Social Media Toxicity

Today's topic was brought to my attention during a recent happy hour dicussion with my girlfriends. I highly recommend creating a friend group that is a safe space to air everything, and that's exactly what we do. No one is competitive or jealous, just a lovely group of moms trying to raise healthy kids and spilling all of their insecurities over a glass of wine. On this particular night, we were discussing one friend's child who is going through several challenging circumstances. Her sweet baby was doing their best to get through life, and guess what? Social media did it's thing and piled on. She was telling us about how the kids in her child's class would take video of her child and post it on Snapchat, where it would spread like wildfire. Kids would then use the posts to harass and embarrass. This makes me so angry. How is this happening? 

A lot of kids have more access to social media than they need. And no judgement - I'm not in anyone else's shoes, and I don't know what challenges anyone else is facing. Do you work all day, and your child is lonely? Did the pandemic encourage social media use while kids couldn't be physically together? These are perfectly valid reasons for using these sites. But how far does it go? Personally, I like to be present while they're using it, but this doesn't mean that I'm hovering over every snap they send (there are only so many "HBD so-and-so" pictures of our ceiling I can take). What I've tried to create is an environment where they're catching up with their friends and watching videos while I'm around. No one is sneaking or hiding anything. They know I've got hearing like a bat, and they're still comfortable with the sound on. Occasionally, I'll overhear something questionable and we'll talk about it, and from everything I've read, kids crave this sort of boundary (whether they know it or not). Kids want to know where the end of the line is, otherwise they're floundering around trying to find it, and making poor choices as a result. 

The bottom line is that they know I can see their correspondence at any time (and whoops, once I've looked at that Snap, it's GONE!), and I have the ability to see and hear anything they're watching. If I can't, I ask. All this to say, that I'm confident that I would have heard/noticed a video making fun of another child and made efforts to put a stop to it (or my Informer would have informed...). The work I've put into this is time consuming, but I believe it's doing some good. I know I can't stop social media from infiltrating the growing brains in our family, but I'm going to put a box around it if I can. 

I know we've all heard of The Social Dilemma (please watch if you haven't!), but here are two other great documentaries on social media and its effects on our kids. One caveat - none of the documentaries I post are a perfect representation of all issues our kids are faceing. I just hope some nugget in here helps you with your own struggles as it has with me, especially as we continue to navigate the effects of the pandemic on our children.

When is Your Brain Ready for Social Media? (PBS)

Childhood 2.0 (Documentary)

In relation to this, a topic on cyberbullying is in the works - there's so much to tackle there! This time I just wanted to focus more on social media and how we can manage it. #AlwaysAware