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Recent social media scandals show athletes aren’t the only ones catching up

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are over a decade old. That seems like a reasonable amount of time to have identified the potential pitfalls of each.

Yet as a recent rash of sports scandals has shown, age has been a multiplier of problems in some ways, rather than the opposite.

Younger athletes who are only just coming to prominence in 2018 are part of the first generation to fully grow up on social media. And while many athletes leverage it as a means to advance their careers, build brands or connect with fans, early missteps taken before they were professionals in the limelight have also become magnified.