Social Media and the Kids

At a recent dinner party, I found myself embroiled in a heated discussion regarding childrens' usage of social media. The dinner table guests, all parents, strongly blamed social media for the inability of children to communicate and interact "normally", stopping children from enjoying nature and the real world joys around them. They accused the social platforms of being conduits of vapid, fake and inappropriate content and opening the door to harmful and deadly forms of bullying and harassment. All in all, the general parental consensus appeared to be that digital media and technology was destroying our children.   

Parents have been waging war against new media and technology for generations. In the eighties, my parents blamed television and in particular MTV for the ills of my generation and threw our TV into the trash. Other generations have come across the same parental criticism of media and tech for everything from comic books, video games, rock and hip-hop music and mobiles. Over time many of these forms of media and tech have become more accepted and even embraced by society.

Christopher Ferguson, a professor at Texas A&M captures explains, "Whenever new media comes out, we tend to go through a similar pattern. 50 years ago with comic books, we had psychiatrists going up before Congress and saying that comic books were the cause of not only juvenile delinquency but homosexuality (because apparently Batman and Robin were secretly gay). At the time period when you have older adults who are not using the new media you oftentimes see these types of panics evolve around them and it’s usually after two or three decades [that you see attitudes change]."

So will social media pass along the same evolutionary cycle from the blamed parental source of society's evils to an accepted and embraced aspect of modern culture? Most likely, but it is hard to see that forest long-term trend view through the problematic trees that social presents today's youth. Parents are riled up because their kids are staring at screens during dinner and kids are running into problems with bullying, social media overuse, access to inappropriate content and the over-ability to share.

The consequences for the relatively unregulated social media landscape are damning. According to the latest CDC report teen suicide is on the rise.  Suicide rates doubled among girls and rose by more than 30 percent among teen boys and young men between 2007 and 2015, the updated breakdown from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds. While the connection to social media and suicide is not proven there is a parental suspicion that the amplified nature of social media bullying may be a contributing factor.  

Many students, no matter how educated they are regarding the dangers of social media, still post inappropriate content and find their future's compromised. Earlier this year ten students had their admissions offers to Harvard University rescinded after they posted offensive memes to an online chat group. The web is littered with stories of teens that have been expelled for social media malice.

And study after study regarding tween and teen social media usage points to increased social anxiety and mental health problems. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a clinical report on the impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. The report outlines,"Because of their limited capacity for self-regulation and susceptibility to peer pressure, children and adolescents are at some risk as they navigate and experiment with social media. Recent research indicates that there are frequent online expressions of offline behaviors, such as bullying, clique-forming, and sexual experimentation, that have introduced problems such as cyberbullying, privacy issues, and “sexting.” Other problems that merit awareness include Internet addiction and concurrent sleep deprivation."

So what can we do to alleviate the negative consequences of social media use by tweens and teens? Unfortunately, there is not a simple and cure-all solution. Certainly education around the risks, as well as social media behavior, helps. In fact, many schools and parents appear to be warning and advising children about the benefits and perils of social media. Parental monitoring also can assist. Be aware of what your kids are doing. On the role of parenting on this topic we must find ways to share thoughts and advice and create constructive forums for debate for this rapidly changing area. I have hope that Big Social companies like Facebook will continue to explore solutions that offer tweens and teens greater protections and guidance but further technological development to safeguard kids should be encouraged in our broader tech development community.

I remain confident that in the longer term the benefits of the socially connected world will dwarf the negatives for tweens and teens. Perhaps we will become more forgiving and accepting of human mistakes and blunders as we enter an age where everything we do is at least partially recorded for posterity.  Perhaps people will be less socially anxious as social media becomes the norm. Perhaps. In the meantime let's try to work through the challenges as they come and step by step we can make a model that will be safe and work for everyone.