One of the perks of adulthood is the freedom to make our own choices. Should I head to the gym or sleep in another 30 minutes? Should I spend that birthday check or save it? Should I cook or order takeout? It’s empowering — and exhausting. So, it’s no wonder we sometimes crave hard and fast rules about parenting. Just tell me what to do. But two decades into life with social media, even the experts don’t have all the answers.
Really, it all starts with one seemingly simple question: When is my child old enough to have an account?
“I just edited a book on this, and I still struggle with it as a parent,” says Dr. Vicki Harrison, program director of the Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, part of Stanford School of Medicine. “I wish there was a magic number.”
It’s pretty much a given that today’s teens are on at least one social platform — at least 95%, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But preteens, also called “tweens,” are catching up: The HHS also says that nearly 40% of kids ages 8-12 are on social media. Most platforms require users to be 13 and older, but there are easy ways to skirt the rules.
With increasing rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges linked to social media, experts have concerns. A ton of brain development takes place before age 25. There may also be health consequences we don’t fully understand yet. Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for a Surgeon General’s Advisory on social media, warning that “there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health.”
Marriage and family therapist Dr. Jenn Mann, author of The A-Z Guide to Raising Happy, Confident Kids, says it’s all relative. “You want your kid to be the last one in their class to have social media,” she says. “It is easier to not give kids access than to monitor and regulate it once they have it.”
Access, however, doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It can mean letting your kid use one app, or only letting them on social media during set hours of the day. That way, you can see how it’s going before loosening the rules. The goal is for technology to complement the child’s social life, not replace it.
“If a young person is still engaging in all the same hobbies, having face-to-face interactions, and spending time outside, while also having fun with their friends by texting or playing a game online, that’s a holistic approach,” says Harrison, who also co-edited the new Social Media and Youth Mental Health guidebook.
As easy a solution as it may seem, totally banning kids from creating their own accounts isn’t very realistic in today’s world. Schools, sports teams, and extracurricular groups frequently use social media as a central hub for messaging, schedules, photos, and more. “It’s not just a recreational thing anymore,” Harrison says. “It’s really been embedded into many facets of our lives.”
And even if parents forbid social media in the house, children will still be exposed to it at school or with their friends. That fear of exclusion only ramps up the pressure to join.
“Kids socialize and create connection online,” says Mann. “Your kid [can] miss out on a big part of social interaction during those tween years, and that is challenging for that kid.”
Instead, experts say it’s better for parents to prepare children for the responsibility that comes with using social media in a digital-first world — and themselves for when their kids encounter shady content.
Thankfully, laws are in place to protect children. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) sets federal standards for websites or online services directed to kids under 13 and other sites that knowingly collect data from kids under 13. And recently, New York passed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) For Kids Act, a first-in-the-nation law meant to protect kids from “algorithmically driven feeds that promote unhealthy levels of engagement.”
So, when kids broach the subject, hear them out. Are they not able to easily access class notes? Are they missing out on all their friends’ TikTok dances?
“Kids are going to make their demands based on what their friends are doing,” Mann says. “It’s up to you as the parent to determine what is in their best interest.”
