Sure, children of today are digital natives but that doesn’t mean they should be given free rein over what the internet has to offer
With the advent of the smartphone and the omnipresent social media, it is important to consider the impact of unmanaged social media use on our children’s developing minds and personalities, as well as what messages about life, purpose, relationships, and happiness they are getting through these channels.
While technology may be benign, the messages that are transmitted are not. Through social media, popular culture communicates messages of perfection, consumerism, and image to young and impressionable minds. And whether we like it or not, our children are not just being raised by social media but brain-washed by it, and it is having an awful impact on their mental health and wellbeing. For example, more recently a Facebook whistleblower confirmed what I had intuitively known which is that Instagram results in teen girls feeling worse about their bodies and that they blame the platform for anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
This generation is far more invested in showing themselves than knowing themselves.”
By Dr. Saliha Afridi
When companies recommend that the child be at least 13 years old to engage in social media activities, I wholeheartedly disagree. As they enter their teen years, it is when their lives are most tumultuous. Their inner worlds and their outer worlds, whether it be their bodies or their relationships, are all in flux. It is also a time when they are most vulnerable and most susceptible to the pressures and influences due to their high need to belong. And if I know that one out of five young people is struggling with a mental health condition, and 50 per cent of all mental health conditions start by the age of 14, I am going to do my very best to limit the exposure children have to unhelpful and unhealthy stressors such as social media.
Here are some facts to consider before allowing children and adolescents to start social media accounts:
Excessive social media use is damaging for children and adolescents: It should come as no surprise that with a lack of self-awareness, fragile self-identity, high levels of impressionability and vulnerability that children and adolescents are struggling socially, mentally, physically, and emotionally in today’s world. It is conditioning us to be competitive, jealous, attention seeking and desperate for validation from other users. A whole generation’s identities, values, and well-being are in the hands of the social media conglomerates and “influencers.” This is showing up in their mental health more than anything. Today, more children and adolescents are reporting more mental health problems than at any other time in history. Rates of suicide and depression in teens have skyrocketed since 2011 and as of 2019, one in five reported children or adolescents is struggling with a mental health problem.
Social media affects identity formation: One of the main tasks of adolescents is to explore their identity and develop a sense of self. Self-identity gives children a sense of consistency and stability over time. Where in the previous generations, adolescents would go out, date, make mistakes, and explore their identities, now they are less likely to do any of that. Instead, they sit in their rooms and their identities are being projected onto them via social media. Who you are, what you should wear, what you should buy, who you should emulate—is all linked to how many likes they get. This generation is far more invested in showing themselves than knowing themselves.
Social media is addictive: When I recently did a talk at a middle school, I asked how many people had social media. All the children, barring two, raised their hands. When I asked how many believed they were addicted to it, the same people raised their hands. People jokingly say things like, “Oh I am so addicted to my phone,” or “I can’t live without social media”—without really knowing that they may be struggling with a real addiction. Young adult brains are being primed for addictions and there is a real neurochemical, biological and psychological addiction they can develop to their devices. This is by design as social companies are spending billions of dollars in research and development to make sure engagement remains high. Coders who are versed in neuroscience and psychology are writing the code for the apps to make sure that they deliver a constant stream of dopamine into the user’s brains, increasing their motivation to use the app more. So, what the app developers refer to as increased engagement is code for addiction to the app.
Social media affects sleep: According to a university professor, researcher, and neuroscientist sleep is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body for health. Due to the blue screens on most electronics that we are exposed to, the melatonin release that naturally occurs in our body at night is not taking place. Lower or delay melatonin, and you will have disrupted sleep which results in a slew of issues such as memory and retention problems, attention problems, emotional regulation difficulties, and frustration tolerance difficulties to name a few. A 2015 study by Kaiser found that if children are looking at screens for over 7.5 hours a day for non- academic purposes, then the quality of sleep is going to be compromised.
Social media is negatively impacting relationships: Many children who are growing up in the digital age and with social media have a very superficial understanding of relationships. They do not understand the effort it takes to make and maintain real relationships, because much of what we know about them, how they are formed, how they are invested in, and how they are maintained is learned through engaging socially with peers during childhood and adolescence. It happens in classrooms, on playgrounds, on sports teams, and on casual outings to the mall on the weekends—all the interactions that are now limited or disrupted due to technology.
Many of the younger generations are growing up self-absorbed, spending most of their days showing what they have, what they ate, and where they travelled on the different social media channels and actually believe that it is the most important thing they will do that day. Because of these reasons, researchers are finding that narcissist traits are on the rise, and empathy, a critical ingredient for emotional intelligence and having good relationships, is on the decline.
Cyberbullying is at an all-time high: It is a major issue, with young people lacking empathy and engaging in harsh, critical, mean language which reaches hundreds of people with a click of a button. There is no safe place for the young person because, unlike traditional bullying, they would be attacked or feel threatened at school or on the bus, but now the violence of bullying is felt 24/7.
I, like many parents, had many conversations with my children who would come to me saying, “But everyone else is doing it, why can’t I?” and I have spent the last few years educating my three teens about the dangers of social media, the addictive nature of gaming, YouTube and chatting platforms. While I am under no illusion that my children will remain off social media for the rest of their young adulthood, I will do my very best to keep them off social media until they go to college. In the meanwhile, I will do my best to model for them how to consciously relate to social media and use it as a force for good.
