Social media can be good for mental health
It all started with the Nokia 6100. Maybe you don’t remember it, but it was a great phone…or at least my 7th-grade self thought so. It actually had a color LCD screen at 128 x 128 pixels.
Just to put that into perspective, the iPhone 13 comes in at a measly 1170 x 2532 pixels. But who needs that many pixels, am I right?
I became pretty skilled at T9 predictive texting.
afaik i was tb T9 txter in az lol
If you were a real T9 texter, you know that I never typed like that. No way, I was too cool. I always used proper grammar and punctuation, thank you very much.
Well, that lasted for a couple of years until I got my hands on a BlackBerry. For anyone out there who remembers their BlackBerry, I don’t even need to say more about what that experience feels like. But for those who don’t know, it wasn’t just a simple phone that could make calls and send texts. It had that cool, corporate vibe while still being sleek and sexy. And don’t even get me started about the roller-ball and keyboard.
R.I.P. BlackBerry Phones. You will be missed.
Fast forward to today. I picked up my son from an early release day at school, and on the drive home, he asked, “Daddy! Will you play Daisy the Great?”
I didn’t need to reach into my pocket, find my Zune, try to untangle the AUX cable from the emergency brake, and then try to rush to find songs by them while stopped at a red light hoping there wasn’t a cop around watching me.
No — instead I just spoke:
“Hey Google, Play Daisy the Great from Spotify.” And a few seconds later, songs were shuffling on the car speakers via Bluetooth.
Okay, I know what you might be thinking. And yes you’re right, I do have an Android phone — don’t judge me.
But that’s not the point. The point is that technology changes quickly but people tend to stay the same. Most people can’t imagine where the future is headed. Rather, a select few visionary inventors find problems to solve and make it their life’s work to create solutions.
Parenting was hard when I was a kid, and it’s still hard today. Some would even argue that it’s more difficult. But what we can’t deny is that it’s very different. My first phone barely sent picture messages, much less connecting to the internet and live streaming high-definition video to millions of people across the world.
Our children today have the advantage of learning technology from a very early age because it’s a part of their life from the earliest years. They are exposed to it everywhere, especially when they see how much we use it at home.
My parents were afraid of the internet. Our one family desktop computer sat on a desk in the living room so that anyone could see the screen whenever it was being used. And it was somewhat difficult to hide what you were doing on a dial-up connection that used the only home phone line.
When we are faced with things that we don’t fully understand, we instinctively feel afraid and fight or run away. The last 20 years have shown that parents, school officials, and even researchers have been running away from social media and technology. They have and still tend to treat smartphones and social media like they are sugar — something that you can consume in small doses — but be careful not to have a large quantity because that’s when things get bad (screen time anyone?).
But I’m here to tell you that it’s time to stop running. Technology is not going anywhere, and limitations don’t work.
The size of the dose — aka the amount of time — doesn’t have a direct effect. One study concluded that even small doses of sexualization, cyberbullying, or viewing posts about body image and lifestyle can have extremely negative effects.
Taking it away won’t help either, though. Children who opt out have a higher chance of becoming isolated from their friend group. And that can lead to loneliness or depression.
But let’s be clear, it’s not the kids opting out — it’s really the parents.
Unlike sugar, social media doesn’t just act on those who are directly consuming it. It’s also not a substance with a linear dose-effect relationship. That means that you can’t simply stop using social media and expect everything to get better. This is especially true for our kids. They start using smartphones at ages when they are exploring their identity and discovering who they are. Children use social media as their primary method of socializing, so removing that from their life can end up doing more harm than good.
In this series, I’m going to explore the research about how children use social media today, the science behind the impact it has and cast a vision for what the future might look like.
It’s my life’s work to make that happen, and I hope you’ll join me for the ride.
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