CENTRAL, Texas — Mark Zuckerberg was 19 years old when Facebook launched in 2004, at the time it was only available to students at Harvard.
20 years later the Zuckerberg, the owner of parent company Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, faces scrutiny from the public over his social platform Facebook and the impact it has had on children.
Just a few days ago Zuckerberg had to face a Senate committee and parents who said their children died by suicides or drug overdoses that wouldn’t have happened without social media.
How do we move forward with social media and use it properly?
Texas A&M University Central Texas professor of technology Abhijit Nag said having access to your child's social media is the first step.
"You want to have an account that is shared with them," Nag added.
Making sure this account is still age restricted is important.
According to internetmatters.org 56 % of 11-16 year olds have seen explicit material online which can have a negative impact on their health.
Over 23% of children have been exposed to hate speech online. While only 9% of parents are aware of their child’s experience.
Making sure a parent has complete access to these accounts can prevent exposure to this information.
Over the last 20 years social media has taken many forms but as it evolves everyone still has a choice in how they want to use it.
Nag said it's also important to look out got misinformation. So many times there is information put out on the internet that is not factual and Nag said there has been a boom of this since social media became so prevalent in society.
Nag said making sure you look at multiple sources and fact check can help you avoid misinformation.