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Example 8:
Name: Casslyn Leong Khai Wen Class : S3S1

Title: Should children and adolescents be discouraged from having social media accounts?

Social media is the best way to stay in touch with people around the world. Moreover,
social media connects people all around the world and not just only in birth country. As
technology is developing day by day, more and more social media platforms are seen in the
internet. Most children and adolescents use social media to meet new friends or people.
However, how can one know whether their children of adolescents are using the social media in
a right way. Thus, the topic that I will be discussing today is should children and adolescents be
discouraged from having social media accounts?

In my opinion, I think that children and adolescents should be discouraged from having
social media accounts. Teenagers these days use social networks widely and it has been a part
of their daily activities. The social media that are often accessed by children are Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms. These platforms will cause risk
to children if they access the internet under age. For example, the minimal age of Facebook is
18. This age was decided to protect children younger then 13 from unhealthy contents such as
adult-themed and violent scenes in the web. Therefore, falsifying age has become a common
practice by some parents and preadolescents. But this action actually risks the safety of their
children. It exposes their children to the web at an early age when they are not mentally grown.

Besides, children should be discouraged to have social media accounts at a young age
because the internet includes different types of users. Sexual hackers, scammers, identity thieves
and hackers who exploit social media to trick unsuspecting users like children. Just imagine that
your 13-year old daughter might be speaking to someone who claims to be a 13-year old girl.
But who is, in reality, an adult male. This is a lot easier to fake online that it is face-to-face, so
your daughter may develop trust towards a person online who they would be wary of in person.
It’s important that children don’t mention their privacy online that will allow hackers to find
them. Information such as name of the city, their address, the school they attend and their identity
card number. This information might be extremely important to the hacker to track you down.

Next, children involved in social media at an early age might get themselves into
cyberbullying and online harassment. Children tend to overshare in inappropriate and risky
ways. For example, a 10 year old boy was punished by his teacher because he didn’t finish his
homework. He was being emotionally vulnerable and this so called friend on the web appear
and consoles him. This is a scenario that is often seen in the society, kids tend to chat with
strangers. They somehow learn vulgar words in the web. These vulgar words will eventually
bring a bad effect to children as they don’t have the ability to judge what is right and what is
wrong. Thus, they might think that these words are not a big deal at all and start using these
words in their daily life. Just imagine a 10 year old using the four letter word talking to an adult,
how rude is that. That children’s reputation will be ruined if he uses the four letter word in his
daily life.

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