Social Media and Teens: Helping Your Teen Thrive Online

People are highly adaptable creatures, but in other ways, we can become tied to our habits and find it hard to do anything different. There was a time, not that long ago, when getting to meet other people and exchange ideas was something you did largely in person. The world has changed quite rapidly, and now a person’s online presence can be more impactful than what they do in real life, away from their keyboards and social media handles.

For teens who don’t know life apart from social media, a person’s online presence carries a lot more significance than what it does for people who are casual or non-users. If you’re the parent or caregiver of a teen, you must teach yourself about social media so you can help your teen navigate the joys and perils of social media.

Social Media and Teens: It’s a Thing

It should be said from the outset that teens are by no means monolithic. They don’t all enjoy the same things, so they can’t be easily pigeonholed. Broadly speaking, for teens, because of how tech-savvy they tend to be, and because they’re at the stage of life where they are experimenting, learning, being creative, pushing boundaries, and testing the edges of what’s acceptable, social media is a place where these things can be given full vent.

Love it or hate it, social media has become an important part of our lives. Social media has become the new town square where people meet to share and debate ideas. Those debates aren’t always civil or informative, but there you have it. Social media is a place for connecting with others, building community, and a sense of belonging.

Additionally, social media provides people with space to express themselves, creatively and otherwise. Now, at the push of a button, you have the potential to reach a global audience, and somewhere in that audience is your tribe. For teens who are discovering and inventing themselves, social media can play a formative role in their lives.

Social media can be a trove of information and resources on just about any topic under the sun. There is probably a channel, thread, feed, or subreddit about anything you can think of. And if there isn’t one, you can start it yourself. This means that there’s a lot of information out there, but it’s not all gold. One of the most important skills to learn in the social media age is being able to discern truth from spin.

Social media isn’t just for serious stuff, though. It can be the source of a lot of content to fuel entertainment and escapism. You can block the world out, riding the waves of the algorithm as you go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of interesting opinions, funny sketches, memes, and more. A person can lose hours of their life scrolling through little bite-sized bits of content that are scattered everywhere across the vastness of the internet.

Another aspect of social media is that it’s an important part of how people understand themselves, measure influence, and construct social status. Sharing your views, lifestyle, and skills garners influence and social status, especially when the right number or the right people follow you or are subscribed. This is to say nothing of the financial rewards of having a committed following, which adds further incentives.

Navigating The Pros and Cons of Social Media

With any given technology or experience, there are likely to be things that can be beneficial, but there will also be downsides. For a parent or caregiver, the challenge is to give a balanced and informed perspective that will help them navigate social media well, recognizing its limits and the ways in which it might deform their character. Whatever technology we encounter and use will shape us and affect us in both subtle and overt ways.

Some of the things associated with social media that may be negative or unhelpful include what happens if one isn’t literate online, as well as being safe when navigating cyberspace. This includes the inability to discern the real from the fake, whether it’s outright fake news, deeply biased reporting, ideological stances that are inimical to the Christian faith, or the lack of realism online due to the high level of curation and posturing.

It is important to understand that authenticity might sell, but often the things that can be turned into commodities are ripe for abuse and imitation. You can and should help your teen take everything they see online with a healthy dose of skepticism and talk through the unrealistic expectations and comparisons social media perpetuates.

Other negatives to look out for include bullying and harassment online. This happens in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, including snide comments or how dismissive people are of others. It’s hard to avoid controversy, and it takes self-control to avoid it and be a positive influence. Kindness on the internet is in short supply, and it’s easy to gang up on someone with downvotes or unsavory comments.

Lastly, it’s important to address issues like social media addiction, and issues such as sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, and loneliness that are associated with using social media. There is a lot of value in having limits, as well as in valuing other activities that get you outside, get you moving, and connect you with other people. Social media should never become a substitute for these things.

Social media also has positives attached to it, and these include being able to build community around common passions and interests, accessing and disseminating valuable information, providing a platform for creativity and self-expression, as well as opportunities for networking, internships, and career development. Social media can stretch a person in amazing ways, exposing them to experiences they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

You can use social media for what you intend to use it, but to do that requires that you know its limits and exercise self-control. These skills take time to learn, and for teens, there is a need for guidance and patience to help them nurture these skills.

Helping Your Teen Thrive Online

Social media is a powerful tool to build connections, gain knowledge, and expand one’s horizons. Like anything, social media will shape you and your teen in various ways. It can promote the false claims that there are no moral absolutes, no ultimate truth, or that the individual is who they decide they are.

When everything is instantaneous, we are shaped into impatient people of the “now,” unable to wait long enough for a video to buffer before consuming it and moving on.

Thriving online requires an awareness of the character and heart-shaping power of social media, the subtle influences it presses in on us, and finding ways to use it effectively as a tool to meet our purposes, and not mindlessly consuming content. Sometimes, one way to ensure a healthy relationship with social media is knowing when to step back from it.

Some ways to nurture a healthy online life and overall well-being in your teen include the following:

Encourage outdoor and creative endeavors Whether it’s nature hikes, gardening, sports and fitness, painting, creative writing, or music and dance, you can encourage your teen to have pursuits that take them out into the world, interact with others, and develop their interpersonal and other skills. These things can also function to effectively relieve stress and creatively express oneself.

Promote learning In keeping with the idea that social media can become just about mindlessly consuming content, you can try to address that by encouraging self-directed learning and exploring topics of interest. There can be room to follow up and ask what they’re learning and encourage them to find ways to use what they’re learning in the real world.

Model it You can tell a teen to do something, and they might do it. Modelling it, however, gives you the best argument possible. Your own social media habits can teach your teen a lot about what it means to use social media responsibly. It matters how much time you spend online, what you follow, your comments and interactions with others online and in person, and whether you create content of your own.

Be attentive You can also pay attention to your teen to see if there are any concerning changes. Online drama, being bullied or bullying someone, being caught up in comparisons, and unrealistic expectations can all leave their mark on your teen. Their mental health may suffer, leading to negative emotions, struggles with sleep, poor emotional regulation, and so on.

Part of parenting your teen and helping them through things is to have open and honest conversations about how they engage with others online, whether they are being safe online, and being accountable in their usage.

Christian Counseling for Your Teen

Whether it’s learning how to draw better boundaries or knowing how to have conversations with your teen about their social media usage, you can reach out for help from a professional. If your teen’s mental health is being affected by their social media usage, you can also walk alongside them and encourage them to see a counselor or therapist to overcome any concerns.