Social media access is not something that is going to be easily taken out of the hands of teenagers and young adults. A 2021 survey showed that teenagers spend about 2-1/2 hours a day scrolling their social networks – and 29% of young girls and women on TikTok use the app more than four hours a day.
Heck, even adults have an addiction to social media. Look around and you would be hard pressed NOT to see someone with their cell phone in their hand. But it’s not usually to talk to anyone – it’s usually to check their social media and texts.
A survey done in May by the Reboot Foundation shows that when asked to choose to suspend their TikTok use for one year or give up their right to vote for one year, teenagers (aged 13 to 17) overwhelmingly (64%) said they’d give up their voting rights.
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Evita Duffy-Alfonso, staff writer at the Federalist, told Fox & Friends First, “Social media is designed purposely to be addicting specifically for young people…It makes perfect sense why they would say, I’m going to take I’m going to keep my TikTok, which is like heroin to young people, versus keep my voting rights. I think it’s a great example of why we should not be lowering the voting age, which Democrats have been pushing for years now.”
On the opposite side of the voting age argument is Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy who has said that he wants to raise the voting age to 25. The change, which would require a constitutional amendment, is something that Ramaswamy thinks that voters need to have a little more skin in the game and knowledge before being able to vote. He said while campaigning in Iowa in May, “There needs to be some civic experience you need to have gone through in order to actually vote…That experience could be living seven years as an adult and voting at age 25. That experience could be direct service to the country or some first responder service.” He also mentioned having to pass a civics test.
I say, give the teenagers what they want…Make them sign a contract that they won’t vote in any upcoming elections for a long, long time. Since most of the youth vote comes from a place of ignorance and disinformation, it would end up being a win for America.
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