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There’s No Internet Culture Without Teenagers
Internet adolescence // Illustration by Kate Walker
Everything we know as internet culture would likely stagnate without teenagers’ access to social media.
The Big Picture: Australia has already banned social media for kids under 16, the UK is poised to do the same, and several other countries and US states are on track to follow suit. There’s plenty of research showing why that may be a smart move, but how the internet could change for adults as a result is a far less studied angle.
Between The Lines: Insider imagines a world where teens are no longer chronically online.
Some of the biggest creators in the world — like MrBeast, IShowSpeed, Kai Cenat, and Alix Earle — would see their viewership drop significantly.
Instagram engagement would take a hit (Pew found that between 63% and 75% of teens use it), while Snapchat engagement would all but disappear (about 60% of teens use Snapchat).
TikTok trends, from dances to slang, would grind to a halt, and viral memes would go down the tubes.
Final Thoughts: Insider points to a 2024 episode in Brazil, when the country temporarily banned X: “suddenly the vast ecosystem of stan accounts for various pop stars — a rich and vibrant life force of the platform — fell silent.” Brazil ultimately restored access to X, and the stans came back with it.
Maybe all of this is okay, but it’s worth noting that taking teens off social media could mark the beginning of the end of the social-media era, given how dependent the business is on teenage engagement. There’s a reason so many platforms have let young users slide by for years.
The Future: If the teens go, there may be plenty of room for AI slop to take over the internet. What replaces teenage creativity and culture-making may not be another generation of users — it may be an endless stream of synthetic content. Hooray?
Together with Surfshark
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.