Social Media
Just the bad and the ugly...
Hi, everyone, and I hope you are all having a great start to the week!
It seems like every day I read a new article about social media, which makes sense: social media is so important in the lives of teenagers, and adults seem stumped about how to support healthy use. Plus, Clickbaity headlines that report on social media’s “profound risk of harm” to teenagers serve to exacerbate everyone’s stress.
Usually, I think hyperbolic reactions are just as they seem: disproportionately negative responses to things that really aren’t that bad. But this is one of the few times that I think everyone’s stress is warranted. Social media seems to bring out the worst in teenagers. So I want to take this opportunity to discuss aspects of teens’ social media habits that strike me as surprising and alarming, and I want to raise issues that perhaps many of you don’t already know.
A major caveat to what I’m about to say before we get into the weeds: I’m thinking about social media from a clinical standpoint rather than from a research standpoint. Everything I am about to say is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt; this information may not be at all generalizable or reliable. But, frankly, when I’m thinking about teenagers’ experiences on social media, I’m most concerned with their perceptions, and what they tell me directly seems more valid and important than what academics or journalists say about it.
With that said, let’s dive in!
1. Many teenagers communicate almost exclusively on Snap. On top of that, a lot of them have friends who exist only online; they have never met in person and perhaps never will. So I guess it sort of follows that there is no exchange of contact information outside of Snap. Let’s, for the sake of this conversation, take the potential for catfishing out of the equation and assume that all of their Snap contacts are legitimate and harmless. Snap friendships are really tricky to manage when conflicts arise. Contacts on Snap can unilaterally unfollow one another, so if one kid unfollows another, in the absence of any other way to get in touch, it’s the ultimate form of ghosting; that friend has effectively disappeared from the unfollowed kid’s life. This sort of thing can be really, really upsetting since it is impossible to get any sort of clarity on what went wrong or closure on the relationship.
2. Group chats are the worst. First, teenagers don’t really exercise sound judgment about what sorts of conversations are productive to have in a public forum, so inflammatory remarks can quickly make a group chat devolve into an uncivilized and unkind virtual town square. Second, group chats magnify the worst sorts of clique-y behavior that stresses kids out in real life. Group chats form and re-form, including and excluding different kids in the process, and those who are excluded invariably feel badly about being left out. And here, too, members of group chats can unilaterally kick out other members, which is devastating: kids feel singled out and bullied, don’t know what they did wrong, wonder if everyone remaining in the group chat is talking about them behind their backs, and feel ashamed when they are forced to beg for readmission.
3. Slut shaming is one of the most common and insidious forms of online bullying. I keep hearing the same story over and over, and it upsets me every time: a girl sends a sexually provocative photo of herself to a boy, the boy sends the photo to a bunch of other kids who were never the girl’s intended audience, and the girl is left feeling embarrassed, exposed, betrayed, and ashamed. I have heard some really scary variations on this basic theme. In one, the boy started trading the photo for homework answers. In another, the school learned of what was happening and disciplined only the girl.
4. A major feature of Snap is the SnapMap, which geolocates Snap users and lets you see all your contacts’ locations. As I bet you can imagine, the SnapMap makes it really hard to secretly leave people out of plans. When kids’ friends are all hanging out without them, they can see where it’s happening in real time. And, if you thought this experience makes teenagers any less likely to exclude others from plans, you’d be wrong.
I know this is all seems like really scary, dangerous stuff, but none of it should be at all surprising or unexpected given what we know about typical teenage behavior and judgement.
So, adults, where does this leave us?
I don’t want to just say a bunch of platitudes about how you should foster open communications about social media with your kids, though of course you should try to do that. Creating space for them to share what’s going on with you free of judgement or discipline is clearly the best way to support healthy social media use.
But beyond that, it’s my firm belief that kids should not have fully unsupervised access to social media. When I tell parents to monitor their kids’ social media accounts, many parents respond by saying that they need to respect their kids’ privacy. I disagree! Supervision and privacy are not mutually exclusive; they can and should be balanced. This is, first and foremost, a safety issue, and the amount of privacy provided to kids should be developmentally appropriate. Kids are getting phones and social media accounts in middle school. Eleven-year-olds shouldn’t be able to talk to a bunch of strangers without close supervision. This strikes me as common sense and shouldn’t be controversial at all.
Some parents also argue that they can’t monitor social media because the kids will fight back. First of all, please don’t avoid supervising your children because you are afraid of conflict. Second, a really easy way to go about checking phones is making it clear that the phone doesn’t actually belong to them; it’s your phone that you are letting them use, and your involvement will only decrease if they can use it responsibly on their own. And if they can’t use the phones in a way that is consistent with your expectations (i.e. ensuring appropriateness and safety), then they can’t use it at all. You, presumably, have power of the purse. Leverage it!
Finally, some parents worry that they can’t monitor social media because they don’t know how to use it. Make sure you stay educated. I know it seems overwhelming, and social media trends change so quickly. Plus, kids know how to hide questionable content. (Are you able to see their Finsta?) But knowledge is power, and you need to make sure you’re adequately armed.
I want to be clear that my message is not to completely prohibit social media. Social media plays a central role in teenagers’ social lives, so it’s largely unavoidable. Plus, it’s not always bad. Social media can help kids stay connected to friends in a busy, disjointed world, and it can create and strengthen communities. But, as adults, we have a responsibility to the teenagers in our lives to teach and model responsible and productive online behavior.
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In honor of beautiful high school friendships (and Wicked’s 20th anniversary), here is a video of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth at an early rehearsal for the show. They were so young and so so good! Enjoy!