Thousands of teens are active users of the internet every day. Michael was no expectation.

He
was 13, so it was expected he’d often spend hours after school talking to like-minded people.
Almost immediately, Michael became friends with a boy “his age” – at least, that’s what he
claimed – named George. Quickly, George became all Michael cared about; George constantly
bombarded him with compliments, affection, and love. Everything seemed perfect. Although
Michael’s family grew exceedingly worried when he told them of his plans of meeting George.
Fear, anguish, and concern filled his community when Michael never returned home. Good
morning/afternoon Ladies and gentlemen of the Foundation for young Australians. Social
Media is used by millions of users every second. This is especially true when it comes to
everyone’s favourite generation, Gen Z. Although, social media can also cause life change and
life damaging effects on teens and children. Social media is a place for online predators to
attack and manipulate the younger generations. Along with this, the internet allows
misinformation about mental illness to spread and be romanticized. The problem with social
media is irreversible.

Social media allows a place for predators to meet and talk to children. Popular social media
platform Twitter allows tags such as #map and #aam, dog whistles for paedophiles and
paedophile apologists. Reddit is also known for having “teen only” subreddits which are
plagued with adults. Video based platforms like TikTok, and YouTube have had countless
scandals of influencers with millions of followers being exposed for grooming young teens.
Multi-billion-dollar sites profit off millions of teens and children every day. These platforms
have close to no regulations to protect them. They allow online predators with malice intent
to live out their disgusting fantasies openly and proudly. Social media gives platforms for
children and teens to be harmed in terribly disgusting ways.

Who would want to suffer from mental illnesses? Honestly, it’s not surprising that the
romanticism of trauma and mental illness has spread throughout social media. For example,
the PRP Learning Centre of Baltimore published an article called “The Dangers of
Romanticizing Mental Illnesses” and highlights the harmful effects of the idealization of
trauma. Furthermore, many serious mental illnesses are often downplayed; Sally is a bit sad;
she has depression, Steven likes to be clean, he’s so OCD. Even with neurological disorders,
teens - especially on platforms such as TikTok and twitter – claim to have disorders such as
ADHD or Tourette’s. The romanticism of both mental and neurological disorders can
“downplays the experience” of mental health patients. This often leads to people who truly
experience these disorders to fear getting help for it, terrified they’d be berated for lying
about it. The internet allows the meaning of illnesses to be bastardized and trivialized.
Art communities, despite being viewed as a welcoming and fun place, is filled with horrendous
activity and people. Although adults are often the violators, social media can corrupt young
people to become the perpetrators. For example, one of the most notorious examples is a
Youtuber, who had 94.4k subscribers and 11.3k followers on DeviantArt, known by the name
Birdie. Despite only being 14 years old at the time, he had been accused of numerous scandals
and outright illegal activities; cyberstalking, drawing rape fetish art, and child pornography
along with other controversies. Of course, the majority of his following were his age and often
younger. Birdie was also a popular target for youtubers to make easy video about. Despite
most of the art community berating Birdie for his acts, his followers still found ways to excuse
his actions, whether it be his age to bad writing in “expose” videos, Birdie continued to have a
platform. His platform is evidence that while teens are often the victims, they can also be the
predator.

Social media traumatizes the future generations. Whether it be by adult targeting teens or kids
abusing each other, social media has become a breeding ground for free yet harmful contact.
Ultimately, social media is an embedded part of everyone's life and getting rid of it all together
will just cause more harm. Although this doesn't mean there's nothing that can be done about
it. For children and teens who haven't matured completely, they need restrictions from both
parents and the social media platforms. The future generations are raised on the internet, and
they should be raised knowing how to use it without being hurt. Similarly, adults need to be
held accountable for the influence they have on any young follower. Unlike teens and children,
fully grown adults have developed enough to know wrong from right. Don’t let there be more
Michaels.