Social Media More Harmful Than Cigarette Nicotine

Researcher Devi Shridar in The Guardian discussed the negative impact of children's use of social media. In an article titled "Social Media Like Smoking and Gambling May Harm Children," she questioned why this is allowed. The author noted that young people and adolescents communicate through the Snapchat app, which is used by 90 percent of those aged between 13 and 34. She added that the number of monthly active users in the UK is 21 million, which is a third of the population, noting that each user logs into the platform more than 50 times a day on average. The author compared how parents interact with their teenage children today versus in the 1980s and 1990s, when parents prioritized ensuring their teenagers' physical safety. Therefore, according to the author, having them alone in their rooms represented a safety factor for them, as parents supervised everything their children used.