Looter Enters Child’s Bedroom – Shocking Incident

Coco was a girl who loved short-distance running and had artistic gymnastics as a hobby. Peer relationships were also smooth. So the mother wasn’t too worried about her daughter creating a social media account called Instagram. When you pass by and look at the screen, it appears that music or dance videos are mainly playing on the screen.

But there was one thing my mother didn’t know. Before her family moved to LA three years ago, when she was living in New York, Coco had been exchanging messages with an unknown man. It is said that the man approached Coco affectionately and presented himself as a ‘big brother’ figure.

Just before her 17th birthday, one day before moving out, Coco met the man near her house. And I couldn’t come back. It was because of the Fentanyl he gave me. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is tens to hundred times more powerful than regular narcotic painkillers.

In early December of this year, a research paper on ‘Social media use and changes in adolescent cognitive ability’ was published in the official journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This is the result of a long-term follow-up study of 6,554 students aged 9 to 11 by researchers in the Department of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the University of San Francisco School of Medicine. The gender ratio was almost similar, with 51.1% male students and 49.9% female students. The researchers divided them into three groups based on their average daily social media use time.

First, the group that does not use it at all or rarely uses it (57.6%). Even two years later, when they turned 13, they only used it for an average of 20 minutes (0.3 hours) per day. Second, this is the group whose usage was low at age 9, but increased to an average of 1.3 hours per day at age 13. Third, it was a low level at age 9, but it was a ‘rapid group’ who used it for more than 3 hours a day at age 13.

As a result of a cognitive ability test conducted at the age of 13, both the second and third groups had significantly lower learning, concentration, and memory abilities than the first group. Researchers first identified sleep disorders as the cause. It is possible that sleep time, which is essential for brain development and learning, has been violated by the use of social media. Another hypothesis was that frequent absences, failure to complete assignments, and poor concentration in class accumulated, leading to a decline in the ability to control emotions.

It has been three years since I ran a YouTube channel with the goal of preventing suicide and improving mental health awareness among Koreans. Personally, I have also experienced the positive functions of social media.

But I’ve never used TikTok before, so I searched for instructions on how to use it on my phone. On the screen, an explanation followed: “When a creator uploads content, press the bell in the upper right corner,” followed by phrases such as “You may or may not receive a reply,” and “You may receive a nudge or an alarm, so wait.” Below that description, close-up photos of a young model’s bra and underwear, almost naked, were repeatedly displayed along with an ad that read ‘Best (un)dressed’.

How would a thirteen-year-old child react if faced with a screen like this? Will I really be able to sleep? Even though I was my grandmother’s age, my head got dizzy when I saw it. The LA Times, which told Coco’s story, also expressed the need for California, where big tech companies, including Silicon Valley, are concentrated, to take the lead in protecting children from such dangers.

According to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, about half of 13- to 17-year-olds said they use social media “almost constantly.” Nine out of ten use YouTube, six use TikTok and Instagram, and 55% use Snapchat.

When the state of California enacted a law regulating the use of social media by children and adolescents, Meta, Google, TikTok, etc. have already taken legal action. The reality is that strong regulation is not easy.

Coco’s mother said. Long before her daughter lost her life, Coco, who was bright and loving, was already addicted to social media and had withdrawn from her favorite sports and hobbies. When the counselor recommended limiting online usage time, constant conflict began between mother and daughter, and their relationship gradually broke down.

“We used to believe that children were safe in their own rooms, but these media have become predators and are coming into children’s bedrooms, like walking through the front door.”

Susan Jeong / Child psychiatrist