She Had Unregulated Access To The Internet As A Child, And She Says Parents Need To Check To See What Their Kids Are Doing Online
There is a lot of discussion about the next generation of children and their screen time and internet usage.
The internet has become so much more marketable and accessible to children, and there are many scary things about that.
While the internet can be a powerful source for young minds, as they can access the information they need to further their education and use it to stay in touch with friends or loved ones around the world, all of that access can become dangerous.
A lot of people, from Gen Z to millennials and older generations, have become weary of ‘iPad kids,’ or kids that are currently growing up obsessed with screens to the point where they’re being used as a parenting tactic to calm children down.
One TikTok user, who spent a lot of time on the internet and became an internet personality before she was a legal adult, recently weighed in on the conversation and made very good points.
Sophie Puchulu (@squishiesophie2) is a content creator whose video on iPad kids and the upcoming generation’s internet usage has gone viral on TikTok.
“Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion about iPad kids, and I want to add on to it because I was a kid with unregulated internet access,” says Sophie at the beginning of her video.
Sophie, who is now in her 20s, explains that while she didn’t get a cellphone until she was 12, she had full access to the internet years before then through computers and an iPad.
There were no limits to what she could do online at a young age, and she quickly began to discover things that were way too mature.
Look! – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual child
When she was only eight years old, she saw ads online that were not geared toward kids, not knowing any better.
“Then, when I was 11, there was this anonymous app where you could post things on it,” Sophie recalls.
“So, I posted some things, and adult men would message me, and then I would send inappropriate pictures back to them. At the time, I had no idea that was weird. I had unlimited screen time, and my parents never looked through what I was doing.”
Sophie further explains that when she recently talked to her parents about her unlimited internet access as a kid, they told her they didn’t look through her browsing history or devices because they trusted her to make smart choices online. However, that nonrestrictive method did not work, and she still saw things she shouldn’t have seen.
As Sophie became a teenager, she had a massive internet following without her parents ever knowing.
She was chatting with adults of all ages because her parents or school had never taught her internet safety.
Now, Sophie worries for the upcoming generation of kids who are very reliant on smart devices and the internet, as, like her, they will likely find ways to see things they shouldn’t be seeing or put themselves in danger.
As Sophie got older, she learned more and more about the consequences of her actions online and is now telling a cautionary tale.
“It just scares me so much,” she says.
“If you’re a parent, you need to be checking your kids’ phones. It doesn’t matter how much you trust them, and they’re going to be mad. They’re going to be mad at you, but you need to teach them.”
Sophie says a good rule of thumb for parents to tell their kids about their online activity is, “If you don’t want me, as a parent, to see it, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”
How do you feel about kids and their internet usage these days? Do you think things are safer, or are they still very much at risk?
https://www.tiktok.com/@squishiesophie2/video/7300431832556817707
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