It's hard to argue with Lady Gaga's recent comment, in which she said: "Social media, quite frankly, is the toilet of the internet".

Social media is a place where ignorance, nastiness, manipulation, deception, mob rule, cyberbullying, groupthink and public shaming can run rampant. It can be a confronting place for adults, let alone children.

It should be said that social media has a lot of benefits, such as connecting people, exposing wrongdoing, boosting knowledge and education, raising awareness and giving a voice to the voiceless. Plus, it can be fun. 

Most people who use the web would have noticed the increasing capability of algorithms that repeatedly send users more examples of the type of content they're interested in. This can be a good thing, as it makes it easier for people to receive more of the type of information they want. But in the wrong hands, this kind of technology could be used for nefarious purposes.

In a recent scandal in the UK, Instagram and Pinterest were accused of contributing to the suicide of a 14-year-old British girl. 

Their algorithms were found to have targeted the girl and other youngsters with personalised content that included images and suggestions of self harm and suicide. 

This disgraceful activity led to outrage across the world. It was a clear breach of ethics and human decency. 

Everymind acting director Marc Bryant said explicit content can pose a risk to vulnerable young people, but “they already have to be quite unwell” to act on such content. This is precisely where parents must pay attention. 

The constantly changing nature of social media, the enormity of content that gets shared and uploaded and the profit motive of corporations means it's practically impossible to completely shield youngsters from harmful online content. The upshot is, it's a bad idea to allow youngsters unrestricted online access.