Teaching Your Child to Use Social Media Responsibly

Children as young as 13 years old are allowed onto social media platforms. While they are great tools for staying connected with friends and family and keeping up to speed with what is happening in the world around us, they can be quite harmful for children. In fact, research shows that 27% of children who use social media suffer with their mental health. In comparison, only 12% amongst those who don’t use the applications report such symptoms. There’s also the issue of data privacy and staying safe online. We’ve teamed up with a group of academic professionals to create some tips on teaching children to use social media responsibly.

Online Safety

Social media is free and has 4.70 billion users worldwide. Not all of them are nice and unfortunately there are dangers that lurk. With a click of a few buttons, we can upload content and access information that’s already been put out there. This is something that children should be made aware of and taught how to protect themselves against by adjusting their privacy settings and limiting the personal information that they share.

Screen Time

Much of what we see on social media is edited and perfected to some extent. It’s created unrealistic beauty standards and contributed to lower self-esteem in both adults and children. Having conversations on this topic and limiting screen time can help as it was found that children that spend longer on social media are more likely to develop depression, anxiety and experience low thoughts. If you’re finding it difficult to put restrictions in place, a number of devices will allow you to set timers on how long they can spend on their apps. 

Keep An Eye

While it may not be the cool thing to do, following your child on social media can help you to keep an eye on them and make sure that they aren’t doing anything that they shouldn’t. 

Being Kind

It’s easy to leave comments on social media and forget that there are real people on the other end receiving them. Just like in real life, children should be encouraged to be nice and kind to others. They should also consider what they have to share and whether it could potentially be offensive. We leave a digital footprint with every interaction and upload made that can just as easily be used against them when searching for job opportunities in the future.