Teens and social media is a ‘hot potato’ topic (as we say in French).
The fact is: as much as I love the idea of a totally unplugged childhood, we will not be able to avoid social media forever. We ourselves use social media, and for good reason — it is a simple way to organise our lives, stay in touch with friends and find out what is going on in the world. All good things of course. But then there is the inevitable dark side of social media: bullying, trolling, recruiting, grooming, and the negative effects on confidence and self esteem. How do we try and educate our children on how to use social media in a way that gives them the right tools and knowledge to protect themselves from making themselves vulnerable to some of the crazier sides of social media?
My daughter is 12 and soon going to be 13, the age in France where it becomes legal to use most social medias and have an email account. Up to now I have been using the law to my advantage and so she has not had access to social media, but it is a matter of months not years. I am going to let her use social media, as it is part of her reality and the world she lives in. So it makes sense to me to try and teach her to use social media as responsibly as possible.
I think one of the main things I have tried to impress on my daughter is the fact that social media cannot be seen as an extension of a conversation that is happening in the same room. It is not a virtual living room where exchanges happen in a contained environment and jokes, opinions and emotions stay within that space. We might fight at home, but the fights stays within our 4 walls.
A very good friend of mine once said to me “write it, don’t send it”. It is some of the best advice I ever had. It is so easy to, in an emotional moment, start writing responses or attacks and publishing with a click of a button. But it is really, really important to write something, step away from the phone or computer, breathe and delete it.
The same goes for funny and silly posts. Whatever you put on social media might seem funny in the moment, but that post will forever form a digital footprint that you can be confronted with 10 years later. This is really hard to explain to a 12/13 year old who does not yet understand the concept of what her future holds. Again my explanations rests on the idea of context. What you do with your friends in private, even if you think it is super funny, is not something you want strangers to see. Social media, no matter your privacy settings or friend groups, is still the equivalent to strangers looking into your life and whatever you post, it might never go away. That does not mean that kids should not be having fun and expressing themselves on social media — I would love for them to just think for one beat before they press the “publish” button.
My cousin told her kids to invite me as a friend to their social media. She knew that they did not want her following them and wanted to give them the privacy they craved as teenage girls do and should. But I thought it was clever that she asked me to follow them and alert her if anything weird was going on. I live in a different country and do not know their friends so a little bit of their privacy is guaranteed.
If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions do share. It is such a vast subject and can be quite polarising. I am really interested on how people approach it all over the world.
I am still approaching it maybe with a certain degree of naivety as my children are not yet old enough to really experience what living a truly digital age means.
Emilie
The above photo is a lovely one of Esther’s daughter Ava and Coco having a very unplugged moment together!
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