How Long Can Kourtney Keep Mason Disick Away from Social Media?

Social Media is a drug.

Every like and share and follow is a little dose of validation that often leads to some bizarre behavior as people try to chase that first high. Certain personality types are more susceptible to the addiction of posting and refreshing and keeping tallies, but one group is so prone to getting hooked that they should be kept away at all costs—pre-teen kids. Consider the case of Mason Dash Disick.

The son of Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick, Mason is ten years old and already reality TV royalty—even if his mom seems to have quit Keeping Up with the Kardashians. At that age, a kid will do just about anything to charm or impress a crowd—think of the kids in fourth grade who would eat anything put in front of them on a dare—which is why social media platforms all have a minimum age of 13. But that cutoff doesn't stop a lot of pre-teens from joining anyway, and the allure must be all the more compelling when the family business is getting as much attention as possible. For a kid like Mason, there are millions of strangers eager to hang on his every live-streamed word. It's no wonder his parents have decided to keep him off social media—deleting Mason's Instagram account shortly after he started taking questions from strangers. But even in that brief window Mason had already and managed to amass around 10,000 followers.

As Kourtney noted in her response to people who questioned the decision, "The thing that really worries me with kids is just comments. People can be so mean. It's really easy to get consumed with it." Obviously, she's right. No ten year old is really ready for the kind of abuse that malicious strangers like to dish out in social media comments. It would have been the right move even if Mason hadn't been giving up the kind of family secrets that the Kardashian-Jenner empire prefers to dole out in tabloid rumors and reality TV bombshells. If Mason hadn't spilled the beans on Instagram Live earlier this week, speculation about a Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott reunion could have been milked for so much drama! But all Mason was concerned with was the fact that so many people were excited to hear what he had to say.

He has already been bitten by the social media bug. He's had a taste of the high it can deliver and is already trying to get another. TikTok was the obvious next choice. When he found an audience there, he lamented the death of his previous account with some dubious math that he's clearly been obsessing over, saying of his follower count, "I would have had 2.7 million by now if I kept it up." That kind of extrapolating is a dangerous game and part of the reason why a kid like Mason shouldn't be on Instagram in the first place—imagine if his math told him he would have two million followers, and he woke up to find he only had one: the devastation!

Fortunately, it wasn't long before Mason's parents found out about his TikTok and deleted that too. The family's high profile is a double-edged sword in this case. It keeps drawing Mason back to receive that validation, but it also means that his parents are quickly informed by fans when he makes an appearance. That said, Mason is definitely not done, and there are a dozen other platforms that he can try to sneak around on—from Snapchat to Twitch to YouTube.

Hopefully Kourtney and Scott have found a sufficient threat of punishment to scare him off the idea for at least a little while. Eventually though, Mason will find his way back to social media. As he mentioned on TikTok, he's been cut off from a lot of his family in quarantine. The Internet is his only connection to the outside world, and now he's felt that special rush of strangers' attention. He can't leave his imaginary audience of millions waiting forever.