In reality Globally, we have over 100 years of thinking about how to keep children around the world safe while allowing adults to do things that only adults can do, especially sex, violence, and drugs.
During the 1800s and 1900s in America, there were no restrictions on the consumption of alcohol by children. However, following the efforts of the temperance movement to spread the harmful effects of alcohol on families, women, and children, and after the failed attempt at Prohibition, states took responsibility for alcohol control. Each state passed laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol to persons under the age of 21. This established the principle that the onus of enforcement rested on bars, liquor stores, and gambling establishments that profited from the sale of alcohol. The idea that parents alone they must take care of their children’s opportunity to drink alcohol would have affected many people as nonsense.
Likewise, it will soon seem absurd that we once allowed children of any age to go anywhere on the Internet that adults go, doing all the things adults do, without their parents’ knowledge or consent. The year 2025 will be one in which people remember that children are different from adults and need protection and age in certain areas of the digital world.
The dangers are now undeniable. From the Internet to 2024, any child who knows how to lie about their age can open an account on almost any platform used by adults, except those that require a credit card. This included hardcore porn sites like Pornhub, and the now-defunct Omegle site—where kids could chat with strangers, some of whom were naked men. It also included social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, all of which contain inappropriate content for children, and all of which include designs that harm children in various ways.
Anxiety among parents and teachers is now widespread.
In 2023, child health research conducted by CS Mott Children’s Hospital revealed that the issues of greatest concern to parents—beyond school violence, drugs, and bullying—are excessive use of cell phones, social media, and Internet safety. . A 2024 survey of school administrators revealed that they were also concerned about the impact of cell phones on students, with 88 percent saying it was making kids tired and distracted, and 85 percent believing it was increasing violence and bullying in schools.
No wonder that, in 2023, a UNESCO’s main report he saw mounting evidence that excessive cell phone use was associated with poor school performance and mental illness, and called for cell phones to be banned from schools. In 2024, France, Italy, Finland, and the Netherlands followed suit, banning digital devices in classrooms. In the US, the states of Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Florida have also implemented bans on the use of cell phones in schools, while US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called for warning labels on social media platforms. Two rules for dealing with these problems—and the Kids Online Safety Act– passed the Senate again. The new law, for example, would force tech companies not to track children with algorithms designed to attract them.
In 2025, parents will no longer be alone in dealing with this problem. They will be supported by concerned politicians and schools without mobile phones. Social media companies, on the other hand, will admit—or be forced to admit by courts and legislatures—that they are now children, and they reproduce. others responsibility for what they are doing to children.
Leave a Reply