Nowadays, most parents’ parenting techniques aren’t about gentle or strict parenting. Instead, they opt to shove a device in their children’s faces.

And while having a device is handy for distracting their children, weakening digital safety and inattentive parenting has allowed children to easily become exposed to the malice and inappropriate sides of social media that destroy their childhoods.

Children as young as four years old practically live on technology like iPads or their mom’s phone, and can often be found playing games or scrolling on YouTube Shorts. By being exposed to the poorly censored internet at such a young age, their once-innocent perspectives can be completely shifted.

Instead of children watching content aimed for children, they can wind up watching content aimed towards older audiences. Mature or explicit content, ranging from promoting unrealistic beauty standards to romanticizing substances and sexual activity, often bypass guidelines and appear in ads all over children’s mobile games or YouTube.

Without even trying to explore this side of social media, children are still being exposed to the mature content that lurk the internet. And because of how easy it is to upload material on social media, it’s no surprise that content made for and by older audiences finds a way to creep into children’s feeds. Clicking on one ad or liking one video can send children down a rabbit hole that ruins their childlike mindsets with no means of escape.

Case in point: the beauty industry on social media.

Beauty is a huge and relevant part of social media because it’s a way for people to stay updated with conventional standards of attractiveness, new makeup or skincare launches and actual makeup tutorials. But it’s a way for adults to do these things.

When children find themselves on “BeautyTok,” for example, they’re also introduced to beauty gurus who feed into the fast-changing world of beauty standards and who unintentionally plant seeds of beauty standards in the minds of children. Children who otherwise would never have thought about that at their age.

Comparison is a key factor in keeping beauty standards relevant, especially to young audiences who seek validation from society — but a relatively normal part of being a teenager shouldn’t be expedited onto elementary and middle school children.

The effects are being seen currently as hordes of younger and younger freshmen pour into campus each year, their youthful appearances being smothered by beauty products that only destroy their skin in excess.

They are often called “Sephora Kids” and they are a dangerous example of how children react to being exposed to older material online. The term “Sephora Kids” refers to the chain beauty store “Sephora” and the young children who drench their youthful faces in Sephora’s makeup and skincare products, taking inspiration from popular beauty influencers.

Sephora Kids taking inspiration from these beauty gurus ultimately pushes them further to follow the beauty expectations set for an older generation. But these makeup and skincare products are not made for children. They were catered to help the appearance of adult skin.

Sephora products will only end up deteriorating children’s juvenile skin. Experts point out the fact that consistently using these beauty products will leave irreversible effects like irritation, rashes, dermatitis, and more.

The natural pressure to fit in plays a major role in pushing kids to ditch their childhood and mindlessly follow internet trends, serving as a whistleblow for dangers to children on the internet.

However, this phenomenon isn’t only in the beauty community. For instance, the romanticization and adult-ification of relationships. Preteens who are beginning to be introduced to romantic feelings might have a headstart on what those should look like because of what they’d seen on the internet.

For the majority of tweens online, the glamourization of relationships is a huge step in seeking maturity from other preteens at a young age. Through social media, a romantic relationship might seem that it should look like that of a romanticized, carefully curated and adult relationship out of the box.

Seeing older couples going on expensive dates will create the expectation that preteens should also be consistently going on expensive dates despite not even having a job, a driver’s license or their homework done.

This also sets aside the dangerous path tweens might take — feeling forced into early sexual acts before they’re ready.This pressure for a mature romantic relationship preys upon the same kind of adult comparison brought about by the online beauty industry where fitting in plays an integral role in their mindset.

In varied and detrimental ways, social media can leave a major impact shaping young kids’ perspectives and expectations, forcing them to idolize things and act in ways they just aren’t ready for.

The online space should be a place where all ages, including children, are welcomed without being unnecessarily exposed to mature content that pressures them into rushing their childhood.