Ban social media for teens under 16

Ontario school boards sue Snapchat, TikTok and Meta for $4.5 billion, alleging they’re deliberately hurting students, March 28

High schools across Toronto all struggle with phone use (which means social media use) in school. Right now, four Ontario school boards are suing Snapchat, TikTok and Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram for $4.5 billion dollars, alleging they are “deliberately hurting students.’’ As a 16-year-old teenager with no social media, I see daily how social media negatively affects my peers and I believe there is a strong case to ban social media use for kids.

These lawsuits rest on the premise that adults who created social media companies aren’t taking responsibility for it. I ask: when will anyone take responsibility? Why are kids reporting ever-increasing rates of hopelessness? Why do 90 per cent of kids aged 7 to 12 use social media daily? Why do one third of kids believe the Holocaust was fabricated or exaggerated? Meta and others are at fault, but so are legislators — and many parents, too. Parents frequently view screens as babysitters, giving young children unlimited access to uninspired, overstimulating content. And for older kids, parents allow unsupervised internet and social media, while remaining unaware of what constitutes this new online reality. Parents must dissuade their kids from social media, hopefully banning it at home first before we have to resort to something else. To save kids from what we’re witnessing happen to my digital generation, we need to take a strict stance against social media.

I commend school boards for drawing attention to this monumental issue. We need to take action against the dangers of social media, and this starts with parents, and with banning social media for those under 16 everywhere.

Robin Soltesz, Toronto