Social Media Safety For Teens
Popular social media sites can have significant effects on teens’ mental health, though they may also offer benefits. Most teens are highly engaged in social media, and teaching them how to stay safe online can help them avoid the potential challenges of problematic social media use. Below, explore statistics on teen social media use and ways to support your teen in remaining safe.
Statistics about social media use in teens
What parents should know: Screen time, body image, and more
Screen time can have significant impacts on teens, and social media can have its own dangerous effects. Below are some of the facts about social media to be aware of.
Developing brains make teens more vulnerable
Teenagers' brains are not fully developed, which can make them especially vulnerable to some features of social media. Algorithms designed to promote endless scrolling and the increasing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) can exploit the teenage brain for attention and the approval of their peers. Because they do not yet have a developed sense of self-control, they may have a difficult time pulling themselves away, even if what they’re seeing is harmful to their mental health. Peer pressure to interact with this type of content can also cause them to continue.
Screen time can impact mental health
Screen time can have a significant impact on mental health. Research has shown that social media use has an overall negative association with well-being in all teens and increases the rate of depression in teen girls. This research also found that social media use can also worsen anxiety and depression and that greater exposure to screen time leads to an increase in depression score.
Social media and body image issues are linked
Social media can contribute to distorted body image as filters and photo editing apps can reinforce unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards. For example, one study found that cutting social media use in half can significantly improve how teens think about their weight and overall appearance.
Social media safety for teens: How to stay safe on the internet
Internet safety can be overwhelming. Parents concerned about their teens’ online safety may consider the following security and personal tips.
Security
Below are general safety and personal social media safety tips for teens:
- Learn how to block other users and filter content on all social media platforms to have more control over what you see.
- Report any inappropriate users harassing you or engaging in other forms of cyberbullying.
- Check your personal settings to limit who can view your profile.
- Think before you post. Consider whether you are okay with the information you’re posting being seen by the whole world. While you can choose what you post and who sees it, you can’t control what others will do with the information you give them.
- Don’t post provocative pictures. Remember that future employers may look at your social media accounts one day, so post accordingly.
- Disable location services when posting photos or checking into places, as doing so can reveal your location to people you do not know or trust, including online predators.
- Don’t use public Wi-Fi for actions that require a password. If necessary, use a VPN to hide your IP address and device information.
- Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know.
- Be wary of online friends you have never met in real life.
- Don’t post or tag your friends and family without their permission.
- Don’t automatically click links in messages sent by your friends. If you receive a suspicious link, video, or message from a friend’s profile, ask them before opening it.
- Use strong passwords and update them often.
Social media literacy
Social media literacy can also be important to internet safety. Learning the critical thinking skills to identify unreliable or false information can help teens build resiliency and avoid unnecessary conflict and negative emotions. Social media literacy can have many levels, including the following:
- Navigation, or the user’s ability to find information on social media
- Curation, which includes both including information that is relevant to one’s life and excluding information that isn’t
- Appraisal, which includes the ability to identify and refuse false information
- Comprehension, or contextualizing new information with concepts that are already understood
What can parents do?
Parents can use various tactics to help keep their teens safe online, including the following strategies.
Can parents ensure social media safety for teens?
Although social media safety may not be completely ensured, parents can help their teens learn more about media literacy and establish boundaries to help them stay as safe as possible online. Ensuring your own social media literacy can be a good place to start.
How to protect your child from the internet
Below are several tips for helping your child stay safe on the internet:
- Familiarize yourself with any social media platform or social networking sites your teen uses.
- Set a time limit for how many hours teens can spend on social media and use screen time settings to help them maintain these limits and learn self-control.
- Prohibit screens in the bedroom and any screen time that interferes with teens' getting at least eight hours of sleep every night.
- Monitor their social media posts and content to ensure they are not posting inappropriate posts and can maintain a positive online reputation.
- Engage in ongoing conversations about safe social media use and the negative effects it can have on their mental health.
- Model healthy social media use. For example, don’t use social media at the dinner table or during family time; discuss how and why you use social media with your teens.
Are there benefits to using social media for your child?
Social media can benefit teens in some circumstances, and it can be important for parents to understand these benefits and approach social media safety fairly in conversation. For example, they may achieve the following benefits:
- Maintaining social connections
- Building social capital that can be useful when looking for jobs or other opportunities
- Avoiding isolation, particularly for neurodiverse teens
- Learning more about people, places, and cultures in other parts of the world
- Expressing themselves
- Exploring their creativity
- Fostering interest in civic engagement
The benefits of spending time offline
Disconnecting from social media, even briefly, may have many benefits, and knowing these benefits may encourage your teen to take a break. When people distance themselves from social media, they may have more free time to engage in activities they enjoy. Avoiding comparison culture and the constantly updated news cycle can improve mental health and sleep. Finally, spending time off social media often allows more opportunities to connect with people in real life.
Signs of problematic social media use
Social media use may be problematic for your child if it starts interfering with daily routines and other commitments, such as school, friendships, and extracurricular activities. Other signs to look out for include your child choosing to spend time online instead of attending in-person activities, having difficulty not using social media, or lying to spend more time online. Social media use can also be problematic if it prevents teens from getting regular physical activity or at least eight hours of sleep every night.
Mental health effects of social media
Using social media apps can impact overall well-being and puts some teens at higher risk of depression. Social media can also exacerbate symptoms of underlying mental health conditions. If you are worried about your teen’s mental health as a result of their social media use, consider getting them professional help.
How to find mental health support
Working with a therapist can help teens understand the effects of social media use on their brains, emotions, and mental health. A skilled therapist can help your teen identify worrisome thoughts and behaviors and develop coping skills to manage them. If your child is exhibiting signs of a social media addiction, a therapist can also help them develop a healthy relationship with social networking.
Some teens may hesitate to discuss these challenges in person, so online therapy can be convenient and flexible. With a platform like TeenCounseling (or BetterHelp for parents), teens aged 13 to 19 can work with a qualified mental health professional from the comfort of their home or anywhere they have a reliable internet connection. In addition, they can access unique resources like worksheets and group sessions. Research has found that online therapy can be an effective option for treatment, with one study determining that “Clinically, therapy is no less efficacious when delivered via videoconferencing than in-person.”
Takeaway
Should a 14-year-old be allowed social media?
The decision to allow a 14-year-old on social media is typically up to parents and caregivers. While most major social media platforms like Facebook typically allow people 13 and older to create an account, this technology can be detrimental to mental health and lead teens to spend too much time online.
What are 7 internet safety tips?
The following are some social media safety tips for teens:
1. Never give out your address or physical location.
2. Don’t give away any personal details, such as Social Security number.
3. Don’t post pictures of yourself in your community.
4. Don’t post pictures or videos of yourself with clothing that reveals your school’s name or mascot.
5. Don’t agree to meet strangers in person, even after extensive communication online.
6. If you receive a direct message from someone claiming to know you, don’t assume the person really knows you.
7. Keep your settings as strict as possible so that strangers and scam artists can’t contact you.
Most teens might already know that they shouldn’t give out their home address, but parents might want to focus on the other six things in the list above to help teens think of scenarios in which they should be extra careful. Some teens might not know that a picture they are tagged in could reveal the school they go to or activities they are involved in in their community. Parents might also show teens how easily scammers can often locate people with just an online search.
How do I keep my child safe on social media?
You might consider adding a filter so that teens cannot access inappropriate content. However, if your child uses devices to use the internet via Wi-Fi outside of home, know that some internet filters may not work. You might find internet control apps that help in these situations.
Should parents limit screen time for kids?
Research suggests that adults should limit screen time for children and teens. Excessive screen time can affect sleep and cognitive performance, in addition to increasing risk of mental health conditions.
What are the symptoms of too much screen time?
Excessive screen time may lead to sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression. It may also lead to aggression and difficulty with social-emotional development. Other symptoms may include headache, obesity, and eye strain.
Should parents monitor their children's social media?
The American Psychological Association recommends that parents and caregivers monitor children’s social media from ages 10 through 14. Some parents might choose to extend this age further to help their teens get more real-world interaction with friends. Parents can talk to their teens about how too much social media use can affect their mental and physical health.
How much screen time is too much for a teenager?
Some experts recommend that teens not have more than two hours of screen time per day. This refers to recreational screen time when teens are not active. Exercising while watching something on a screen may not be detrimental.
What happens to a child's brain with too much screen time?
Too much screen time can affect the brain’s ability to form neural connections. The type of stimulation caused by social media use tends to be different from stimulation received during real-life interactions.
What age should parents stop monitoring their child's phone?
In most cases, the American Psychological Association recommends that parents monitor children’s social media use from ages 10 through 14. Parents might want to monitor their children’s phone use in general at these ages. The right age to stop monitoring phone use might depend on each child, as children can mature at different paces.
How much is too much screen time for social media?
Some experts recommend that teens not spend more than two hours per day on social media. However, given the growing research on the dangers of the digital world for teen mental health, parents might create rules that limit social media use further and then encourage more real-life activities.
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