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As members of Gen Z, we experienced life both with and without social media. While we spent most of our early childhoods offline, playing outdoors and making crafts, our “tween” and teenage years were consumed by social media.

Many of us are still experiencing the negative impacts of social media that children today are facing. By the time we got our first smartphones, platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat had taken off. Depression and anxiety rates in teens also increased around this time.

When I got my first phone in middle school, I created social media accounts the second I was able to. If I wasn’t at school or practice, I was scrolling through Tumblr, Vine and Instagram.

Influencers on Instagram pushed content bombarded with filters and Tummy Teas while Tumblr, similar to TikTok now, was notorious for promoting weight loss and diet culture. At 12 years old, I was comparing my own body, experiences and life to what I saw online. My friends and others were doing the same, and those who didn’t fit into these portrayals were subjected to the cruelty of middle school bullying.

In response to this, the Federal Trade Commission offered several revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, or COPPA, last month. Under COPPA, websites and social media platforms are prohibited from collecting personal data from children aged 13 and under. With COPPA’s last changes being made in 2000, it’s safe to say that while this law is incredibly important, it is also outdated — social media has made great advances over the past 20 years.

The FTC’s revisions attempt to ensure that websites and social media platforms are taking an active role in keeping children safe online through certain protective measures. Part of their goal is to strengthen social media security by restricting the need for personal data and to limit exposure to branded advertisements pushed onto users through influencers, companies or the platform itself.

Just two months before the FTC announced their revisions, the state attorneys of 33 states filed a lawsuit against Meta for violating COPPA due to their ineffective age-checking system allowing users to easily falsify their birthday. The company was also accused in court documents of being aware of its large number of underage users and collecting their personal data anyways.

Most social media apps require users to be 13 years old or older. Despite this, 40% of children between the ages of 8 and 12 have reportedly used social media anyways and one-third of children between the ages of 8 and 17 have reportedly lied about their age on social media. Some even said they set up a social media account without the consent of a parent, exposing them to potentially harmful content without their parents or guardians knowing.

Fernanda Kligerman|Design Editor

As social media grows, the risks appear to outweigh the benefits, especially for young people whose brains have not fully developed. According to the U.S Surgeon General Advisory, heightened social media use at a young age can lead to various mental and physical health issues. The cyberbullying, harassment and pressure to fit in with peers and influencers that often results from increased social media usage has been shown to increase depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia and substance abuse.

These traumas haven’t simply gone away as we got older. Young adults are more likely to suffer from mental health issues than teenagers — many experts credit this to the expansion of social media. As young adults, we are some of the first people experiencing the long-term negative effects that social media can have. We should be worried that current youth will experience the same fate if internet safety regulations don’t change. 0

The FTC’s proposed revisions and the Meta lawsuit are great steps toward a safer internet for children and teens, but society as a whole must advocate for more. It can be easy to write this issue off as one that mainly concerns parents and policymakers, but older members of Gen Z should also take issue with the lack of internet safety for youth.

Being “digital natives,” Gen Z has more experience and knowledge about the internet’s dangers, making us well equipped to understand and bring attention to the need for a safer internet for young people.

When we look back on our own experiences joining social media for the first time, we should be willing to advocate for further regulation alongside parents and policymakers. Today’s youth shouldn’t have to suffer from the lasting negative impacts social media had on us.

Kaitlyn Paige is a junior studying Public Relations. Her column appears bi-weekly, and she can be reached at kipaige@syr.edu.

Published on January 17, 2024 at 1:10 am