebook cannot monitor all users nor validate user information, well…yes and no, answer to giving out personal info is dangerous, if there’s parental control and they use proper privacy settings ., assists in schoolwork, let’s look at it a different way., all the no points:, facebook will become another web-based venue for sexual predators fishing for jailbait, parental supervision is crucial, giving out personal information is dangerous, the smallest bit of information could be harmful, yes because….

Kids, along with pets and imaginary people already do have accounts. I’ve taught eighth graders who have Facebook accounts and simply lie about their age. There are many school activity groups (including debate sports) that only have people born after 2011 in them. There are also groups/pages like sesame street or Miley Cyrus, which are again populated almost entirely by those under 13. [[http://www.facebook.com/pages/FACEBOOK-KIDS/124227537598647]] [[http://www.facebook.com/SesameStreet]] Making a Facebook account is child’s play. Surely it would be better to allow children to have these accounts, to post their real ages and to allow for parental controls. Kids do not respond well to being wrapped in cotton wool and despite what the media say incidences of ‘predetors’ are actually quite small. It is only by being open with children and alerting them to the potential pitfalls of online life that we can truely protect them from the few out there that are out to prey on them.

No because…

This only means that stricter measures need to be taken to keep kids from Facebook. Kids are on Facebook and so are predators. Accounts for pets and fictional characters are actually created and updated by the pet owner or a fan of the character, whereas children update their own accounts.

It is absurd to suggest that a parent would let a child under 13 use the internet unsupervised. To have a Facebook account, one needs an email account. Check your spam folder in any public free access email account (be it Gmail, yahoo , AOL, hotmail ) and you will find Viagra , pudendum enlarging advertisements, and other emails with adult content. To allow a child exposure to such rubbish is the act of a very irresponsible parent, so responsible parents, will use their own email accounts to make their kids’ Facebook accounts and will thus be able to supervise everything that goes on in their child’s Facebook. The problem with Myspace and MSN chatrooms was/is that these children had/have Hotmail accounts. The same issue arises with youtube, children who have unsupervised youtube accounts, also have unsupervised email accounts. [[http://www.internetsafety101.org/news.htm?id=64]] Facebook unlike a closed chatroom is also largely public, if a friend request is accepted it’s not just on the sender/acceptor’s wall, it’s also on the home page: your mom’s homepage. [[http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com/]] [[http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/moms-on-facebook/1253700/[]] privacy on Facebook is a really old joke that people will never tire of telling. ;)[[http://www.facebook.com/circleofmoms]]

So your argument is that there should be age restrictions on email account creation, which is impossible since so many young people already have email accounts. Parents can’t be everywhere, controlling parents have rebellious children , there are most parents who are swamped with activities other than, so who does my little cherub have a crush on? And there have been cases on Facebook despite the current age restriction. Facebook needs to ensure that people using the facility are real and not lying about their age, otherwise pranks like this. [[http://www.anhourago.us/show.aspx?l=8295862]] and horrors like these. [[http://blog.pcpandora.com/2011/05/25/wacky-internet-predator-wednesday-145/]] will not be deterred.

Facebook cannot monitor the acivities of all users in the fastest way there is. That is mainly the reason why users are asked for feedbacks regarding other users activities. Facebook cannot validate the information given by the users for it only requires a yahoo account. The child can input different age values for the yahoo account and the facebook registration form.

Once Facebook promotes it’s no child on Facebook policy, Facebook and Zuck have done all they can. [[http://sebatasinfo.co.cc/zuck-says-letting-tweens-on-facebook-not-a-priority.html]] The baton now rests with parents. But if Facebook removes its pre-teen ban then Facebook will have to monitor users. You don’t child proof wine, precisely because kids shouldn’t be drinking alcohol; the onus of keeping kids from drinking rests with the parents.

I do think that kids should have facebook accounts but that’s what I think, most parents will say no but they only say that for your own good. Facebook is really insecure. I mean I wish I had a facebook account but I can’t because my parents say no and I know I might be missing out on somethings but I really want to be safe, and not get myself into bad situtions. I think that kids should get facebook accounts when there about 18 years old because there more mature and they make more better choices about what there next moves are.

the assumption that people make better choices with age has no practical relevance. Countless Adults the world over, are homeless, drug addicts, criminals, a danger to themselves and others. Being 18 does not magically transform you into a good, stable and street-smart person. Facebook should take measures to protect people of all ages from disinformation, spam and misinformation. Children are not the only ones falling prey to internet scams. Facebook needs to monitor and control the credibility of its content. [[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/facebooks-newest-scam-photoshop-app-with-fake-photos/236656/]] [[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/facebooks-newest-scam-photoshop-app-with-fake-photos/236656/]]

People can stalk you at work, people can stalk you on the street, people can stalk you anywhere and everywhere you go. Every time a person is exposed a certain of security is lost. The good thing about Facebook is, that you can communicate with lots of people on different personal levels toggling with privacy controls/settings, thus having complete control over your personal exposure. Hanging out in the open physically exposed, is far more dangerous. A person can’t shoot or bomb you on facebook, but you can be killed in a coffee shop, public library, subway, train station, tube etc.

credit card theft is common, so is internet phishing, identity theft is the worst and most common danger of the internet. [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957/]]

Facebook is a very open site. If the parents have a bit of control over what their children see and the privacy settings are used right, there’s no problem because eventually, they’ll probably create it anyways. There’s not much harm of it as long as information isn’t distributated to the max.Facebook is generally just chatting with your friends, but becaredul of who you add as friends.

No, because I said so

Children can use Facebook as a discussion space for school work and to also put up announcements to inform other students about things at school

This is a sad excuse for an argument because we all know this would not take place even 20% of the time

Of course they should be allowed. If we reverse the question and say should older people be allowed facebook accounts as they are the ones that are pedophiles? Why punish children for what adults are doing? The more intelligent approach to the problem is to educate and try and restrict adult/ child friendships on facebook. Basically, just don’t be an idiot when you are on facebook and you should be fine.

they might be trolled and raped :))))))))

It started with Msn chat rooms; do we really want to risk turning Facebook into another child-predator hub? [[http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/ChatNightmares.htm]] [[http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/Archives_10.htm]] Since internet predators attack boys/girls aged anywhere from 7 to 17, maybe Facebook should reduce the year of birth to 2006 not raise it to include even younger children.

Most things in facebook are largely public; parents aware of who’s on their kids’ friends’ list, what’s written on their wall and access to their kids’ account privacy settings. Kids under 13 do not have their own laptops or P.Cs and sexual predators tend to prowl for girls/boys who are 13 or older. Usually 15 year old girls. [[http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/News_Archives.htm]]

Facebook is harmful for children of all ages.They are unaware of its dangers and can easily become prey. Also, children might unwilingly or unknowingly diclose information about their lives and this could result in physical harassment.Parents try to protect their children from explicit contents and on facebook that is impossible.I am aware that children are exposed to all sorts of inappropriate behavior on a daily basis, both through media and Internet.Unfortunately, that cannot be controlled, but their access to facebook can.Many children already have accounts, some even with parental permission.I believe that if children must have accounts it should be with maximum parental supervision.I am not a parent, but I have used Internet since I was six and have been a facebook user since the age of 13. I have had unpleasant experiences with many social networks and chat rooms(surely you must think those aren’t places for children, but I was curious, as any child is) I must say the idea of facebook is fantastic, but facebook itself is often abused and children are the weakest and most easily influenced members of society.Therefore, we should be protect them where protection is needed and possible.Facebook may be available to them today, but why not force this great social network to change this and have a more strict privacy and access policy.

Of course it is, but who’s going to supervise the parents? Kids with adult privileges don’t exactly have effectively vigilant parents. Stricter policies will not make a different, if you create laws that are bound to be broken, you’re only saying you want more kids in juvenile prison. If Facebook starts requiring I.D card numbers or other more stringent means of identification, the most vulnerable kids will steal this information from their parents. It’s like making drugs illegal, it doesn’t work.

I personally think that Facebook is a not a good social networking site because it is a place where people can stalk you, and it is unsafe. When people first create a new Facebook account, and it asks you for all of your personal information such as your address, phone number, and email, people don’t usually think before submitting in the information. This is dangerous for kids and an easy way for a person to stalk you because they now know a lot about you, and how to contact you. Of course you can hide your profile and limit the access to certain people, but its not really the same once you submit the information. Even though Facebook has an age restriction, people on the internet lie about their age and decide to make an account anyways. Sometimes people’s parents know what’s best and when they tell their kids that Facebook is not a safe networking site to be on, people go right ahead and make it anyways and sneak around on it hoping not to get caught.

No kids should not have Facebook because it is very dangerous to give out information to Facebook because other people can see it. Kids also add random people that might stalk them so there is the danger of being stalked by a stranger. Kids can get cyber bullied online by their friends form school or stranger. There is the risk that anyone can see your profile and all you picture and do something with those pictures of you. I think that the age you should have Facebook is at age 11 and on, because i think you are old enough to know all the dangers of online accounts. There are way more examples i can give, but these are a few that are the most important. so i think that kids should not have Facebook accounts. For safety reasons.KA

Cannot focus on homework and other school activities that are done on the computer and people get sidetracked onto Facebook and don’t get work done

Can assist in Homework to discuss with other peers and get ideas for assignments and homework task

Kids are young and so are their minds. They don’t always know the right answers and though we need to let them learn that hard way sometimes, this might not be something you’d want to risk. I’ve known teenagers who have posted stupid things on Facebook that have lead to horrid outcomes. One person just stated their family was going on vacation and a facebook “friend” broke into their house and robbed them. Facebook is also defaulted to give away the “round-about” location on where you are posting from. It may not be exact, but its something. This isn’t a punishment for a child, it’s a simple precaution.

That kind of negative effects from infomation sharing is as likely to happen to adults as children so is not an argument for or against an age limit.

No, kids should not be allowed to use Facebook. Even many adults struggle with protecting their privacy online; children do not have the knowledge needed to keep their personal information protected (name, location, etc). Not only could they accidentally post information disclosing things about themselves that need to stay private, but there are so many scams that can come from ads on social media; young kids are more likely to fall victim to those. Facebook has many great qualities, but children should find something more safe and productive to do.

honestly it’s the parent’s choice. if their kid is going to have a facebook account, they should monitor it and be responsible

Yes, Children should be allowed to have Facebook accounts. I know from personal experience that i was more than knowledgeable about the dangers of the internet at age 11, while many adults i have met don’t know any more than that. I mean, think about it. Young adults are constantly being irresponsible, drinking and doing drugs and such. So how did we come up with the conclusion that children are less responsible? Seriously, kids these days are way to underestimated.

No, they should not. At their age they need to be focus on school work and activities. Today, they spend more time on social networking.. Don’t get be wrong networking is a great tool for business – and propect employers- but not for our young children. They need to get god grades and get into a good college, trade school or military services. Some of speak of parental controls. Good luck.. The kids can set up account with different emails and have full control of their accounts. You as a parent havr no idea what your child is posting, who they are meeting and what name they are even using.

So as a concern parent – NO.. Social media should be for 18 years and older. Just like we have laws for driving and drinking..

You should give kids a real chance and trust them so,they no they can be trusted and also have fun as well and fill important and chat with family and friends

i have a facebook. and im 12 years old. i dont even put real information on my profile, but still…when my mom found out…she was mad…and tried to delete my account she eventually did. but i made another account. And i kinda regret it, but its a way to connect with other people. and ask people things that may be important. wopila!!

NO!!! there are bad people out there and kids can see and hear things they should not, and the time some kids spend on it is CRAZY!!!

are there any statistics or facts that show that by allowing your children to go online they with prosper in any way? Or is it just another way that minors can connect with the world, and by world I mean everyone in the world weather it is appropriate or not?

LOL! Like you can stop them. And besides it’s the parents choice anyways.

Facebook Should Be Banned Essay

Introduction.

For the last five years or so, social networking sites have escalated both in numbers and popularity as millions register at these sites for various reasons. Consequently, several sites have materialized such as MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook, each with its own slant and users’ appeal.

However, Facebook has received most attention from over 500 million users worldwide; it has become the norm than rather the exception across the world population. As internet technologies continue to advance, Facebook and other social media sites bring even a bigger impact on society.

Correspondingly, the use of Facebook has improved and promoted interconnectedness among friends in spite of their temporal and spatial differences. Moreover, Facebook has facilitated socialization by allowing individuals to meet, share, create, and nurture friendships over the internet.

However, in spite of fact that Facebook is the modern way of promoting businesses and connecting people worldwide, it should be banned due to privacy issues, relationship devastations, and its use to endorse political revolutions.

Facebook history and its initial purpose

While, Facebook has been cited as the world largest website, its’ beginning was quite humble. Currently, Facebook membership stands at more than 500million users monthly and the number keeps growing each day. However, looking back seven years ago, Mark Zuckerberg’s idea of creating a social networking platform for his college mates would appear insignificant as compared to the gigantic social networking site being witnessed today.

Zuckerberg conceived the idea of a social networking site during his undergraduate years at Harvard University (Carlson, 2010).). Motivated by idea of enabling students within his campus to get to know each other, assisted by his college mates, Zuckerberg founded Facebook, which was initially restricted to Harvard College.

However, following some technical and operational advancement the site was expanded to other colleges in the region and it was just a matter of time before it was made available to everyone. By 2006, nothing could stop Facebook from becoming a global phenomenon, when it started accepting membership to all and sundry as long as one was over 13 years and had a valid email address.

Initially, the then called ‘thefacebook.com’ integrated several social networking applications that enabled its users to add friends, comment on friends’ profiles, and send messages, update own profile status among other myriad social connectedness functions (Carlson, 2010).

Despite numerous hurdles along the way, Facebook has been positively embraced across the world, thus increasing its usage and popularity. As of 2009, it was ranked as the most popular social networking site with its monthly usage increasing each day in English speaking countries including the United States, United Kingdom and Canada (Carlson, 2010).

Moreover, its penetration in regional internet markets has been tremendous with North America in the lead at 69%, Middle East, 67 %, Latin America 58%, Europe 57% and Asia pacific 17%. The author underscores that, Facebook photo applications have facilitated Facebook popularity whereby users can upload and share an unlimited number of photos.

Contrastingly, Facebook has also overgrown its initial social networking idea to encompass other diverse roles. Following its huge membership base, most businesses are utilizing this platform to market their products and services to the myriad users (Carlson, 2010).

Facebook connects people worldwide

Given the magnitude of attention that Facebook has received across the world, my opinion that, it ought to be banned might sound like a big joke. By enabling people to meet and make new friends, Facebook has become the basis for social engineering.

With the cost of living rising each day, Facebook provides people an alternative means of staying connected with friends and family. Apparently, the status update and newsfeed application permits individuals to follow up on what is happening to their friends regardless of the spatial distance between them (Facebook, 2011).

Most importantly, seven years down the line, Facebook is still living up to its mission of opening up the world up by facilitating connectedness and online interactions. With the advent of Facebook and other social networking sites, the world is becoming smaller as people across different cultures, borders, genders and customs share and exchange materials online (Carlson, 2010).

According to Facebook (2011), the site is visited by over 800million active users with an average of 130 friends per user. Moreover, over half of these users log on to the site each day as they interact with various applications.

Furthermore, an average user connects with his/her friends via the various applications such groups, events and community pages and most active users have access to an average of 80 such pages. Furthermore, with over 70 languages available on Facebook, individuals are able to connect without the restriction of language barriers.

As a matter of fact, over 75% users are located outside the USA, meaning Facebook is a global entity (Facebook, 2011). The above analysis indicates that Facebook is a social engineering site that defies the constraints of border, language , cultural, social ties and economic disparities and that it promotes interconnectedness among global users.

On the other hand, whereas social interconnectedness may sound like an excellent idea, the fact remains that, the shortcomings which will be discussed herein, outweighs the benefits of social connection. Furthermore, one is compelled to question whether the social ties created via Facebook are genuine.

Connectedness influences crime

The fact that Facebook popularity has escalated with unparalleled intensity is not questionable, however, the big query remains about its contribution to cyber crime. History has shown that whenever great masses of people come together crime is inevitable.

As aforementioned, Facebook membership has been increasing each day and with its ability to surpass language, cultural and physical barriers, the site has managed to bring a multitude of people together. However, although this positive aspect might look highly attractive, the recent crime report makes the entire argument ineffectual.

According to (Milsom, 2010), with the rising popularity of social networking sites, the rate of crime associated with this site has also increased at unprecedented levels. The report by Cambridgeshire indicates that Facebook related crime ascended from a diminutive figure of 22 in 2007 to over 1600 in 2010.

In 2007, Facebook related crime was extremely low because membership was also low, but as more and more people embrace Facebook so does the increase in crime becomes a distressing reality (Milsom, 2010). In addition, the report linked over 255 domestic incidents, 210 antisocial behaviors and 426 malicious nuisances to Facebook popularity.

The argument behind this notion is that, the site has attracted diversified individuals including criminals targeting the numerous Facebook users. The above implies that, if Facebook popularity is contributing to an increase in social networking crimes at equaled or even extra levels, then the entire site should be banned because it downplays the whole essence of interconnectedness if users become susceptible to criminals. The most important thing to remember is that Facebook admits children as young as 13 years who might not have the knowhow to differentiate between genuine and criminal advances.

Promotes businesses

Secondly, the concept of the social media networking sites and their influence on businesses has attracted a lot of attention lately. Based on the fact that social networking sites attract a lot of traffic, their usefulness in promoting businesses cannot be overemphasized.

Stay (2008) underscores that, Facebook site encompasses various tools that businesses can utilize to promote their brands. To begin with, Facebook Pages were created with an aim of enabling business owners to create profiles for their businesses.

After creating this Page, interested people can become fans and by liking the Page, their friends can also see, hence promoting brand or business recognition among various users (Stay, 2008). In addition, businesses can share photos, videos and any other information about their products/services thus promoting their brand image among the diverse audience not just in their home country, but also across borders.

Similarly, businesses can utilize Groups application on Facebook to advertise their brands. Most of these groups attract individuals with similar interests hence marketers can target a particular group of adventure lovers, for example, to advertise for instance a travel and tours business.

Furthermore, the advertising engine enables businesses to identify the size of demographic target that is enrolled on Facebook. This enables marketers to make decisions on whether to advertise to that demographic depending on the available statistics or not.

On the same note, big businesses have special customized options upon which they can advertise their business. For this option, if users make a purchase, their friends are able to see this activity; and betting on the impact of peer influence, such business might end up making more similar purchases (Stay, 2008).

Most importantly, marketers can use Facebook polls to gauge user’s perceptions about their products/services. In addition, marketers can conduct polls to gauge whether a particular products or idea will be viable when introduced into the market.

Finally, Facebook Connect is also a vital tool for businesses to connect with users who visit their site. Although, Stay (2008) underscores that Facebook has a long way to go before it can be fully advantageous to businesses, the bottom line is that, the advent of Facebook has been of great importance to business operations. Noticeably, the fact that individuals can advertise their products on personal pages enables small businesses to thrive with minimal investment.

Facebook promotes business scams

On the contrary, the same way Facebook can be used to promote brand image, it can also be used by malicious rivals to downplay a product or a business idea. According to Bradley (2010), the Like button that is enabled on Facebook can be used by malicious users to create a bad image for a certain company and its products.

The latter author explains online scammers are also using this Like button to penetrate into businesses databases. This implies that some Facebook applications have become a threat to businesses IT security because the Like button can be used to spread malicious scam through unknowing users.

Bradley (2010) underscores that, what might appear like an innocent online survey might turn out to be a scam aimed at penetrating businesses databases. This can bring devastating effects to the business especially if sensitive information is accessed by outsiders through the Facebook connection pages.

The devastation of numerous relationships are due to Facebook

Consequently, the popularity of Facebook usage among married couples threatens to disentangle this significant institution if nothing is done to stop it. Recently, different surveys have blamed Facebook of the numerous divorce cases being witnessed across the world today.

An article in the Daily Telegraph reported that, Facebook was cited by at least one couple in the numerous divorced petitions that were filed in 2009 as the fundamental reason for seeking divorce (Anon. 2009). Facebook provides an enhanced platform where individuals can connect with old friends and make friends with an ease that was never experienced before.

According to FOXNews (2010), Facebook has taken social interconnectedness to another level whereby married couples are looking for the missing link in their marriages over the internet. The worst of it all is that, people are connecting with ex-partners behind their partners back, but if they happen to be busted it becomes extremely difficult to salvage such marriage.

The report emphasizes that social networking sites including Facebook tempts people to cheat on their partners, whereas they would never commit such an offense in the absence of Facebook. Since Facebook does not authenticate user’s identity, suspicious spouses can use anonymous identities to find evidence about their patterns online affairs. Some divorces are uncalled especially if the busted partner was just looking for some online fun with no intention of parting with their spouse.

According to Anon (2009), over 20% of divorces cases that were filed in 2009 made references to Facebook whereby distraught spouses cited that, their partner has engaged in inappropriate chats via Facebook.

This issue has further been aggravated by the innovation of computer software that enables individuals to keep track of their partner’s online activities. For instance, Foxnews (2010) article cite is a specific case whereby a woman used the cited software to spy on her husband online activities on Facebook.

Unknown to her, the husband was announcing it to his Facebook friends that he was going to divorce her. When she eventually filed for divorce she produced this evidence in court. What we may never know in such a case is whether the husband really meant to divorce her or was just using that statement to win over some friends, but the fact remains that such marriage would still be strong today were it not for Facebook.

Most importantly, the very nature of interconnectedness promoted by Facebook attracts myriad negative impacts than benefits because although it facilitates the creation of social networking among old and new friends, the same concept devastates established relationships.

The thrill of meeting an old love online is very tempting to bored husbands and wives who oblivious of the negative consequences of such connections risk their marriages and the parties involved end up being hurt extremely.

The gravity of the matter is that, Foxnews (2010) cites that, some marriages as old as 13 years have ended up in divorce when a partner discovers suspicious activities on their spouses Facebook account. At this juncture, the billion dollar question should be if we allow Facebook to continue because it promotes interconnectedness at the expense of marriage institutions, or if we ban Facebook usage and save the myriad marriages that are likely to fall victim to the same monster.

The rise of privacy invasion is increasing due to Facebook and its privacy issues

On the same note, Facebook has been struggling with privacy issues that make its users susceptible to online related crimes. Recently, there has been a heighted public outcry about the fact the Facebook is unable to protect personal data thus fueling online crimes as criminals utilize the exposed personal data to fuel their criminal mission (Richmond, 2011).

The inability of Facebook to protect personal data following various technical hitches in the website has always attracted a lot of scrutiny from government and the public privacy watch groups. Following this scrutiny, Facebook has tried to make some numerous changes to privacy settings in vain.

The gravity of the matter is that most users are not aware of various security bleach incidences; hence, they continue to supply persona information oblivious of the kind of risk they attract to themselves (Richmond, 2011).

Consequently, Facebook and other networking sites have been blamed of the increasing cases of identity theft (CNN, 2011). By being unable to protect its users’ personal data, Facebook is exposing unsuspecting users to hackers who often steal personal identity to commit crimes.

For instance, hackers can use employees details obtained from Facebook to bypass IT security where such employees work. This situation puts both the employee and employer at risk of being harmed by the fraudsters. Secondly, Facebook has been associated with other crime such as cyber bullying.

Sexual bullies often hide behind the faceless social networking sites to lure vulnerable individual into their trap pretending to be their friends. Once they are sure that the victim is completely hooked, the bullies unleash the other side, a situation, which has been associated with numerous cases of suicide among teenagers who have fallen in the hands of online bullies (Richmond, 2011). Furthermore, CNN (2011) claims that criminals have often utilized Facebook medium to threaten, harass and intimate vulnerable groups such as children and women.

Recently, criminals have discovered a new method to commit crime by utilizing users’ details which are easily accessible on Facebook site. Criminals are utilizing user’s addresses on Facebook to burglarize houses. For instance, if an individual updates his/her status that ‘I am holiday’ and they have provided their physical addresses, thieves can take this time to strike.

Although such cases have only been reported in UK and US only, it is evident that Facebook is risking its user’s lives and property as well due its failure to protect members’ personal data (Richmond, 2011). Consequently, since it is not the first time the issue of privacy and Facebook have emerged then maybe the noblest thing is to ban its usage in order to get rid of privacy concerns including Facebook related crimes.

The Arab revolutions have been mainly supported through Facebook

The recent revolutions that were witnessed in the Arab world countries including Syria, Tunisia, Egypt and United Arab emirates were mainly fueled by Facebook. These revolutions began in Tunisia when a 23 year old man started a mobilizing campaign through the internet to garner support that would see the Tunisian president trouped out of power (Channel4News, 2011). Although, the revolutions may have been ignited by the influence of people’s power, the role of internet especially Facebook cannot be overemphasized.

In Tunisia the media is tightly controlled by the government, hence, the protesters utilized Facebook to secretly fuel a revolution. Moreover, Tunisian government exercised monopoly in internet provision whereby other social media networking sites were banned, except Facebook.

According to Channel4News (2011), Tunisian government contemplated closing down Facebook in 2009, but backed off because they feared this would have caused a public outcry because many people were also using the site to connect with their friends.

However, this hesitation would later cost the then president dearly as protesters utilized Facebook platform to stage a successful revolution. According to Frontline (2011), these revolutions were heightened by the fact that users could share photos, information and videos about what was happening across the country. Most importantly, the leaders of this revolution posted unfavorable comments about the government and shared it with their friends, and the network became so thick that a revolution was inevitable.

Correspondingly, inspired by successful utilization of Facebook and other social sites in Tunisia and Egypt, Syria activists also decided to try a similar mode to rally followers behind a political reform movement. The activists created group fan pages that urged people to stage mass protests across the country (Anon. , 2011).

Although the revolution never succeeded due to tight censorship of Facebook in Syria, the fact remains that Facebook has contributed greatly to the numerous Arab world revolutions being witnessed today.

Following a successful revolution in Tunisia, a similar upsurge was witnessed in Egypt whereby through the unparalleled use of internet, revolutionaries all over the country kept in touch with each other as they mobilized citizens to stage a revolution (Frontline, 2011).

Internet usage in Egypt has been under tight censorship, but the government downplayed the power of Facebook and other social media networking sites that citizens were allowed to access. The activists used Groups application feature on Facebook to instrument the uprisings.

On this note, groups such as ‘April 6 movement’, ‘We are all Khalid Said’ and the like were carefully crafted by activists whereby fans supplied critical comments about the government and within no time a revolution was inevitable (Frontline, 2011).

For instance, the April 6 Movement Facebook group was the most effective in incrementing a revolution in Tunisia. Initially the group was conceived to support an ongoing textile workers strike angered by low wages and rising cost of foodstuffs.

Initially, the founders of the group invited about 300 people to join, but by the end of the week, membership had stood at 3,000 members and this number continued to increase everyday to reach 70,000 within a very short time.

In a nutshell, it is evident that the myriad shortcomings associated with Facebook outweigh its various benefits. However, since Facebook has attracted the attention of millions of social networking site users worldwide, its banning might cause devastating effects. Nonetheless, the public ought to be educated about these negative effects of Facebook, especially the privacy and crime issues.

Anon. (2009). Facebook fuelling divorce, research claims . The Telegraph. Web.

Anon. (2011). Syrians call for protests on Facebook, Twitter . Web.

Bradley, T. (2010). Beware the Facebook “Dislike” Button Scam . PC World. Web.

Carlson, N. (2010). At Last — The Full Story of How Facebook Was Founded. Business Insider. Web.

Channel4News. (2011). Arab revolt: social media and the people’s revolution. Channel4News . Web.

CNN. (2011). Gotta Watch: Facebook privacy concerns. CNN . Web.

Facebook (2011). Statistics. Web.

Foxnews (2011). Facebook Is Driving the Divorce Rate Up, Says One Survey. Foxnews.com. Web.

Frontline. (2011). April 6 Youth Movement. Web.

Milson, C. (2010). Facebook Crime’ Rises By 7400% In The Past Three Years – Have Things Got That Bad? Web.

Richmond, R. (2011). As ‘Like’ buttons spread so do Facebook tentacles . New York Times. Web.

Stay, J. (2008). Facebook for Business: Opportunities and Limitations. Inside Facebook . Web.

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Bibliography

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