When she was in fifth grade, Scarlett Goddard Strahan started to worry about getting wrinkles.
By the time she turned 10, Scarlett and her friends were spending hours on TikTok and YouTube watching influencers tout products for achieving today’s beauty aesthetic: a dewy, “glowy,” flawless complexion. Scarlett developed an elaborate skin care routine with facial cleansers, mists, hydrating masks and moisturizers.
One night, Scarlett’s skin began to burn intensely and erupted in blisters. Heavy use of adult-strength products had wreaked havoc on her skin. Months later, patches of tiny bumps remain on Scarlett’s face, and her cheeks turn red in the sun.
“I didn’t want to get wrinkles and look old,” says Scarlett, who recently turned 11. “If I had known my life would be so affected by this, I never would have put these things on my face.”
The skin care obsession offers a window into the role social media plays in the lives of today’s youth and how it shapes the ideals and insecurities of girls in particular. Girls are experiencing high levels of sadness and hopelessness. Whether social media exposure causes or simply correlates with mental health problems is up for debate. But to older teens and young adults, it’s clear: Extended time on social media has been bad for them, period.
Oh get a grip. There’s repercussions to being socially isolated from your peers, as well. I’d argue the consequences to denying a child a fundemental means of social interaction is more harmful than tiktok, even with the latter’s long history of bastardry. The blame for these problems lies far more at the feet of absentee parenting than it does “children having smartphones”.
so you think it’s complicated, but also it’s just absentee parenting. have you always been this way, or were you ever a teenager? getting away from the parents is what kids want. some parents are super successful at avoiding this, so good on them. some parents are working all the damn time to feed their kids, so yeah. they’re absent.
Oh, hard disagree. Tiktok isn’t used just to connect with peers and any child claiming it is is lying. It’s a global app tailored to feed you content that keeps you engaged and challenges your self worth until you start responding to the ads and sponsored content forced on you. If kids need to socialise they don’t need tiktok, they need messaging apps like whatsapp or imessage or signal. Ways to stay in touch exclusively with people who you actually do socialise with.