Recently, I was asked to speak at a high school on the topic of social media and as usual, the parents were surprised (thank God, pleasantly) that more of the talk was about the impact of social media on them versus their teens.
If you’ve ever sat in on one of my talks you would have heard me say, “Parent yourself more than you parent your child,” so whether it be social media, anger management or study habits, my advice generally is the same: do what you want them to do and anything that’s bad for them is just as bad for you.
Now obviously doctors will use the whole brain development theory to explain why substances such as sex, drugs and alcohol are far more damaging to an underdeveloped frontal cortex and I totally agree, but in parenting terms, the effects are the same.
Too much alcohol consumption on the part of parents is just as damaging to the family as having your child experimenting with alcohol use. So, set a good example.
In the same vein, I went through the damaging effects of social media on the household in its entirety before I brought it home to teens.
Divorce lawyers say that the word “Facebook” has been increasingly mentioned when discussing the reasons for divorce.
Social media magnifies “the grass is greener” problem. We all scroll through our timelines and envy what we see, even though we know deep down that it’s all filters and selective portrayals. Now triple that “grass is greener” effect for a teen when everyone’s posting about the parties, the fancy vacations and the number of Facebook friends they have.
Social media has made us all lazy activists and fake fighters. Everyone has a voice and are far more easily able to type boldly what’s on their mind. How many of us would be willing to say the things we do in person? Now imagine a teen and how easily cyber bullying can occur?
Our life is on constant display, there is no privacy. Everyone is now a public figure but not everyone is prepared or cut out for public life.
The subconscious impact of likes on a post is real. How many people go back to their posts and check to see how many likes and who liked their posts? Validation has always been important to human beings and now social media has placed it neatly in statistical form for you to evaluate just how liked and accepted you are.
And of course, the distraction that is social media. It is simply one more distraction in a world where quite frankly, we can’t afford any more. Families are already distracted by success, extra-curricular activities, lessons, working late, busy changing the world. These all rob us of quality family time and social media is just one more addition. We now snuggle up with our loved ones in one hand and our cell phones in the other. We are now more focused on capturing and posting the perfect memory versus creating it.
So yes, social media is bad for teens and must be used in moderation and proper preparation and constant debriefing must be done. But guess what, it’s bad for everyone in the home.
I make money based on social media, so let it sink in for just a second how damaging its effects must be, that the very thing I need to build my brand, is what I wrote about today. It is so bad that I would be doing a grave injustice to my followers to not mention it. Even if it meant they check out my page less times a day.
