Should Minors Be Allowed?

Even with the dangerous developments in social media over the past several years, many parents have chosen to allow their children to use these sites despite age restrictions. There are three reasons to argue for age restrictions on social media sites: lack of supervision by parents, targeting of children by pedophiles, and the prevalence of children falsifying their age. The ability of pedophiles to conceivably target children with social media proves that this is an issue that parents need to examine so that they may better protect their children. The threat from pedophiles causes an enormous problem for millions of children on social media sites. Unfortunately, Western Daily Press states that “Pedophiles can get away with grooming young teenagers on social media sites.” My essay will argue that age restrictions need to be in place, and additional regulations should ensure that law enforcement agencies have the tools required to supervise underage children 's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Quoting from Business Wire, “three out of four parents feel that social network sites are not protecting children.” According to Irish Independent, “four out of ten children falsify their age” when using social media. I will also argue that additional research on this topic can be used to raise the awareness of parents, and can also help to alert the children themselves to the danger. My essay will also examine questions, such as: How can social media sites protect

86 percent of kids use social media. Teens are using social media to keep in touch with friends but, teens with bad backgrounds may be talking to strangers. Parents don’t really know if they should allow kids on social media. Is social media a safe environment for kids?

Every 4 out of 5 minors do not utilize privacy settings on their social media. Meaning their accounts are completely open to the public and entirely accessible to complete strangers. It is a very taboo topic to talk about but sex offenders can be stalking and waiting on any minor social media. Many minors tend to share anything and close to everything about their lives on their social media. Due to this fact most of them do not apply privacy settings whilst oversharing and posting personal information, giving enormous amounts of access to these sexual predators, therefore putting these minors at great risk. Although , there are some minors that use social media appropriately and properly. But, even those few Instagram accounts or tumblr blogs that belong to minors do seem to be used exactly the way they should be, they still aren’t being smart. There are famous blogs and youtube channels belonging to minors that are plastered all over the internet. These minors are not being completely safe. They are sharing and posting some very personal information to their 24K followers with no regard to practicing safety at

I believe that minors should have access to social media with certain restrictions because limited social networking prevents immature decisions. Minors being introduced to social media is like teenagers learning learning how to drive. They can both be dangerous situations, but if the correct decisions are made, then it could be beneficial for them and they could possibly learn something from it.

About 80% of teenagers today, have social media and approximately 40% of social media is used for communicating. Some of the popular social sites today may include Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook. I believe minors should be allowed to have social media because it has become a major part of today’s way of living by entertainment and has become a major form of communication.

and adolescents ages 0 to 19 years will be diagnosed with cancer and 1,960 will die of the

People think kids should not make fake accounts on social media. “In 2008, Lori Drew was convicted of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after creating a fake Myspace account” (Source 1, Paragraph 2). “Assuming the fake identity of a teenage boy, Drew used the account to flirt with, and later break up with, Megan Meier” (Source 1, Paragraph 2). This support the point because if kids make fake accounts kids will find out. If kids find out they will go and tell or they will hurt themselves because they thought they could trust that person.

One day there was a young girl that had a boyfriend that was over age. They were dating and they soon started have sexual relation and the underage girl got pregnant. The man was forced to go to jail because he was over age and she was underaged. There are many laws saying that grown woman or men are not allowed to date or have sexual encounter with minors.

Minors and social media is a big concern today but we need to understand the background information of how minors use it, and how it has helped them to make a living out of it without struggles. In addition, some minors don't understand the dangers of it and why its important to be precautious when it comes to living in the internet world, because it can harm them permanently. I believe that minors should have access to social media for things that may help them throughout life.

Every day minors get involve in web pages and social media which may sound as a bad

Moreover, teens and adults can be charged with possession of distributing child pornography, even if the they had taken and posted the media themselves. Commentary Another example of criminal charges would be the act of criminals using these sites to recruit members into their gangs or coordinate to commit violent crimes. Things like posting about vacation plans or sharing a current location make it easy for criminals to attack. Social media accounts are used to express all of the same drives and impulses behind in-person social interactions; which includes negative impulses such as bullying. Social media makes users available to predators and perpetrators who can anonymously pose as other people-“catfishing”, which is when one poses as someone who they are not to lure their victims. According to the National School Boards Association (NSBA), “49.5% of students reported being victims of bullying online”. They can terrorize others by using photos of anyone and using any of the information they posted about themselves as well; tricking their victims and causing harm to the identity holder. Being convinced you’re talking to someone else through the internet is very misleading. Hiding behind these internet personas are a common occurrence. These online attacks can leave deep mental scars and have driven victims to suicide. A 2012 Consumer Reports Survey showed that over 800,000 minors were

The public library has come under criticism for allowing children under age eighteen to check out books considered unacceptable. Some people believe that minors should not be allowed to check out what is deemed “inappropriate,” while others believe that the library has no business dictating what the children can or cannot read. I agree with the latter.

There are profile settings that allow who you want to see your profile, without even adding a person if the settings for your profile aren’t secure anybody can see what you do. When managing an account it gives you the options of whether you want everyone to see your profile, friends of friends, or friends only. The things that a lot of people have on their profiles shouldn’t be shared with everyone such as the kid’s interests, address, and the school they attend. This is the basic information that some parents don’t let kids put on their Facebook pages to keep them private. That’s not the only thing that sexual predators feed off of though, it could just be a simple thing that the kid’s post. Some examples of posts that predators might like could be as simple as, “going to the movie’s tonight at 7,” which gives the predator the exact location and time of where the kid would be. They could see a post that is posted by someone else that tags the kid in about being somewhere, which in that case the kid has no control of keeping that post private. Even if the kid has their profile completely private from all outside access, predators could also act like they know the kid, which makes the kid want to add him or her and now just like that the predator has access to everything the kid does on Facebook. It might not even be about knowing people for some kids, I’ve heard of kids adding people to make themselves look popular with all the friends they add and not care who

Facebook, twitter and instagram are all methods used to share your life with others. You’re able to post pictures and type statuses to inform your friends, followers, etc., what you have been up to and how you have been living your life. Adults usually post pictures and statuses focusing on their family, trips and special events in their lives, while the younger generation takes social media a lot more serious. Every moment of their lives are put out there for the world to see, sometimes without the realization. Teenagers on social media are always trying to impress and one up each other. They sometimes post inappropriate material to try to look as cool as possible without realizing that ultimately employers, teachers, parents, law enforcement and strangers all have the ability to see. The problem is once something is on the internet it is there forever, and if caught you can find yourself in major trouble.

Just as there are positive effects of social media, there are also negative effects as well. False connections are often made on SNS. Ninety percent of students have Facebook which is constructed to be socially shared with any user. It may seem obvious that users of social networking cannot stray far from reality from his or her online identity, although the users can depict what he or she wishes to display (Moreno et al. 452). There are many young teenagers on social networking websites posting true personal information, but there are also many young teenagers who false information. In fact, many young users of social networking, especially boys, give false information (Moreno et al. 251). Manipulation can occur in order for young users to join that network. Many times younger users have to lie about his or her age which is not always approved by his or her parents (Moreno et al. 253). A survey was done from children ranging from eight years old to twelve years old to provide the results that those who lied about their age did so within a four year range of their actual age. Thus, they knew they had to use false information, so they provided it with care (Moreno et al. 256). Because of the easiness to create an account falsely, it also makes it simpler to deceive one another. Deception is used to attack another user potentially causing upsetting consequences. The deception taking place online from networking is typically used to mislead others (Tsikerdekis and