I don’t think there’s any doubt that social media is a big pain point for most parents. As parents, wouldn’t it be nice to have a guide to social media (and technology) as we head back into the school year?
Well, we pulled together some of the best advice from the top researchers out there to give you, Mom and Dad, the ultimate guide to social media as we head back into the school year.
What did we find?
Too much screen time decreases nerve tissue in the brain, reduces frontal lobe cortical thickness, impairs information processes, and can lead to sleep deprivation. In addition, excessive social media use causes you to completely miss all nonverbal messaging and vocal elements, which accounts for 93% of all communication and has been linked to obesity and reduced self-esteem. Fortunately, with time away from phones, the negative effects of screen time and social media can be reversed.
Some basic guidelines for social media include:
- No Screen Time Until Homework and Chores are Complete
- Keep Technology Out of the Bedroom
- Postpone Giving Your Child a Smart Phone
- Talk to Them About Internet Safety
- Shut Down an Hour Before Bed
- Find a Way to Motivate Your Kids Intrinsically
But before we explain why we chose these guidelines, let’s look deeper at the negative impact that social media and technology can actually have AND how you can easily reverse the negative side effects.
Teens and Social Media
You come home from work and your teen or pre-teen has his or her face buried in the smartphone, barely looking up when you walk in the door. You may have a rule for no phones during dinner, but the second dinner is over, your kid is right back on the phone.
Does this sound familiar?
You may be shocked (or perhaps not) to find that the average teen actually spends about nine hours per day on a screen (between the television, their phones, tablets, and video games).
That’s like having a full-time job that requires you to watch a screen all day long.
And, unfortunately, all this screen time doesn’t come without consequences.
Negative Effects of Too Much Screen Time
According to Dr. Jess Shatkin, author of Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe, shares, “New research shows that undesirable changes are evident on brain scans and occur readily among adolescents with the Internet and online gaming addiction.
These effects include decreases in gray matter (nerve tissue), reduced frontal lobe cortical thickness (the seat of the brain’s CEO), impaired cognition and information processing, enhanced reward sensitivity and decreased sensitivity to loss, and neurological signs of cravings that are just like those found among people addicted to drugs. Heavy video game users have reductions in areas of the frontal lobe that manage emotion regulation and decision-making.”
Sleep deprivation is also a big issue.
Kids need more sleep than an adult, ideally 10-12 hours each night depending on their age, and yet the average child is only averaging 6-8 hours of sleep each night.
Kids who sleep with devices in their room are not only watching television, playing video games or texting late into the night, but the blue light from the devices also is having an effect on sleep. You may have heard this before, but our body interprets the blue light as daylight, sending signals to the body that it’s time to wake up.
That means your child could be wide awake at bedtime, even after the cell phone has been put away for the night. (By the way, this applies to you too, Mom and Dad.)
Technology, in general, isn’t the only issue, though.
Over-using social media carries with it a whole host of issues.
According to Dr. Alter, ““People who spend a lot of time on screens and social media are less capable of distinguishing emotions. Especially the subtle cues that other people may be giving off to them. Especially kids but also adults. It becomes more difficult for them to interact with others.”
When you spend excessive amounts of time on social media, you start to become numb to the feelings and emotions of those interacting with you.
As Christina Crook, author of The Joy of Missing Out, explains, 7% of any message that we convey is through words, 38% are through vocal elements (tone of voice, enunciation, etc.), and a whopping 55% is through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc.).
That means you are missing out on 93% of a message when you’re communicating over social media (or texting, for that matter).
Social media can also take a big hit on our self-esteem.
When we get on Facebook and Instagram, we’re seeing curated images that aren’t representative of real life. They’re just our friends and family’s highlight reels.
Unfortunately, for teens and adults, this can do a number on our own self-esteem.
According to ThriveWorks, “It is far too easy to begin to see oneself as inadequate or lesser when all we see are the best sides of others—ignoring the pain, humility, and real-life experiences that bring us closer together as a species. Finding yourself stuck inside eating junk food while impulsively scrolling through pages of supermodels is a direct path to low self-esteem.”
Sitting around on social media also simply means you’re less active. Which is why excessive social media usage is often linked to obesity.
The Negative Effects of Screen Time are Reversible
Now, before you go into panic mode and start ridding your home of all technology, please know that the negative effects of screen time are reversible.
According to Dr. Shatkin, a “study took 51 preteens to an overnight nature camp for five days of school where screens were not allowed and compared them to 54 preteens who continued with their usual media practices. By the end of the week, the children who were deprived of screens were better able to recognize nonverbal emotional cues in other people, which translates into greater empathy.”
So just behind temporarily removed from technology results in measurable social and emotional gains for kids.
Don’t Cut Kids Off from Technology & Social Media Entirely
Have you ever heard of a “finsta” account?
I hadn’t either, until recently.
The “finsta” is a second Instagram account (a combination of the words “fake” and “Instagram”) that users, mainly kids, will maintain. And the content on the finsta is very different than their real, or “rinsta,” account.
The rinsta account is the real account that they are fine with the public (and, specifically, their family or potential employers) viewing.
But, as 17-year-old Esther Choi, told USA Today, “On my finsta, it’s the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s a more multifaceted version of me.”
That said, even if kids have a finsta account and they’re hiding behind a fake username not associated with their own name, who’s to say someone won’t screenshot a risqué or tactless photo and post it to the Internet with a real name attached?
My bigger point, however, is that forbidding your teen access to social networks is not the best solution. There are too many apps that allow kids to hide things.
For example, according to NetNanny, there’s an app called AppLocker that, teens can place apps inside and apply a password so Mom and Dad can’t access it. Hide It Pro, Vault Hide, and Hide Pictures in Vaulty are others, and there are, still, others that can be used just for hiding pictures.
I don’t tell you this to scare, you, but to show you why simply making social media off-limits isn’t necessarily the solution.
I mean, let’s be real, think back to when you were a teenager. Did you do everything you were told or did making things “off limits” just cause you to be more discreet?
There are Benefits to Using Social Media
Author Candice Curry hated her kids’ social media addictions.
She writes, “How did we raise a generation of selfie-taking narcissists who are constantly sending their friends pictures of themselves. I told my daughter to send something else instead of a selfie to her friends on snapchat and she looked at me like I had 2 heads. ‘Like what? What else would I send?’”
But then something happened that made her re-think her opinion on social media.
Her daughter got sick.
And her selfie-taking friends started showing up unexpectedly or sending her food.
She explains, “Maybe all this technology, snapchat, texting and selfies aren’t making them all crazy, self-centered bullies. It’s giving them access to each other in ways that we didn’t have growing up and maybe that’s not always a bad thing…
When I was growing up and friend missed a week of school due to illness we really didn’t do much about it. We might have called them from our Swatch phone after dinner to see if they were okay and if we were really cool we added a friend to the conversation by using three-way calling. But other than that we kind of just let their parents handle it and waited for them to return to school.
The instant access these kids had to each other over the week gave them the ability to show compassion to my daughter in ways we couldn’t when we were their age.”
And research shows that Curry’s assessment that social media can be used to build relationships is very accurate.
According to the Pew Research Center, “more than eight-in-ten (83%) social media-using teens say social media makes them more connected to information about what is happening in their friends’ lives and 70% say these social platforms better connect them to their friends’ feelings.”
Social media can also help teens put their best face forward with colleges and potential employers. There are even companies out there today, like Social Assurity for example, that will help teens craft a strong social media presence that will appeal to colleges and future employers.
Okay, so, thus far we’ve covered that:
- Too much time on technology and social media can have a negative emotional and physical impact on kids (and adults!)
- The negative effects of social media are reversible
- You shouldn’t cut your kids off from social media entirely (unless you want them to use it behind your back)
So the big question is: how should you handle your child’s social media usage?
Social Media Guidelines for Pre-Teens & Teens
Let’s start by saying that you know your child better than anyone and every kid is different. So adjust these guidelines accordingly. If you know that your child is incredibly disciplined, maybe your rules can be more lax. If you know that your child doesn’t have a lot of discipline, you may want to consider a little more structure for technology and social media rules in your home.
Again, you know best, Mom and Dad.
Here are a few ideas for you to consider, however.
No Screen Time Until Homework and Chores are Complete
This is a basic rule to start with since it ensures all responsibilities will be handled before distractions occur. I had to implement this one myself when I had a teen family member living in my home for a number of months.
Initially, I allowed him to keep his phone, but every time I checked on his homework progress, he was responding to a text message. Then he was staying up later and later to get his work complete.
Keep Technology Out of the Bedroom
Dr. Lisa Damour explains, “I’m actually somebody who feels like there’s a lot of ways to get it right, but I would say that probably one of the very few hard-and-fast rules I do believe in is that technology should never go in kids’ bedrooms. I know that there are some families where that’s not a possibility, where that’s the only real place for a kid to work. In those cases, it should never be in the bedroom when the child is about to go to sleep or trying to go to sleep.
And the other thing we find with teenagers is that even when they do try to go to sleep, they often have a hard time falling asleep. Even if they’re exhausted and desperately in need of sleep, and that can be because they were just looking at a phone or computer and so their melatonin is suppressed, and they can’t fall asleep.
Or just as likely, they saw something on their phone or computer that got them kind of excited or upset. You know, maybe they were looking on Instagram, and you know somebody tagged somebody they didn’t like, and something they wanted to be in, and all of those complexities that do arise for teenagers, those things can keep teenagers up in the same way that a grumpy email from our boss does when we’re about to go to bed.”
Postpone Giving Your Child a Smart Phone
Dr. Shatkin points out, “they simply don’t “need” that kind of exposure. I know that if I had unfettered access to the world of the Internet when I was 12 or 13, I’m not sure I ever would have left my room.”
Postpone Letting Young Kids Join Social Networks
Postpone allowing your children to join social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and others until they are at least 13-years-old. Once they join, require your children to “friend” you on these sites so that you can keep an eye on their activity and what they post.
Talk to Them About Internet Safety
You’re going to have to have hard conversations with your kids at some point, and social media may be one of those occasions. Have an honest conversation with them about what’s safe to post on the internet about and internet safety, in general. Make sure they’re aware that just because that SnapChat photo goes away after 24 hours, someone could still screenshot it and post it across the internet.
Shut Down an Hour Before Bed
This is one of those times that you’re going to have to lead by example, Mom and Dad. (Yes, I know it’s tough.) Try to have everyone off screens an hour before bed to wind down and avoid the stimulating blue light. Focus on reading, games, journaling or just talking as a family.
Find a Way to Motivate Your Kids Intrinsically
This may seem harder than just implementing a new “rule.” But trust me, it’s going to be the most powerful way to get your kids off social media and technology, as a whole.
The strongest motivation is intrinsic, as opposed to extrinsic (them wanting, internally to do something versus you forcing them to do something… even if you’re giving them good reasons). So, for example, if you want your kids to do something over the weekend other than sitting on their phones or watching Netflix all day, find something fun you can do as a family where they want to participate, where their phones are the last thing on their minds.
Start by taking one day a week where you do a digital detox as a family and have fun doing something together. You may notice that your kids never even miss their phones.
Final Thoughts on Teens and Social Media:
As Aristotle said, all things in moderation.
Technology and social media are here to stay. But they don’t have to be a thorn in your side. All you need are some healthy limits and a whole lot of intrinsic motivation to keep your kid from going overboard with social media use.
Some social media guidelines for parents are:
- No Screen Time Until Homework and Chores are Complete
- Keep Technology Out of the Bedroom
- Postpone Giving Your Child a Smart Phone
- Talk to Them About Internet Safety
- Shut Down an Hour Before Bed
- Find a Way to Motivate Your Kids Intrinsically
Hopefully, those ideas give you somewhere to start. We would love to hear how you’re tackling this tough topic in your own home. Let us know in the comments below!
The 5 Second Rule: Finally End Your Child’s Procrastination, Fears & Anxieties by Teaching Them the 5 Second Rule
[…] recently did a deep dive on this topic, covering teens and social media. However, it’s a big concern for parents (and rightfully so), so we wanted to cover it here as […]