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One of the biggest concerns for parents in the modern world is their children's use of social media. Depending on how they are used, social media can become a huge headache for parents and their children tend to be the most vulnerable part in this unfiltered environment, where a world of discoveries is just a click away.

In October 2024, according to the Statista, there were 5.52 billion internet users around the world, representing 67.5% of the entire population. Although not everyone is on social media, 5.22 billion internet users are present almost daily on their respective social media, which totals 63.8% of the global population.

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Pros and Cons of Social Media

The same organization, Statista, conducted another survey in 2023, in which it found that 32% of participants believe that social media are a good thing, while 28% of participants consider them bad and, finally, 32% of participants did not decide whether social media are a good or a bad thing.

This research accurately demonstrates the huge current controversy about the benefits and drawbacks caused by social media.

If we ask social media advocates what its benefits are, we will probably hear that social media can be a good way to connect with friends and family, build relationships, and share ideas. It can also be a powerful tool for business and raising awareness.

If we ask critics of social media about its drawbacks, in turn, we will hear that social media can become an addiction and, therefore, lead to behaviors that are harmful to our health, such as excessive comparison with other people and depression, which can negatively impact mental health, compromising the user's personal and professional life. It can also be a platform that encourages practices such as bullying, exclusion, humiliation, and the dissemination of false information.

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Time Spent on Social Media

Although moderate use of social media is the trend most recommended by experts and health professionals, there is no denying that these platforms are in intense competition for users, adopting increasingly elaborate practices with the purpose of attracting the user's attention and loyalty, becoming a true addiction.

Once again, we rely on a Statista survey to answer an important question: what is the average time social media users spend online?

And the result is shocking… According to Statista, in 2021, internet users spent, on average, 145 minutes a day on social media. It may not seem like much, but that indicates that 63.8% of the global population spends more than 2 hours a day on social media. And in fact, if this research was conducted today, it is likely that this number would have already multiplied.

This research also allows us to compare global data with data from Brazil. While users around the world spend, on average, 2 hours and 23 minutes per day on social media, in Brazil this time is 3 hours and 37 minutes per day on average. But the major surprise comes when we limit the user population to young Brazilians, as this time rises to 9 hours per day.

It is no wonder that the use of cell phones in schools has been widely discussed in Brazil, as young people may not be able to concentrate on what is being discussed in the classroom with social media at their fingertips. Furthermore, another important fact that raises a red flag is that Brazil is the second country in which users spend the most time online, with an average of 9 hours and 13 minutes, second only to South Africa with 9 hours and 24 minutes.

Among the platforms that capture the most users' attention is TikTok, with an average of 34 hours of monthly use, while YouTube holds the record for the longest usage sessions, with an average of 7 minutes and 25 seconds.

Another piece of data that helps identify the expansion of social media, even though few have a large number of users, is that social media users visit an average of 6.8 different social media platforms per month.

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Banning Minors from Social Media

The newspaper “the Guardian” published in November 2024, that the Australian Government will impose an age limit of 16 years for social media users, prohibiting minors from accessing such platforms, instituting severe penalties for those who do not comply with this determination.

However, neither the Australian Government nor social media platforms yet know how they will comply with this determination, although the combination of consulting a government database and biometric scanning of users' faces is under discussion.

According to the Australian Government, it would be necessary to increase the value of penalties attributable to social media platforms, which is currently less than US$1 million, to ensure their adherence to said control, otherwise they could be severely impacted financially.

In fact, the Australian Government is following the lead of the UK Government in implementing age-assurance legislation, outlining potential options including allowing banks or mobile providers to confirm a user is over 18, credit checks, use of facial estimation technology, and the right to require users to upload a photo to the website, which is then matched with a photo ID.

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Social Media and the Real World

An unquestionable fact is that everything appears to be perfect on social media, at odds with the reality imposed by life, demonstrating that this “make-believe world” only works within the screen of a cell phone or computer.

Giving up in-person conversations to have more time for virtual conversations is really worrying. Isolating oneself from the real world, alienating the ability to concentrate on studies and work are challenges that require immediate responses; otherwise, the world will lose not one, but several generations of people who will not develop socioeconomically, but who will spend their valuable time enjoying something, whose added value in their lives may be insufficient to guarantee a successful future.

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