If your teen is looking at their phone right now, do you know what they’re doing? More importantly, do you know if the time they’re spending right now is helpful or hurtful to their overall well being? These are really difficult questions because the answers are always in flux.
As we move forward and learn more about the impact social media has on teens. It’s important that we switch from focusing on what they’re doing and for how long to why they’re doing it and how that’s impacting them.
It’s likely your teen spends most of their time on Snapchat or Instagram. Twitter, TikTok, Redditt, Facebook and Discord are other less popular sites among teens.
Here’s the dilemma: Every teen benefits from social media and every teen is negatively impacted by social media.
Knowing these facts, how they’re using social media becomes more important than how long they’re on it.
As an example, take two teens, teen A and teen B. Both teens are spending about 2 hours a day on social media.
Teen A is doctoring up selfies and images hoping to gain likes and possibly get famous. They’re engaging in drama, bullying and/or being bullied and zoning out to avoid dealing with their anxiety and/or depression. When they’re not actually on social media they’re anxiously awaiting the opportunity to get back on so that they can check for new followers and likes as well as find out what they’ve missed out on.
Teen B is primarily keeping in touch with friends, exchanging goofy memes, funny videos, making plans to hang out and/or discussing homework. They’re giving and receiving positive emotional support and/or posting their favorite pics on Instagram for their online gallery. They do get distracted sometimes but respond positively to the limits they’re given and will even take social media off their phone for a few days just to get a break. They always let their friends know ahead of time to confirm they’re not dead.
Both teens are spending the same amount of time on social media with very different outcomes and impacts. You wouldn’t be surprised to know that they’re also functioning very differently offline.
Social media is a megaphone, it amplifies both the best and worst of us as individuals and as a culture. But it’s here to stay, so it’s incumbent on us as parents to do our best to help our kids learn to be thoughtful and responsible.
Below are 5 ways to help your teen or preteen develop a healthy relationship to social media.
1. Help them maximize the good and minimize the bad.
There are valid concerns about the negative impact social media has on kids: Bullying and rumor spreading, drama, comparing themselves to others, and distractions are a few of the main ones.
It’s also important to understand the many benefits kids are getting: Connecting with friends and family, learning from news and gathering information and meeting others with the same interests. Maximizing the good stuff may need to involve unfriending certain “friends”, taking more breaks or putting the phone away during important times like homework and meals.
2. Ask how they feel when they’re online, and listen.
It’s so easy to get anxious about how much time their spending on line and what they’re doing. These are important but we also need to help kids think about how they’re feeling when they’re on line. Asking questions like: “How do you feel when your friends are together and you’re not with them?” “Do you ever feel pressure to like something even if you don’t want to?” “Do other posts ever make you feel insecure about your body or looks?”
Remember that they may not know the answer but even just asking the question gets them thinking about it.
3. Respect their privacy with exceptions. A teen’s online presence is a space for them to explore their identities and develop autonomy. They used to spend more time hanging out at the mall or park, this has partially been replaced by social media. It’s important that they feel free to do this. If you have a preteen or you have valid concerns about your teen’s safety and well being then all bets are off, your number one job is to keep them safe. If you do have a valid reason to search their phone be up front with them about this. They may not like it but they’ll trust and respect you for being transparent. Having a trusted adult follow them is one work around to help support their safety while preserving their autonomy.
4. Assume their judgement and maturity offline are good indicators of their capacity to manage themselves online. It’s difficult to have hard and fast rules about ages for devices and apps because so much is based on the abilities and readiness of a child. Since it’s impossible to always know what’s happening behind those screens, assume that their behavior and maturity off line is mirroring what’s happening online. For example, a child that struggles making friends in real life is more likely to zone out further on their device making it even easier to avoid others. Or someone who is impulsive and gets into trouble frequently is more likely to make poor and impulsive decisions online.
5. Set clear boundaries that you model as well. Clear boundaries may include, phones out of room by 9:30 and away during meals. Perhaps a phone free zone in the car. As parents, we must model healthy balance and demonstrate that we have the ability and desire to engage in activities without our phone nearby. We can all improve on this one and would benefit from continuing to do so. If you happen to be an exception, then please don’t judge the rest of us.
The names and apps will change but social media is now an integrated part of our social fabric that isn’t going anywhere. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless as a parent or to accuse it of destroying the lives of our teens. Instead, lets aim to get out of our comfort zone and learn to embrace our child’s use of social media. To do this, we’ll have to educate ourselves. Commonsensemedia.org is a great place to start. From that position we’ll have more influence and can then help them learn to leverage the positive aspects of it and reduce the immense drawbacks. Maybe we’ll even get them to share a funny meme with us.
Click here to check out my recent interview on AMNW where I talked about this issue.
I hope you’ll consider joining us for a 2 hour evening parenting workshop on November 14th called Teens and Screens: Parenting balanced kids online and off. For more info. and to register click here.
