Developing healthy SOCIAL MEDIA HABITS

What can you do if you think your teen already has unhealthy social media habits?

- CARMEL TADDEO, BARBARA SPEARS

Many parents worry about how much their children use social media and what content they might encounter while using it.

Amid proposals to ban teenagers under 16 years from social media and calls to better educate them about being safe online, how can you tell if your child’s social media usage is already a problem? And what steps can you take to help if there is an issue?

IT IS EASY TO GET HOOKED

These platforms are designed in a way that releases dopamine (the “feel-good” hormone) for users. This can make it especially difficult for adolescents to resist.

As psychologists explain, from the onset of puberty until the mid-20s, our brains are hypersensitive to social feedback and stimuli.

This means young people are more likely to engage in behaviour that can lead to praise or attention from peers and others. So it can be harder for a young person to resist responding to notifications or ‘likes’. Young people also are developing impulse control, which can have implications for scrolling habits and make it harder for them to stop.

THERE ARE BENEFITS AND RISKS

Certainly there are numerous benefits to social media use, such as social connection, information and support. But also there are risks.

Although it is not necessarily causal, there are proven links between social media use and depression, anxiety, stress, sleep disorders, many aspects of cyberbullying and body image issues.

So it is understandable if parents have concerns about their children’s use of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat.

ARE WE TALKING ABOUT A ‘PROBLEM’ OR AN ‘ADDICTION’?

Often terms such as “problematic” and “addiction” are used interchangeably when talking about social media use. But there is no consensus among experts about how to differentiate between them or even if they should be differentiated.