The relationship between social media usage and preteens is increasingly complex, as we’re witnessing the first generation that was completely born and raised in the digital era. This means that the youngest among us will never understand the different approaches to life pre and post the advent of social networks. On the other hand, their vision of reality has been shaped and filtered by that technology.
Connected to this issue, there’s a rising phenomenon taking over Meta apps right now, and it’s the “tweenage” influencers. Children between eight and twelve years old are becoming content creators. In the US, this event is taking over Instagram, involving young kids who open profiles to express their talent, or to share their passions, trying to make it big. And some of them achieve the goal. But what dangers is this success hiding?
In the US, a Midwest mother and her influencer daughter, whose identities remain private, made Americans reconsider children’s presence on social media. The young girl, who is now a high schooler, had opened a personal profile on Instagram in 2021, to share her skills as an aspiring dancer. Her content went viral, and the family was instantly catapulted into the world of sponsorships, gifts and modeling offers.
To keep her daughter safe, the profile was managed by the mother; that’s how the woman realized that the content that her daughter was producing had become a magnet for older men with an unhealthy attraction for children–pedophiles.
This girl’s mother expressed her internal conflict between letting her daughter live her dream to make it big through her passion and protecting her from all the harassment and even pornographic content that was being sent to her in DMs by her male adult followers.
This dark side of Meta networks warns us about the dangers that the digital world hides for its youngest users; they are tech savvy about their social profiles, but at the same time are not prepared to face the menace hiding behind it.
An important role is also played by the Instagram administration itself. Technically, minors under the age of 13 are not allowed to open a public profile, unless the profile is managed by their parents. Yet the system is still failing. In fact, as the Midwest mother has also found out, Instagram tends more to ban the children’s profiles for sharing content that can be considered attractive to pedophiles, instead of identifying and excluding the alarming audience of pedophilic abusers.
In the specific case of this young influencer, her profile was blocked and her content removed multiple times, causing her to lose her followers and her work. Her mother expressed a strong disappointment for all the efforts that she and her daughter had put into that project, and that had been instantly lost when Meta blocked her daughter’s profile.
Of course, this type of parental approach attracts all kind of criticism; they are generally judged to be irresponsible or exploiters of their own children for money. But we should also note that there can be a positive side to the attempt to become an influencer on social media. Some of them manage to reach the goal of saving enough money for college, or to attend universities that otherwise would be out of their budget.
The phenomenon of young influencers will most likely expand as children engage with social networks at increasingly younger ages, posing challenges that cannot be ignored. Meta platforms must enhance profile screening and controls to insure that their youngest users can express themselves in a safe digital environment.
