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Should children under 18 be allowed access to the Internet?

Rates of depression and anxiety in teenagers have increased by 70 percent in the past 25 years. What has changed since then? The use of the Internet for starters!
Teens are already very vulnerable during this period of time in their life because they are trying to figure out who they are and establish themselves as adults. Add in social media and watch the fireworks!
Teens feel so much pressure because social media is similar to being on a stage ALL THE TIME. They have to post selfies that impress friends and be exciting enough to drag in more friends. And of course there is always the potential for it to go drastically wrong...take an embarrassing or revealing photo and it will spread like wildfire, say the wrong thing and there will be screenshots, and if someone wants to bully you now they have hundreds of different ways to do it!
We thought life was tough with traditional school bullies and peer pressure long before all of this was added in! No wonder kids are BURNED OUT today. The Internet is everywhere because everyone has cell phones and there is no escaping it.
Do you think it would be better for kids these days to go back to no Internet and no cell phones?
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MrBrownstone · 46-50, M
Those reasons apply to everyone.
NineLives · 41-45, F
Well I don't know. While I agree that social media isn't good for adults for the same reasons (Facebook in particular has high rates of adult narcissists), I would like to argue that an adult should have more logical reasoning.
You don't hear very often about adults committing suicide because they were bullied on the Internet, yet adults do get bullied, they just usually aren't as vulnerable as teens.
They are more likely to block the person or hit the log off button and go about their day.
MrBrownstone · 46-50, M
@NineLives: Valid point. Like someone else said. Kids should be taught how to use it.