When she was in fifth grade, Scarlett Goddard Strahan started to worry about getting wrinkles.
By the time she turned 10, Scarlett and her friends were spending hours on TikTok and YouTube watching influencers tout products for achieving today’s beauty aesthetic: a dewy, “glowy,” flawless complexion. Scarlett developed an elaborate skin care routine with facial cleansers, mists, hydrating masks and moisturizers.
One night, Scarlett’s skin began to burn intensely and erupted in blisters. Heavy use of adult-strength products had wreaked havoc on her skin. Months later, patches of tiny bumps remain on Scarlett’s face, and her cheeks turn red in the sun.
“I didn’t want to get wrinkles and look old,” says Scarlett, who recently turned 11. “If I had known my life would be so affected by this, I never would have put these things on my face.”
The skin care obsession offers a window into the role social media plays in the lives of today’s youth and how it shapes the ideals and insecurities of girls in particular. Girls are experiencing high levels of sadness and hopelessness. Whether social media exposure causes or simply correlates with mental health problems is up for debate. But to older teens and young adults, it’s clear: Extended time on social media has been bad for them, period.
It’s not social media that is the problem. It’s capitalism. Social media is no different from the snake oil sales person, door to door sales people or Avon parties of the past. The problem is that kids aren’t educated about how to deal with capitalistic greed that will do everything to convince you something is wrong with you in order to sell you the cure and are then allowed access to the Internet without that education. And the sales people don’t face any consequences for marketing to children because they just pretend not to know and don’t have to look them in the eye, so it’s easier to be unethical without consequence.
Both things can be a problem simultaneously 🌈