Some Thoughts About Social Media
Hello Friends –
We hope you are doing well this week. Yesterday, we spent the afternoon with our book clubs, and it was a lovely day.
Today, we want to talk about social media. We are not too active on social media ourselves, using it mainly to let others know what is happening in our Yellow Room. Personally, we don’t post much on our Facebook pages nor spend much time looking at Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms. However, we know we are not the norm.
One aspect of social media that is very concerning to us is how it affects children and young adults. Children and young adults are not the only ones affected by social media, though. Plenty of adults are as well. The reason for the concern is that many recent studies and reports show that more and more, social media is used to bully others. It is also a place to display a life and circumstances that are not even close to reality, leading to lots of comparisons.
We may see families smiling and having fun and wish we had a family that loved each other that much. Or we might view photo after photo of someone’s exotic trip and feel sad and depressed that a trip like that is nowhere in our future. We may not realize that most social media is, in actuality, a highly edited snapshot of life. A single frame or short video created to convey a specific message – a message that oftentimes is not even true.
A recent study conducted by Facebook showed that teen girls are especially affected by social media, particularly Instagram, leading to depression, self-harm, and worse.
We wanted to share this with you because sometimes we can get so caught up in life that we do not realize the cost of our behaviors. One thing leads to another and we don’t even recognize the impact of what we are doing – more so when we see others all around us doing the same thing. And also, as parents, we may not understand how deeply what we are allowing our children to do is affecting them.
If you’ve come in for coaching, you know we always stress AWARENESS and INTENTIONALITY. Bringing these two important concepts to our screen time and our children’s screen time is essential to everyone’s well-being. With school beginning again and holidays coming up, please remember to set your phone down and TRULY join with others offline. And by all means, know what your children are doing online and limit their screen time!
Wishing you a great week,
Annette and Ada