There are so many social media sites these days. A public health group recently conducted a study of Instagram and 4 other Social Media tools. Read this article to see how Instagram affects it’s users. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2017/05/24/why-instagram-worst-your-kids/344256001/
At first glance Instagram seems like a great alternative to Facebook- it’s just photos- how wonderful, no bullying! But for girls there is a secret culture to Instagram, where they can obsess over each post (best time of day to post, best photo, best filter) and then read into each comment, like and a TBH (to be honest). Read this article to find out more. http://time.com/3559340/instagram-tween-girls/
Parents are downloading Snapchat more and more. Most parents love Snapchat for it’s content. Learn about the features that appeal to different generations and more in this article. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-28/adored-by-teens-snapchat-is-getting-popular-with-their-parents
Oversharing on social media is the now the norm. Kids pose for photos and ask about likes at an alarmingly young age. Parent blogs, photos and more, what’s the long term impact on our kids? Read this article to find out. http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/style/how-social-media-is-affecting-your-parenting/
This website has some great links and articles related to social media. Have a question about social media sites, the basic things you or your child need to know, this is a great place to start. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/social-media#csm-topics-related-articles
Snapchat is more than just photos. Kids get news from Snapchat, perfect storytelling with “mystory” and create content. Perhaps most importantly there is less pressure for the photos to be “perfect” as they are “deleted”. Read this article to learn more about Snapchat. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-graber/what-parents-dont-get-abo_b_9291256.html
Kids today spend a good portion of their day in front of a screen. Years ago that time would have been spent doing more traditional “real time” activities. This fast paced screen time hurts our children’s ability to process information leading to poor executive function. Read this article to learn more about what you can do to prevent this “executive function” loss. http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/12/why-slowing-down-stimuli-to-real-time-helps-a-childs-brain/
Digital devices like iPads and smartphones are a digital drug. Children can get addicted, in fact research is showing that they affect the brain in the same way as cocaine. Read this article to learn about screen addiction, treatment and most importantly- prevention. http://nypost.com/2016/08/27/its-digital-heroin-how-screens-turn-kids-into-psychotic-junkies/
Kids feel left out when they see photos and video of their friends having fun without them. This story has some useful real world strategies for dealing with FOMO. Read about them in this article. https://www.raisingdigitalnatives.com/exclusion-in-the-instagram-age/
In this article two groups of 6th graders were tested on reading emotions and non verbal ques. One group went without phones for 5 days and the other group kept their phones. Which group do you think performed better? Read this article to find out which group performed better, how much better and why. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/28/343735856/kids-and-screen-time-what-does-the-research-say
