Social Media and Children

October 21, 2021

Dear LREI Families, 

I hope that this note finds you well as we move squarely into autumn, children and adults settled into the school year, hunkering down and working hard. It has been terrific to see you in person at grade-level potlucks, with many more to come in the next few weeks. I am so excited for the return of families to the everyday school community.  

If you are missing being in the buildings, or are just curious about what happens at LREI each day, check out our Facebook (LREI, @lreinyc) and Instagram posts (@lrei.)  These are excellent windows into the life of the school.

I have to admit to being a wee bit of a social-media Rube. You know this if you follow me on Instagram (@lreidirector), where I am trying to get back into the groove of posting regularly. A number of my colleagues are more natural social media communicators than I and I prefer to leave the heavy lifting of our digital presence to them. Of course, the most natural social media communicators that I know are our students and, of course, some LREI parents, as I am an old guy and it all seems just so “generational” to me. The fluency with which our students express themselves, connect with each other, and connect beyond their usual circles is pretty darn impressive and just a little bit scary. Social media platforms provide adolescents with opportunities to connect with “their people” – communities based on interests, identities, and hopes. For some, this is an essential connection to a supportive and challenging community of peers.  

There is no doubt that social media provides compelling connections for our students. I think back to a conversation that I had with a group of eighth-graders about “streaks” on Snapchat – keeping up a string of “Snaps” with your friends where the reward of keeping up your streaks is a high “Snapscore.” For some students, my suggestion that this was meaningless was itself, meaningless. These platforms are built to be compelling and the connections they create, good and less so, are in and of themselves, compelling, and are not always of the user’s making. The algorithms make decisions for us about content with little investment about what is “good” for us.  What is compelling and why? How do we respond? A significant complication and danger.

I have been following the recent conversation regarding Facebook and Instagram and the impact that these platforms can have on users, specifically on adolescent girls. You can find clips of Congressional hearings here and thoughts on the hearings and the impact of social media on young women here, and a somewhat different point of view here. You can certainly Google and find countless articles and opinion pieces from all sorts of publications focused on the hearings, on Instagram in particular, and on social media more generally.  

Adding to this potential danger, we see the huge impact that social media, and other parts of the digital lives of teens, can have on their friendships. The most challenging friendship and behavioral situations that come to the adults in school almost all have some sort of digital component. The public, shareable, and potentially permanent nature of this communication is a recipe for hurt and lasting damage. In the life of children, the deepest hurt can be healed overnight. One Snap or Instagram post and the healing can take longer and the wound can fester.

So how do we balance these two components of life with social media? How do we make sense of a connection to others that is both fun, engaging, supportive and that has the opportunity to create essential community connections and to open up the world, with the complicating potential for significant harm, often arriving unbidden or through an adolescent impulse, geometrically increasing the impact of fairly typical teenage unkindness?

We spend considerable time in school discussing social media with your children. We begin this work in third and fourth grade when we initiate conversations about digital citizenship. In middle school advisory, these conversations continue as the students begin to have a larger online presence. These conversations follow the students to high school, as part of Life Lab, as the majority of children are fully participating in some aspect of digital media. The current national conversation is a terrific opportunity for the school community and your families to jump in and to participate in this discussion.

What can you do at home? Below I share a few thoughts of my own and other comments and resources from my colleagues.  

• Wait as long as you feel is possible/responsible before giving your child a phone.

• When is the right time for a child to get a phone, which often increases access to social media?  This is different for different families. Some folks say that you should wait until eighth grade. Others want to do this earlier for reasons relating to travel (maybe more of an issue in NYC than elsewhere, where “Wait Until 8th” has taken hold), or relating to living in more than one household.

• Consider a flip phone.

• Consider saying “Yes” to a phone but “No” to social media.

• Remember that many platforms require users to be 13.

• Start off limiting friendships on social media to family, until your children are older. This way they can find their feet in a more private way. Ensure that your children’s social media accounts are set to private. Follow any and all social media accounts of your children, and check in on them daily. (Stacy Dillon, Sixth Avenue Librarian) 

• Virality does not equal accuracy — Encourage teens to be critical consumers, particularly with content on Instagram and TikTok; just because they “saw it” on social media doesn’t mean it is real or based in fact. If a post makes them especially angry or emotional, it’s probably because the post was designed to do that. Strong emotions activate users, so we ask students to think before they like, repost, or post. Being critical consumers will help them identify misinformation and keep it from spreading. Families should have these conversations and interrogate what they see online together. (Joy Piedmont, High School Tech Integrator)

• Social media sites provide a free service, which means the user is “paying” with their personal information. We encourage students and families to take the time to dig into the privacy settings of their social media accounts. On many apps, you can see and control what information is collected and used. You can read more about adjusting their Instagram privacy settings here (Joy Piedmont, High School Tech Integrator):

  • Consumer Reports and read TikTok’s policies

• Help your teen set boundaries. A lot of students know they need help with spending less time on apps like Instagram and TikTok. Apps like Freedom (which has a fee) are really helpful because they allow you to set time limits or “blackout” times. Be in conversation with your teen to help them figure out the boundaries they want to set for themselves. (Joy Piedmont, High School Tech Integrator)

• If your kids are not ready for a robust conversation about their digital lives, they may not be ready to have an independent digital life.

• If, while on social media, teens are interacting with users that diminish their self-image or value, accounts that promote unrealistic lives or have a generally negative impact on your teen, encourage them to unfollow, and when other similar accounts pop up, say they are not interested. (Leanne D., ‘22 , Co-Leader of the high school Body Image and Social Media Club.)

I asked Leanne about ways for students and their families to recognize the impact of harmful social media interactions.  She responded, “Some ways to know if this is happening are increased irritability, body checking, isolating, and decreased self care, such as not eating enough, eating too much, and not practicing hygiene. Teens will treat themselves with less respect while also trying to change themselves to fit a mold.”   Thanks, Leanne.

Resources:

• Center for Humane Technology (Mark Silberberg, Director of Learning and Innovation)

• Distracted? Let’s make technology that helps us spend our time well | Tristan Harris | TEDxBrussels (Mark Silberberg, Director of Learning and Innovation)

• On Social Media – a pushpage from last year by middle school principal, Ana Chaney ‘94.

Thank you to my colleagues for their input. I think it is important to end by emphasizing that I have great faith in the intelligence and decency of children and young adults, and in the power of family conversations to impact behavior. We see this every day and I am impressed with the students’ ability to grow, to learn, and to ultimately make good decisions. In the face of very powerful forces, their inherent goodness gives me comfort and hope.  

Keep in touch,