Actress Emma Watson says Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are robbing teenagers of their childhood.
The 23-year-old, who is best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, said the internet is responsible for young people losing their innocence.
It makes teenagers more self-conscious at a younger age because of the pictures uploaded to social media sites and is 'shortening' their childhoods and the 'blissful' period when young girls aren't concerned about what they look like, she said.
She told the Telegraph: "I think it's amazing how self-aware people are becoming as a result of constantly posting images on Facebook and Instagram.
"They're blissfully unaware their childhoods are being shortened. That period of time when you're not self-conscious is sped up."
Watson made the comments at the Cannes launch of her new film The Bling Ring which portrays the impact of social media on young people.
Based on a true story, Watson plays a wealthy pole-dancing socialite jailed for robbery after her friends are caught out bragging about their crimes online.
Emma added: "I think technology is playing a really big part in a sense that everything has started moving so much quicker.
"We are becoming saturated with images. They can embody whatever they [fans] project onto that image. "It's very different; it has very little to do with reality."
The film's director Sofia Coppola added that the film demonstrates how social media has transformed how young people view fame and that most will do anything to achieve notoriety.
"The whole story seemed to say so much about our time and growing up with Facebook and Twitter. This could never had happened 10 years ago," she said.
"I was thinking how these kids must be affected by all of that and how reality TV seems so normal now to all of them having grown up with it. The idea of no privacy has become the norm."