As social media continues in 2020, teens and tweens continue to not use caution.
BY PETER CARAM
C
OPINION: SOCIAL MEDIA: FRIEND OR FOE?
an Royalton teens successfully navigate the rough waters of social media that even many adults struggle with? “Please put your phone away during dinner.” “That song you are dancing to on Tik Tok is totally inappropriate for someone your age.” “No, you cannot have an Instagram account.” There are times that I think that 90% of the conversations my mom has with my 12-year-old sister are about social media. I thought about this constantly when I recently watched a movie on Netflix called The Social Dilemma, a doc-
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TH E ROYA L NEWS
umentary-style film that shined a light on the dangers of social media. The theme of the documentary is that while all of the major apps Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even Google - appear to be “free” to the user, they actually are far from it. “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product,” said Andrew Lewis. All of these apps are constantly gathering information on all of their users, which they can sell to advertisers trying to reach consumers meeting a specific profile. In effect, all of our social media actions - our “likes” and “shares” and “clicks” - assist these multi-billion dollar companies in
