Parents and children disagree on social media rules but must find common ground, according to experts

By Catherine Sweeney

The Skyhawk View Staff Writer

 

Adeline Gori’s parents said she couldn’t have a Snapchat account until she was heading to college, and that she was never allowed to have an Instagram account.

Like many teenagers, Gori of Pennsylvania circumvented her family rules and the rules of the Snapchat platform to get online and communicate with friends while she was still in high school.

Amid the news of more than 40 states suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, for using addictive features harmful to children’s mental health, recent studies show that parents by a large margin support stricter parental control, time limits, and age verification, while many children disagree.

In the 2023 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, "81% of U.S. adults – versus 46% of teens – favor parental consent for minors to use social media", 71% of adults said they are in favor of age verification on social media sites and 69% for setting time limits on apps.

Dr. Emma Woodward, an expert who studies anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder in children, said it is difficult to say how effective these measures would be.

“I think social media, its kind of a double-edged sword. It is the way that kids are living and socializing these days,” said Woodward.

Woodward, a psychologist in the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute with a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Houston, said it might be more productive for children and parents to work together regarding family ruler about social media.

“They are so smart, they are so savvy. It’s where their social lives are. They are so interested in it that they will find a way to get on there. They will outsmart us all and get access to it,” said Woodward.

Social media has many positives, but Woodward said that there is research that shows and she knows from her professional experience working with children that social media can increase mental health challenges in youth.

“Research has shown things like anxiety and depression, and ratings of loneliness and body image and self-esteem. All of those things can be impacted through social media,” said Woodward.

Although social media can be harmful, it can also be harmful to restrict social media use, said Woodward. Restriction could be especially harmful for marginalized communities such as LGBTQ+ youth, who have found community online and could suffer isolation if denied access to inclusion from social media.  

The majority of adults and teens support requiring age verification on social media apps, but the study found adults are far more supportive than teens (71% versus 56% according to Pew). Many social media apps have had age verification safety features for years, but the systems have proven to be useless as many youth easily circumvented them.

Woodward said that she believes that social media platforms are in a hard position since there’s no real concrete way to verify something like age on an account.

“I think verification, I hope it’s something that can be put in place in a valid way, but I’ve also watched kids say they were born in 1992,” said Woodward, “They know how to get around it.”

Gori, now a sophomore field hockey player at Stonehill College, agreed that kids just lie and get around the verification. She said the same statement about social media companies putting in place time limits for minors.

Adults are twice as likely to support setting time limits on social media sites than teens (69% versus 34%), the Pew study found.

“I guess it could be beneficial but also its like they are going to find a way around it,” said Gori, “I feel like parents should teach their kids to kind of like value not being on their phones all the time like the parents should be doing something not the companies.”

Communication between the parent and child is a concept that both Gori and Woodward agreed upon.

“I think parents absolutely should be in the know on social media. They should know what their kids are doing because kids and teens don’t have those executive functioning skills. That’s where a parent should be a part of the process,” said Woodward.

Woodward said that communication between a parent and child on social media should involve both the parent’s and child’s needs and establish boundaries so that the child does not undermine their parent.

She also said that parents should be honest with kids and teenagers as developmentally appropriate.

“I feel like parents, if they have like something wrong with an app or something, that they need to explain to their kids and teach them what’s wrong with it so they can see,” said Gori.

Gori said she snuck around using Snapchat in part because her mother’s reasoning for not letting her have the app was inadequate for her. Her mother said it was because kids in her school acted “stupid”, and Gori did not relate to the behavior of those classmates, but connecting with her friends was important.

“I did not see any benefit in not having it,” said Gori, “So I did in fact get it without telling her.”

She said when her mother gave her valid reasons as to why she could not have Instagram (for safety reasons like “creepy old men” could easily finding her online), she saw her reasoning and followed her mother’s rules. She still does not have an Instagram.

Rule bending and undermining parents are common for children and teenagers and easy to do on social media platforms so mandatory parental consent will do little in most cases, said Gori and Woodward.

“If it is something that can be done collaboratively, they have some buy in you know they understand what’s happening and they were part of the decision-making process, I think that’s going to be more successful,” said Woodward.

 

Stonehill sophomore reaches her time limit on social media and is blocked from further use.