Today, we live in a persistently connected world. Technology has begun to influence young minds in ways few could have imagined 20 years ago, and every person engaged in social media is potentially exposed to an endless stream of algorithmically curated content, persuasive advertising, anonymous interactions, misinformation, unfiltered violence, and increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence generated media. Social media platforms were not designed with child development in mind and do not possess the proper safeguards to protect youth from inappropriate content. They are designed to maximise engagement, extend session duration, and collect behavioural data to further propagate their usage and overall mission of maximum engagement. The result is an environment where time and attention become the product and children become influenced by content never curated for their consumption.
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