Primary age students should not be allowed to access social media.

For the first part of this round I will be addressing Pro's round 3 arguments. After that I will be critiquing Pro's arguments as a whole in this debate. Lastly, I will explain why you should vote Con. Let's begin. It's hard to sort through Pro's round and get the individual arguments so bear with me. 1. "Mature content" will get to your kids no matter what you do. In this argument Pro attempts to claim that mature content shows up everywhere, even if your kids don't subscribe/follow sources of said content. This specific definition is from "yourdictionary.com" but when I looked around at other sources they said the same thing with different wording. Adult content: Content, such as pornography or violence, that is not generally thought to be appropriate for viewing by children. Now if you look over facebook's ad policy, I chose to only show facebook because that was Pro's main concern, it disallows any form of adult content. Here is a quote from facebook's policy: "Ads must not contain adult content. This includes nudity, depictions of people in explicit or suggestive positions, or activities that are overly suggestive or sexually provocative." They then go on to show examples of what is allowed and what is not. You can see that here: https://www.facebook.com... Twitter has an even more extensive policy on ads: https://support.twitter.com... This shows twitter doesn't allow adult content but also expressly prohibits "get rich quick" type ads. Also prohibits hate content, sensitive policies, and violence as well as tobacco and tobacco products, weapons, gambling, financial services, political campaigning, health and pharmaceutical products and services, etc. All the other major social media platforms have extensive lists such as this. I won't go into individual details because those are a public resource. These policies show that ads that show this "adult content" are just not allowed and in the rare occasion that one slips through the vetting process it is usually reported and taken down. So the chances your child will have one of these on the screen AND they see it are amazingly slim, even more than I had originally thought. The other point of this argument is that other people may share mature content. Well, if one is worried about these effects you can supervise your child's account. It is really that simple, don't allow them to follow those people if it's such a big deal. I come from the stance that it is not. There have been hundreds of studies specifically on mature content in video games, these studies have all but 100% proven that it has little to no negative effects on children but, in regards to social media, has the benefits I outlined in my previous speech. 2. Peer pressure is strong, especially on social media. First off, isn't the point of childhood and young adulthood to find their own way in the world? Peer pressure is apart of this world and, like it or not, exists even after school and into adult years. That's why it is peer pressure not "playground" pressure. Going through things like peer pressure and bullying is rough but ultimately necessary to produce a functioning adult that isn't sensitive to any type of criticism. This is because it teaches kids to have a thick skin. Peer pressure also has positive aspects to it. https://www.scientificamerican.com... http://www.shape.com... https://www.thecoolspot.gov... http://www.secureteen.com... 3. Kids will spend too much time on social media. This argument is horrible. Not just from the standpoint that parents should have taken control and supervised their children when it regards this especially, but also that there are multiple ways to monitor this. Off the top of my head, there is Disney's "My Circle" and Skydog (which has recently discontinued service.) Both of these services provide time restriction control, website type control, bedtime no internet control, etc. Pro goes on for a while about this but it is simply down to parental supervision and intervention. 4. COPPA Yes, I concede the fact that COPPA no longer protects a child when they lie about being 18 to a social media website. But yet again this is the parents responsibility to monitor what their child is doing online. Have an open dialogue with your children about what can and can't be shared online. Pro complains about kids venting about their parents online and apparently thinks this is a good reason to restrict social media to 0. This makes no sense, when kids are whining about parents it is to other kids, who cares if another kid thinks your parenting style is bad? They have no authority to state that. Pro points out Child Protective Services get involved occasionally. I have never heard of CPS getting involved because of stuff a child has posted online about parents, and yet again Pro does not cite anything. 5. Let kids be kids What? You are saying let kids be kids by restricting their free time? Do you actually think this is what you are doing Pro? Social media is a part of childhood now, whether or not you like it. In sum, Pro makes multiple claims that are not backed up by any citations that is never provided, makes nonsensical arguments that I debunk, and has yet to respond to my arguments. All Pro has done this debate is voiced off their opinion without anything to back it up, she hasn't even defended it from my criticisms. I think it is clear that Con has won this debate.