Social Media and Teens - Parents, It's Up to You (Part 2)

Part One is all about you, parents. 

Let me just say that I thank my lucky stars that I am not raising a child today. In my opinion, the issues for parents today are worse than they have ever been. 

Only you know your child/teen and what access they have to social media in general. (I say in general because you may not realize what they see at school or how they use social media at school. Check out this infographic on teens and their exposure to porn from Common Sense.) 

You buy the phones and the phone service. Right there, folks, there's a HUGE amount of control. I see on some Facebook pages for local parents, questions about when kids should get a smartphone (it's never a starter flip phone). My experience as a parent is to instill your rules as soon as you can, as young as you can and their enforcement. Let your child know that this is a privilege, not a right.

You read my headline, right? Like so many other issues in your child's life, it is really up to you. Your child will model what you do, not what you say. Phones at the dinner table? Phones at restaurants? No. Phones at church? No. And tell your older children that their younger siblings look to them. Make them part of the plan.

Phones at school? Therein lies the rub.

The advisory notice from the Surgeon General lists five different groups that have a role to play. Here's what they say parents and children can do:

Parents and caregivers can make plans in their households such as establishing tech-free zones that better foster in-person relationships, teach kids about responsible online behavior and model that behavior, and report problematic content and activity.

Children and adolescents can adopt healthy practices like limiting time on platforms, blocking unwanted content, being careful about sharing personal information, and reaching out if they or a friend need help or see harassment or abuse on the platforms.

These two groups are the MOST important and why? They are on the frontlines for outcomes. And I do applaud the Surgeon General for NOT putting in schools. Are schools are the frontlines? Of course they are but putting any kind of onus on them, rather than those with the real power is unfair. Any kind of pressure for change in using cell phones at school, especially in the classroom, has to come from parents. 

I say that because I have talked to many secondary teachers who either shrug or say "it's not worth the fight" or actually say no to cell phone use in THEIR classroom. But if it's not a school-wide initiative, what any individual teacher does is almost doomed to fail (or cause real issues for the teacher) I strongly support no cell phones usage in the classroom; they need to go in a pouch area somewhere in the classroom. I do not think the teacher saying, "No cell phones" while allowing the kids to have possession will work. It sets the stage for conflict. 

I do think kids should retain limited possession of their phones in the classroom for emergencies. (If we didn't have so many school shootings, I think you could say no cell phones at school.)

While it's important for your child to report harassment or abuse online because they are more likely to have an awareness that it's happening (to them or a friend), in your defense that the "report problematic content and activity" might be whistling in the wind. 

Tell TikTok about an issue? Complain to Instagram? Unless it's dangerous content, I wouldn't put it at the top of my parent "to-do" list. Even telling your child's school that there are falsehoods/rumors/exaggerations about your child circulating on social media during school hours, what will the school do? What can they legally do?  The latter is uncharted territory.

Now there are some schools that are pushing back. From The Atlantic (bold mine):

My children, who now range from preschool to 11th grade, have attended a mix of public schools, secular private schools, and Jewish schools, and I’ve seen how smartphone usage has become the norm, at least on school buses, during free periods, and in the lunchroom. In my experience, smartphone usage, for students in junior high or above, is the rare thing that schools with different educational philosophies, and different racial and income demographics, have in common.

The author was invited to give a short speech to the school:

That evening, as I sat with the head of school, Joy McGrath, in the living room of her on-campus house, I remarked that St. Andrew’s seemed different from other high schools. In just a few hours, I had seen students eat comfortably with their teachers; heard announcements delivered in person rather than via email; watched as chapel was treated unironically, with reverence, or at least respect; and seen not one person glance down at a smartphone. In fact, I said to McGrath, I not seen a smartphone since arriving on campus, or heard one buzz.

The school had not banned smartphones, she said, but it had put them in their place. At St. Andrew’s, where all students board, they may have phones, but only in their rooms. Since mobile phones came into widespread use 20 years ago, the school has never allowed them in public. “The only exception is working out in the gym,” McGrath said. At night, students store their phones in over-the-door shoe organizers in the dorm common areas. “A funny side effect” of this policy, she said, “is when we write to families about moving into the school, we emphasize in all caps ‘YOU HAVE TO BUY AN ALARM CLOCK.’ Because they can’t have their phones in their rooms overnight.”

This year, the Buxton School, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, banned smartphones, but they still allow the lower-tech Light Phones, which don’t support apps; according to an administrator quoted in The Wall Street Journal, “The idea wasn’t to cut off students entirely from the outside world, but to make it harder to have online drama accessible at all times from their pockets.”

Compliance is high, in part because there is so much discussion about the pros and cons of smartphones; it’s a live conversation. There are resisters, of course—and not just students. Will Robinson, a longtime St. Andrew’s administrator and teacher, and himself an alumnus of the school, has on rare occasions seen new, young teachers peeking at phones. “I have gone up to faculty members to say, ‘We don’t do that here, in the same way we don’t smoke marijuana or drink in the dining hall.’”

"It's a live conversation" is exactly what it should be in households. Talking as a family about group norms and issues is a great way for your children to feel part of a process.