How should we talk to our kids about social media?

Linda: It’s almost like would you give the keys to your car to, you know, somebody with a learner’s permit and just think, “Oh, well, you’ll just learn, you know, as you go along.” You know, I’m sure you can learn by fire, or you can learn by doing. Really, is it the best thing for your car and for your child’s welfare? It’s great to have somebody there that has that experience and to say, “You know what? I’m terrible at double parking too, but let’s try to figure this out together.”

Kevin: According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 95% of teenagers reported using social media, and more than a third of them use it “almost constantly.” High social media usage in children has caused concern in parents, with many wondering if social media is safe for their kids. What are the negative and positive impacts of social media? Should parents place a limit on their kids’ social media usage? And how should we talk to kids about social media? This is “What I Want to Know.” And today, I’m joined by Linda Charmaraman to find out.

Linda Charmaraman is the Director and founder of the Youth Media and Wellbeing Research Lab at Wellesley College. Her research and action interests include social technology and adolescent health, digital citizenship, innovative research methods, and how social identities affect wellbeing. She joins us today to discuss how we can talk to our kids about social media. Linda, welcome to the show.

Linda: Oh, I’m so excited that you invited me. Thank you.

Kevin: Social media, boy, it’s everywhere. Our world has changed. I mean, as you can tell, I’m a little bit old school, so I remember the days when social media wasn’t prevalent. But it is everywhere. And you’ve done extensive research in the area of social media. Well, unpack a little bit the impact of social media on our students, our kids. But I have to ask, what drew you to this work?

Linda: Yes, I actually also remember a time when there was no social media and even no email, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Linda: And we had phones and not even the . . .

Kevin: Well, see, you wear it much better than I do. So but, yeah, there was a time, but, boy, it’s changed.

Linda: Yes. Yes, it has changed quite a bit. And the reason why I started on this road was because I cared about the impact of media in general on adolescent development. And the fact that there was so much passive consumption of media images that may or may not help or hinder, you know, people’s identity development over time, adolescents, you know, kind of trying to figure themselves out and reach out to people that might make them feel like a sense of belonging. And it used to be that, in the old days, it was very passive consumption, but with the advent of more interactive media, even streaming content, it used to be broadcast media, and then it was YouTube and things that you can on-demand request and have more choice. And so there’s more interactive components.

And then was the dawn of trying to create internal friendship networks on social media that opened up more doors for advancing, you know, networking opportunities, but also a lot of, you know, visual public display of your interactions with other people that brings, you know, all the joys, but also a lot of potential drama.

Kevin: You know, it’s interesting, because much of why we’re where we are today kind of started with Facebook, you know, with the whole idea of interacting online and for social engagement. But I’m struck by your work. When you said you started looking at how media impacted the development of adolescents, but now, as you alluded to, Linda, isn’t it the case that the impact is so much more profound? I mean, we’ve got studies from, you know, neurologists and scientists that talk about the brain development and the impact on children’s ability to develop their cognitive skills, which is different from 20, 30 years ago, the increase in anxiety, you know, just the simple need to slow down and take things in stride, as opposed to the rush, rush, hectic world. Talk a little bit about what some of your research has shown with respect to those kind of impacts. And we’re going to talk about the good, bad, and ugly. But I’m always struck by how young people don’t appreciate the brain science and the impact that social media has on that.

Linda: Yes. Well, I would say that young people and the people that take care of them, whether that’s parents, caregivers, educators, over the last, you know, 15 years or so, with the massive explosion of, you know, very, very common social media sites that everybody kind of signs up for, it’s been really hard to keep up with the impact that it’s been having on our young people, you know, for a variety of reasons. But one thing that I did want to note is that when you start using these social technologies, it sometimes can happen at an opportune time in your adolescent development stage, and sometimes it’s not an opportune time. It could be that they aren’t ready, you know, for the functions, that it opens the door to a Pandora box to the whole world. It’s almost like having access to Google unfettered. And do parents really want your kid to have access to a search engine that you can actually look up anything that you want under the sun? Maybe it’s not quite age appropriate, you know, for particular individuals and families and depending on their values, you know.

And so in terms of adolescent development and the brain development, there are things that don’t develop until later on in life that help with impulse control, help with self-regulation, help with, you know, understanding what is important to tend to and what is not important, what’s marginal and shouldn’t, you know, get you too upset. And so I think it’s all about timing as opposed to the actual social media itself. It’s more like when do you think your child or preteen or teen is ready for all the things that it opens the door to?

Kevin: When you look at the data, it says now that, you know, 95% of us use social media and 95% of our children use it, but there’s a third, over 30% of children say that they’re on social media “almost constantly.” So in other words, that’s what they do. And, you know, I’ve had other guests on the show, and we talk about if you drive early in the morning in a neighborhood and you look at a bus stop for kids, there may be 10, 15, 20 kids there and they all are looking at their PDAs . . .

Linda: Doing this.

Kevin: . . . and they’re not interacting with each other. And when I was young, when you were young at the bus stop, you played tag, whatever, you talk. There’s no conversations at bus stops now, not unless parents are around talking to each other. Well, sometimes I’ve seen that while the kids are on their PDA.

But I want to quote Linda Charmaraman, as someone who’s very knowledgeable about this. When you talk about the two things that are important recognizing the good, bad and ugly is social media. And you alluded to this, Linda. I want you to flesh this out. One is the onboarding, how they get, you know, the beginning process of engaging in social media platforms, which I never heard it quite put like that, but when I was reading your work, I said, “The onboarding is important. What’s your introduction to it?” And then the second thing that you’ve said is important is the usage. How do you use it? And that sounds simplistic, but sort of unpack why, even if it sounds simplistic, it’ so important.

Linda: Absolutely. Onboarding, it’s almost like would you give the keys to your car to, you know, somebody with a learner’s permit and just think, “Oh, well, you’ll just learn, you know, as you go along.” You know, I’m sure you can learn by fire, or you can learn by doing. Really, is it the best thing for your car and for your child’s welfare?

Kevin: I love that.

Linda: You know? It’s similar in that, you know, you want to kind of be there with them as they ask questions, as they’re on the road, as they’re parking for the first time, double parking for the first time, all these challenges that are going to come up. You know, at some point, you’re not going to be able to avoid double parking. And, you know, it’s great to have somebody there that has that experience and to say, “You know what? I’m terrible at double parking too, but let’s try to figure this out together.” You know, it doesn’t mean that, you know, the adult actually is the expert sometimes, but that to acknowledge that there is a long road of many different bumps and learning opportunities along the path.

You know, onboarding starts with even before the tween or teen or child gets access to the phone. So find out, are they ready for a phone? And because right soon after the phone is onboarding on social media sites. And really it’s not just about social media “in general,” but they might be more ready for certain apps compared to others. You know, it really depends on their friendship group and what other people are doing in their group and how much they’re being a positive influence in their group. And, you know, if there are certain things that are going viral that are, you know, a challenge to anybody who might be impressionable or, you know, hard to distract themselves before bed and can’t get enough sleep because they just can’t help themselves.

So it really depends on how much the onboarding team, whether it’s a caregiver or an educator or a sibling, an older sibling that knows the ropes for them to kind of be there during that learning permit phase. Like, should we add this person to your network? Is this person making you feel bad whenever they post something? Are you feeling FOMO? There’s your team to talk about it, you know, as it’s happening. And just like you would have the availability of your team to really be there for that beginning driver of a car, your team probably needs to be there for quite a long time after they get their first phone, their smartphone, after they get their first sites.

And then as soon as they get their first sites, they’re going to add more sites. That’s why they’re on it constantly because they’re going from site to site to site, checking notifications, checking what’s the latest. And so there’s different issues that might pop up or different affordances, wonderful things that could happen to join different communities online. But sometimes it can be a lot for a young person to decipher which one is a meaningful use of their time, you know, connecting with other people and which ones are a little bit less meaningful and maybe is distracting them for the things that they need to get done.

Kevin: Talk to me a little bit about the age in which you should allow or consider having your child gain access to these sites. And I understand that some children are in a different place in terms of their maturity level, their growth and development, so it could vary. But also, there’s this thing that, you know, you talked about earlier where a lot of us, a lot of parents, they don’t know what they don’t know. And there’s this thing about do as I say, not as I do. You’ve got parents now who are on the phones or on their PDAs. So talk about the age-appropriate conversation and also, you know, the access to sites. I mean, it’s clear that if you have young children, parental controls should play a role in it. But talk about that whole idea of making sure that the team members, as you mentioned, that they’re equipped to provide the right counsel and advice, you know, even as they’re navigating their own social media journeys.

Linda: Absolutely. And each of the sites that your child might start wanting to use have their own parental control, you know, sort of features. And it’s actually a great exercise to go through it together, not just be secretive about it. Be very open about, “Oh, let’s go through it together. Well, do you think this is a good way to kind of start with this site? Let’s like limit, maybe I need to approve every person that you add to your friendship network. You know, let’s start with that.”

And a lot of times when young, you know, tweens and kids are starting out, they want that advice from their parents. They need boundaries. They want boundaries. And it’s a Wild West. And that’s actually the perfect time to be like, “Oh, yeah, let’s make sure that I can approve all the apps that you upload onto the phone. I want to see what kind of people you’re adding to your network, what kind of ads are being allowed on your network. Let’s talk about it sometimes. Every once in a while you see something pop up, let’s have this ongoing dialogue.”

You know, I think a lot of times parents and caregivers feel as though the app is supposed to take care of all the monitoring, and, you know, nothing is foolproof in life. You know, there’s never a hundred percent like, “Oh, this is going to completely be safe and secure for everybody at all times.” You know, we’ve got to have our seat belts on. You know, we’ve got to have procedures that keep us all safe. And some of it is about that conversation, that active talking about the rules and jointly kind of adjusting the rules as they get older. When they’re young, when they’re like 8 or 9, maybe they’re on YouTube. Those YouTube videos that they used to love when they’re 6 are going to change from the kind of YouTube things and content that they’re going to be exposed to when they’re 10 and 12.

And to remember to keep changing and getting to know them as you adjust your rules and regulations. Maybe you’re not sitting next to them all the time watching those videos. Maybe you’re in the same room, or you’re giving them access to their devices for a certain period of time, but to always be in touch with what is the latest going on. It could be that it’s not the quantity of time that you’re worried about, it’s about the content. And so you usually don’t know about that unless you’re having conversations.

Kevin: One thing, Linda, in my experience, and I have grandkids and I have friends who have kids and grandkids, the introduction of social media, when you talk about onboarding and having these conversations, it actually begins before social media with young kids, you know, 2 to 3, 4 years old, I’ve seen it on planes, it’s almost like the streaming services are babysitting tools for parents, where, you know, the kids may not have access to social media, but the whole idea of being wired or access to the streaming services and being connected to technology, that’s where the seeds are planted. So talk a little bit about that transition where you have, you know, a 2, 3, 4-year-old who you used to say, “Oh, well, you can look at this.” You know, it could be, you know, Aladdin or, you know, one of the shows, Cinderella, what have you. And then as they get in school and they start socializing and they want to start moving to the next level, I mean, that’s part of where I think parents need to make sure it’s not as simple as, “All right, here, you can look at this streaming video,” and walk away. To your point, when now you graduate to social media, we need to have these conversations.

Linda: Absolutely. And I think the pandemic really, you know, exponentially got everybody on technology, whether they wanted to or not. And so even young kids as, you know, like second graders, third graders, they have access to their own Chromebooks or iPads through school. It’s at the touch of their fingertips, if they can go kind of on the side chat or a side tab. And so these skills of trying to figure out when it’s appropriate to be entertainment, you know, focused on your device and when it’s important to focus on your schoolwork, those skills are something that need to be developed over many different times periods.

There’s many different transitions from the first time you get a device from school to, like, get into your middle school when all your friends are much more likely to have phones and social media sites, and then transitioning to high school when you’re starting to think about, you know, how your social media sites might be looked at by future employers and college admissions boards. And yeah, so I would say that it never ends in a way, because, you know, if you just put restrictions and that’s it, you didn’t really have conversations about how they can manage their own use, then when they go off to college, for instance, or go off into their post-high school life, how are they going to monitor themselves?

Kevin: Yeah, that’s a really, really good point because many employers, and I’ve experienced this, you know, they now look at social media sites of young people who are applying. And it’s amazing how many young people, you know, they post all kinds of things, and they’ve never had those conversations. They don’t realize the impact of what their social media postings and language and photos, what impact it has on their future employment opportunities.’

Linda, you are the founder and Director of the Youth Media and Wellbeing Research Lab. First of all, talk about what the lab does, because I want to unpack, as we engage on around this conversation of adolescents’ use of social media, how this relates to your founding this organization and the work it does.

Linda: Well, it was launched back in 2018 because I got my first NIH grant that was about looking at adolescent development and the social technology use and how parents are monitoring its use. And really, the mission of our lab is to understand where youth are at already and to work almost with them as a team and all the stakeholders that care about youth wellbeing on what are some future directions, what are some ways that we could really enhance the protective aspects of any kind of actions they might have using social media technologies and also prevent, you know, preventable harm, and how we as a team, whether it’s educators or pediatricians or school counselors or policymakers or tech companies, can all come together to have similar goals in protecting our young peoples and their wellbeing.

Kevin: What are some of the biggest takeaways in your research thus far as it relates to social media and adolescents?

Linda: Well, one of the takeaways has to do with the age of initiation. You had mentioned it before, and I didn’t actually answer it head on. And it’s one of those things where even the American Academy of Pediatrics has backed off in assigning an age at which it’s most appropriate or that you have full permission to, like, go crazy because 13 is the age that a lot of social media sites have gravitated towards. Some of them are 16, which you can, you know, register as your own account. And most of these ages, due to the Children’s Online Protection Act, you know, are about protecting young people’s private information from being collected from advertising.

But however, there’s not much research on developmental aspects of it. Is it developmentally important for us to, you know, protect them at 13 or not? Now, some of my research from our lab initially has found that when you look at, for instance, an age that’s very popular to start social media, like around 11 or 12, like around sixth grade, seventh grade, the differences in the harm that happens, you know, in terms of being bullied, having problematic use in terms of not being able to get off of it, and having secretive behaviors that you’re not telling your parents on, it’s very similar between 11, 12, and 13. They’re very similar.

But if you get 10 and younger on social media, they tend to have more negative things happening, but they also have one surprisingly positive thing that happens if you start when you’re young. You actually learn how to be more socially proactive about raising issues that people care about, kind of realizing that social media could be a force for good and raising awareness, you know, in your communities to improve your communities as opposed to . . .

Kevin: That’s interesting.

Linda: Isn’t it interesting, you know?

Kevin: Yeah.

Linda: So I would say, in general, the more you’re on social media, the more good and bad happens because you’re on it more often. It makes sense, you know? And so the longer that you’re on it, also the more friends you collect. And so that’s another issue is that the more friends you have, more followers you have, the more time you spend on it, the more likely you are to be more constantly engaged in it. And so one thing I usually tell caregivers, you know, it might not be the age that is as important, but it’s more like how much do they need to feel like they need to be on it to fulfill their social obligations? And sometimes keeping it small helps them feel like they could manage it. And it’s more meaningful interactions, not just a bunch of people that are friends of friends that they’ve never met before. You know, that just adds to the feed of noise. You know, like people that you don’t really care about that just get on your feed and they might be older than you and showing you stuff that maybe isn’t as age appropriate. And so really managing that network is really key.

Kevin: You know, this idea of finding the right balance, it feels like it’s such a challenging situation that many parents are facing because, you know, I have a family member with a young child who’s 10, 11 in a sports league, and they have a site for that child where they engage in, you know, requests for community projects. They announce how the child is doing in his sport. I think that his mother writes a lot of the posts. You know, the paragraphs are too finely worded from a diction and sentence structure point of view for a 10-year-old. But I think it’s helped bring them together. And to your point, what made me think about it, Linda, is he’s become more socially aware about what he could do to help, like he raises money for the homeless or raising money for the food bank, what have you. So that is a good aspect.

But when you think about this idea of balance, there has to be this clear partnership between parents and children. So parents have to really . . . they have to be engaged. This can’t be the type of thing where they just trust the child to do it.

Linda: Yeah, I think because of the engagement in conversations from early on, it’s much more likely that as they get older and the parents are checking in and having deeper conversations, that eventually there is going to be a trust built, you know, and that they actually can be autonomous eventually. But if it’s one of those things where it was kind of out of sight, out of mind, they didn’t realize the need to have these conversations, sometimes it could lead to some negative things happening. And then you start putting on rules and curfews. And then sometimes it’s a little bit late.

But I like to think that it’s never too late, but definitely developmentally appropriate depending on the age. You know, if it’s a high schooler, it could be that you develop a plan together. You know, there are actually plans out there through Common Sense Media, the American Academy of Pediatrics, a family use plan for media in particular, in which there’s a whole checklist depending on the age of your child. And then what’s appropriate to kind of negotiate and say, “Okay, well, I think this is appropriate. What do you think?” You know, “Is this something that you can manage to do? And let’s just try this out this month and then maybe revisit it and see if it works out.”

And so, in a way, it’s never too late, but there’s definitely always new things that could pop up, which hopefully if you already have that line of communication that’s open and not like if in the past they’ve told you something that was worrisome and if your reaction is, “Oh, I’m going to take away that phone or you need to cancel that app,” they may not ever come to you ever again. And they increase the secretive behaviors. So having that attitude of curiosity and, “Oh, let’s see what we could do together,” that makes sense, and, you know, that you can keep those lines of communication open.

Kevin: So Linda, I have one last question. This is what I really want to know. And it relates to this whole idea of the partnership between the parent and the child. But there’s another partner out there, and that’s the school. And so talk a little bit about, you know, this idea of how parents should also be in touch with their child’s teacher, school administrators, what have you, because a lot of the social media challenges occurs or stems from the school environment. It could be the bullying. It could be working on projects together on the good side. And teachers vary in terms of, you know, what they allow and don’t allow in their class. Some teachers, you know, say, “Hey, you can use your phones.” Some ban the phones. But talk a little bit about how parents should engage their child’s school to make sure that everyone is on the same page as it relates to the child’s use of social media.

Linda: Well, when we have conducted studies on teacher beliefs and parent beliefs about who should be onboarding our youth, usually in the middle school, the parents want to be more involved, and they think that teachers perhaps might not be as critical. And then in high school, definitely they’ve sort of like, “Okay, well, it’s the school’s responsibility now.” And most of the time staff believe that it’s all the parent’s responsibility. It’s not our responsibility.

But I would say over the years, it’s definitely changed to meet more in the middle. I think a lot of the parents and the educators know that they need to work together because maybe something that happened, you know, the night before, over the weekend, that happened on social media might be distracting in the classroom the next day. That’s all the kids can talk about. And so it’s helpful for parents to be in contact with the school counselors, for instance, that maybe this is why the kids are not, you know, being able to focus because something that happened on social media.

One thing that I wanted to emphasize is that in this generation, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, you know, the online and offline worlds are often very blurred. The boundaries are very blurred. And whatever happens in “real life” to adults, they think that, you know, the online world is a separate world somehow that needs to not, you know, trickle into the walls of the classroom. But for young people, it’s the same world. It is online and offline. It’s all the same people, often the same characters.

You know, in the old days, I think a lot of caregivers think that the online world somehow is about this massive, you know, stranger community, these adults that come and are like, predators. And that’s the main thing that they’re worried about. But actually, when you really think about, you know, when you count the number of ways that young people are often kind of feeling bad about themselves online, it’s because of people they know. It’s because of their peers, you know, because they’re classmates. And so it’s the same community.

And I think if there’s anything that is happening both on the educator end or the parent end for them to be in contact, it’s all relevant. Hopefully, we can all be on the same page, you know, of helping to foster a very conducive educational environment for everybody to thrive. And also, in terms of infusing social technologies into the curriculum, some teachers have been on, you know, kind of increased that option just to see where the young people are at and to kind of meet them where they are. I know that some educators feel very hesitant to kind of open up that box and blurring that boundary between educational versus entertainment. But I’d say why not, you know, kind of use different tools that could help them use this particular technology for good rather than only think of it as like this thing in the corner that everybody doesn’t want to talk about, that is useless, but it could possibly be brought into an educational framework since they’re there anyway.

Kevin: Yeah, good point. Linda Charmaraman, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your insights on this issue. And thanks again for joining us on “What I Want to Know.”

Linda: Oh, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Kevin.

Kevin: Thanks for listening to “What I Want to Know.” Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education. And write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That’s #WIWTK.

For more information on Stride and online education, visit stridelearning.com. I’m your host, Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining “What I Want to Know.”