For a lot of teens and young people these days social media has become a huge part of their lives and might even go as far as to say their existence. They use it to socialise, speak to their peers and friends, get ideas, share their lives, have fun and know what each other are doing.
There are thousands of negatives that come with social media, especially for younger generations, such as cyber bullying, doing regrettable actions and speaking to dangerous people but there are arguably a lot of positives to come from it too. It can act as an outlet to express themselves, find support from others, learn about things in a way they enjoy and be a great way to build those all-important social skills.
However, recently European lawmakers have taken this into consideration and are looking to alter and amend the European Data Protection Regulation in order to revise the act to ban teenagers that are under the age of 16 from using and creating any social media account without parental consent.
As you can imagine there has been very mixed emotions surrounding this, where in which people feel this is pushing younger teens to be silenced and inflicted with laws that restrict them creatively and socially. However, many people are also taking the view that this might be a healthy idea that help parents have control over their children being exposed to information and images that aren’t age appropriate.
Ultimately, this new law seems extremely outdated and out of touch, with little consideration for the emotions and feelings of the teens themselves. Once more, when you tell a teenager they can’t do something, this often leads to them wanting to do it more and doing it to a negative extreme, which counters the whole principle of the laws. People have now taken to Twitter to share their opinions.
Are people afraid of hearing the new generations voice and opinion because most of its right ? https://t.co/zaKF6LZWBf
— ✨ (@estuhban_) December 11, 2015
social media is a large source of happiness in my life & in the lives of others. our community can not be torn apart https://t.co/iMcMZdgJt7
— alivia latimer (@alivialatimer) December 12, 2015
What are your views on this idea of a new law to ban teens under 16 from using social media without parental consent? Do you think this would keep the European youth safer and healthier or would it limit their lives, inflict unneeded control on them and be a negative move?
