We’ve now allowed one platform, and the choice may surprise you.
By: Brooke Shannon
There are many reasons to say no to Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok when your kids ask. For years, the answer to my oldest daughter was no. Not yet. You are not ready. I am not ready. We are not ready.
Children are not ready for the comparison, self-doubt, violet imagery, toxic beauty content, dangerous challenges, online predators, and everyone else’s highlight reel of perfection on these platforms.
The research is clear. Early and unfettered access to social media for adolescents has been a disaster for this generation. Since the introduction of social media, rates for anxiety, depression, hospital visits due to self-harm, eating disorders and suicide have all increased.
Despite numerous studies confirming the dangers of children using social media, forty percent of kids between the ages of 8 and 12 are on platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) makes it very difficult as a parent to say, ‘no, you are not ready.’
We have chanted ‘you are not ready’ for years though. We said no to TikTok back in 4th, 5th and 6th grade when my older two daughters were begging for it. Later in high school, my girls were thankful embarrassing Tik Toks were not part of their digital footprints.
We said no to Instagram in middle school and keep saying no even though all their friends are on it in high school. Nothing shows a teen they are not enough and damages their self-esteem more than time spent on this app.
We said no to Snapchat because of the disappearing messages, crazy filters, inappropriate content, and list goes on.
In an ideal world, my children would never experience social media, and neither would I. think the world would be a better place if tomorrow social media did not exist.
However, this is not the world we live in. We need time to teach them how use social media responsibly before they leave our nest.
We delayed social media until 16 for my oldest daughter. It was a big step to open the door to a space we feared for so long. Yet, we knew it was time.
We only allowed one social media platform at 16, and the choice may surprise you.
We said yes to Snapchat.
What? Snapchat?
Hear me out. . .
There is no perfect social media app. They are all flawed. The reason we said yes to Snapchat instead of yes to Instagram or TikTok is because there is more peer-to-peer communication on Snap versus Instagram and TikTok.
My daughter and her friends use Snapchat to send messages, photos, and videos to each other or to small circles of friends. This is different than what teens experience on Instagram and TikTok where the focus is scrolling and consuming content.
Bottom line: there’s more communication versus content consumption on Snapchat.
Keep in mind, we said yes at 16. We did not say yes at 10 or 12 or 15.
When we did say yes, we said yes with these limits:
I am connected to my teen on Snapchat through the Snapchat Family Center. I can limit sensitive content (far from perfect but better than nothing) and view people she has had contact with in the past 7 days.
Her account is private.
Her Snap Map is turned off so people cannot see her location.
She has a 30-minute screen time limit on Snapchat. Research shows that more time spent on social media = more problems.
Our family rule is to only connect with people we know in real life.
Her phone has a curfew. All apps including Snap are not accessible after 9:30. Her phone is not allowed in her bedroom.
We are 18 months into this experiment. I still don’t love having a teen on social media but now know you can say yes at the right age. You can teach them how to use it moderately and responsibly when they are old enough to learn.
For any parent wrestling with this decision, I encourage you to delay social media until 16. It is not easy but worth it. Find other parents to delay social media with you and change the norm in your community.
When you do say yes, put smart boundaries in place to limit how your teen uses social media. Have conversations about what they are seeing on the platform. Check out our social media guide for help.
Brooke Shannon lives in Austin with her husband and three daughters. She is the founder and the Executive Director of the Wait Until 8th pledge. The pledge empowers parents to delay the smartphone for their children until at least the end 8th grade. Join more than 85,000 parents in saying yes to waiting on the smartphone by pledging today.
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