State Florida lawmakers have recently passed a law that kids under the age of 16 aren’t allowed to have social media accounts. This law was made so that things that aren’t good won’t be so targeted towards kids and so that kids don’t get “addicted” to social media. 

This law is one of the strictest laws that Florida has put out because of all the requirements that come with it. This law will have to require that a parent will have to allow their kid to use an account, and the kids under 16 won’t be able to lie about their age in order to get an account and will need proof of identification. This law will also require social media apps to have the youngest age cut off at 16.

Social media is a very addictive thing that people can easily get hooked on so in hindsight this law does have some reasoning behind it, so that kids don’t feel the need to use social media to such an extent when they’re older. In recent years social media has become such a big thing in part to do the pandemic because a lot of people were at home and had nothing to do so they created social media as an escape, but now a lot of kids even younger than 14 years old have started  to create social media accounts.

Social media can be draining at times because a lot of the time you see a bunch of people living a life that most can only dream of having and it can make  other people jealous that they don’t have that life and feel bad about themselves. Social media has caused a lot of people to have self image issues because of all of these models that they see on say for example Instagram, they see all of these pretty people and want to look like that, and don’t like what they see in the mirror because it isn’t what they see on an app. And most of the time the models that they want to look like, use photo shop to look like that. I asked Nevada and she said this, “I believe that social media affects our self image and we look up to unrealistic things, and not everything on social media is true and sometimes we believe those things.” 

I asked some people why they think that Florida state lawmakers would want to create this law and Raelan about it and she had this to say, “They would feel the need to create that law because they believe our phones stop us from being productive and cause us to have procrastination.” So she believes that they would create this law because the lawmakers would want us to not get distracted which seems like a good reason. Because, and I’m speaking from personal experience, using social media can cause you to lose track of time and can actually distract you from doing important things like homework or paperwork and when you’re done using social media  suddenly the day is over and you have to go to bed. 

Now on the flip side of things, social media can also be a place where people can make friends in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Social media can be a place where people don’t feel so alone and feel accepted in ways that they otherwise probably wouldn’t feel accepted. It can also be a place where people can pick up good hobbies, like for example on TikTok while that app also has its problems, there is this thing on the app called “BookTok” and it’s exactly what it sounds like, it’s a community where people share a common interest in reading and they share what they think of the books that they read and also recommend books to other people. A bunch of people that use TikTok have picked up the habit of reading because of Book-Tok, and have gotten into reading in ways that they maybe wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Book-Tok.

Overall, there are ups and downs to having social media, and in moderation it’s fine, but there are still plenty of things to consider when it comes to kids using it.