Nowadays, when you are in public you may constantly see teenagers, college students, and adolescents on their phones more than anything. What exactly are they on? What is occupying their time? Social media and dating apps seems to be the current social craze. Researchers found that about 80 percent of social media posts are self-focused, while around 30 to 40 percent of one’s speech is comprised of self-disclosing information about oneself to others (Mahamid & Berte, 2019).
Authors found that if someone is responding or talking about one’s own opinions, it promotes an increase in neural activity (Mahamid & Berte, 2019). Although social media is only growing, there truly is not a lot of professional assistance on how to correctly use it in a healthy or positive manner (Mahamid & Berte, 2019). Parents should monitor and time their children’s screen time on their devices because many times over the parents don’t know what websites or social media apps their children are even on. A nonprofit resource that was founded in 2003 for parents to read about reviews, different games, age-appropriate apps, books, movies, and television shows for their kids is called Common Sense Media. A link to this website can be found here: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/
The founder of Common Sense is named Jim Steyer, who is also an author of the book titled The other parent: The Inside Story of the Media’s Effect on our Children. The main message of that book to parents is that the media, television, and movies all have detrimental effects on adolescents. What’s interesting is that Jim recommended in the book that parents should put their children on health media diets, but this book was published back in 2003, before Facebook or any of the big social medias were launched except for Myspace. Jim’s main goal of Common Sense is to empower parents with the proper resources and information they need about technology and the media in order for them to advocate for their children (Our Impact, n.d.). Only three years after the launch of Common Sense, it instantly became the “largest independent source for media and technology reviews” back in 2006 (Our Impact, n.d.).There are many links on the Common Sense site, this link contains a parent blog https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog and there even is a parent concerns webpage found here https://www.commonsensemedia.org/parent-concerns as a source for adults to ask questions about anything related to the media or internet as a way of helping others to understand more through this digital age (Our Mission, n.d.). A few examples of some past-asked questions on the parent concerns webpage include asking about cyberbullying, questions on Youtube monitoring, and how much screen time is the right amount for their child.
The media is making more and more parental challenges. MySpace started back in 2003, where Youtube launched in 2005, Twitter started in 2006, and even Facebook changed its law into allowing 13 year olds to join in 2006 (Our Impact, n.d.). There is a drastic increase of adolescent’s time spent on their mobile devices because of these social media platforms. A study that tested the frequency of social media usage among 13 to 17 year olds found that 27% of teens are checking their social media hourly, while only 19% of teens do not use social media at all (Knutson, 2018). More statistics from this study can be seen in Figure 1 below.
Image source: https://d1e2bohyu2u2w9.cloudfront.net/education/sites/default/files/tlr-blog/frequency.png
Adolescents see more positive effects than negative effects regarding social media (Knutson, 2018). Researchers have found some common characteristics of addicted social media users such as poor impulse control, low self-esteem, depression, and feelings of social isolation (Mahamid & Berte, 2019). However, about 57% of teens do believe that social media distracts them from other tasks such as homework. This may be why texting is now considered the most favorable means of communication amongst teens even more than communicating in person (Knutson, 2018). A 2012 vs 2018 study compared the ways teens preferred way of communication, which found that the least preferred way is through video chatting at 10%. Additional information about the study can be found in the diagram below.
Image source: https://d1e2bohyu2u2w9.cloudfront.net/education/sites/default/files/tlr-blog/face-to-face-title.png
More research is being conducted to see what the correct amount of screen time is for adolescents. The American Academy of Pediatrics created the “Family Media Use Plan tool” that can be used for children of the ages of 18-24 months, 2-5 years, 6-12 years, and 13 to 18 year olds. The “Family Media Use Plan tool” creates a personalized media plan for your family. First you enter the name of your family, and your children’s names, and ages using the drop down menu. After that you are prompted to a page that allows the parent to decide what the device curfews are, what rooms the devices will charge in, what rooms are screen-free zones, what hours are screen free times such as before bedtime, while crossing the street, or during dinnertime, when it is appropriate to have recreational screen time, digital safety rules, and so much more. The tool allows you to selected predetermined options or you have the ability to type in your own responses to any of the categories. After the parent selects the appropriate categories and checks off the categories, the site will generate a personalized family media plan based off the results.If you want to create your own family media plan, please do so here.
Something else was created called the Media Time Calculator, which allows the parent to add their children’s media use into a personalized scale that tells you how much time is used for screen time, for chores, for reading, homework, family time, for sleep, and more. This calculator can help the child to see truly how much of their day is taken by their media use. To access the Media Time Calculator, feel free to find it here. There are also more media use recommendations provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) which involve setting the appropriate screen time of high quality programs for young children who are of ages two to five to only one hour a day (American, 2016). But for children who are a bit older than the age of six, their media screen time should be strictly limited in order to make sure media use does not deter their children’s physical activity or sleep schedule (American, 2016). The AAP recommends on having different media-free times throughout the day, as well as media-free locations in your house (American, 2016). The discussion of cutting out excess periods of the media from your daily life is considered a “media diet”. There are even sites out there who provide media diet pyramids as a way to help people to see the main problem of their daily media consumption. The underlying question here is, how will you consume your media and not let it consume your life?
References
American Academy of Pediatrics announces new recommendations for children’s media use. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/American-Academy-of-Pediatrics-Announces-New-Recommendations-for-Childrens-Media-Use.aspx
Knutson, J. (2018, September 10). What new research on teens and social media means for teachers. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/blog/what-new-research-on-teens-and-social-media-means-for-teachers
Mahamid, F. A., & Berte, D. Z. (2019). Social media addiction in geopolitically at-risk youth. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 17(1), 102-111. doi:10.1007/s11469-017-9870-8
Our Impact. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/our-impact/
Our Mission. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/our-mission
Tags: adolescents, media, social media