Why wait? (Mini-Lesson #2)
Happy 2024!
This spring, I’m getting back to my roots of teaching middle schoolers in a series of mini-lessons for parents to reach for when their child asks, "Why do I have to wait for social media?"
While it's tempting to parent from a place of fear, I hope these tutorials offer grounded, calm tidbits of truth about social media realities--to empower our kids with agency to choose a better path for themselves. Ultimately, we don’t want them to understand our why…we want them to develop their own why.
There are a gazillion ways to answer the question “Why do I have to wait?”—but in Mini-lesson No. 2, I’m unpacking one of the traps our kids experience as they wait for social media...the belief that social media is harmless. I hope these talking points help you shed light on difficult realities for your tweens/teens!
xo, kb
PS- If you missed my year-end shortlist of favorite digital parenting resources , you can take a peek here!
Social media companies want us to think they exist to help us stay connected…something like a friendly telephone operator, at our service. It’s easy to imagine these apps just hanging out, twiddling their thumbs, passively waiting around for us to pick up our phones and place an order…Snapchat Operator, won’t you put me on through?…I gotta send my love down to Baton Rouge…
But unfortunately, these apps are not just “tools” sitting quietly in our pockets. They are wide awake, actively looking for opportunities to engage us—even if it’s harmful.
While there are many ways social media can cause you harm, today let’s unpack three of the biggest hazards to your health and well-being:
Harmful content
Sextortion
Isolation and addiction
In Mini-lesson No. 1, we learned how social media companies actively look for ways to make money off our fight-or-flight emotions. So anytime we are lonely, angry, scared or insecure…the algorithms on social media apps do cartwheels. The worse we feel, the more money they make. Let’s look at an example.
Last August, a team of researchers set up eight TikTok accounts to look like they belonged to 13-year-olds. (NYT) For 30 minutes, adult researchers pretended to be 13 year olds, and they did a little experiment. As they were scrolling through TikToks, they paused briefly on any posts talking about body image and mental health, and tapped the heart to like them. TikTok almost immediately recommended videos about suicide and eating disorders. Then, every 39 seconds, TikTok would show them another video about body image or mental health.
Social media companies know you, but they don’t love you or want what’s best for you. These apps intentionally show you distorted, harmful content… even when it causes you harm. Their main goal is to make money by keeping you glued to your feed.
Another hazardous design feature of social media apps is they recommend posts from strangers. Though these strangers might look like a cute person who you would like to be connected with, there is a very real possibility that the person is fake. Behind the picture of a 13 year old girl who looks friendly and kind, could be a 40 year old man who wants to harm you.
One of the fastest rising crimes against teens is sextortion—when an online predator tricks someone into giving them nude images or videos, and then demands money, more images, or makes other demands—threatening to share the images with the victim's friends and family if they don't comply.
Here’s how it goes down. Your home Wi-fi might have a good internet filter, and you definitely passed your digital citizenship course at school, but one day you are messaged by an attractive person who seems about your age and has shared interests with you— maybe they want some gaming tips. Seems harmless. Slowly, you become online friends, and you even begin to think they might be attracted to you. That feels exciting, right? Your friend wants to get to know you more, and asks you to send a photo of your favorite pair of shoes, and then a photo of your bare foot…and the requests kept coming, asking for you to send more and more until one night you decide it’s probably safe to send a nude photo. Almost instantly, the tables turn, and your '“friend” asks you to wire them $500 in the next 24 hours or the photo will be shared with everyone at your school.
Of course, one of the most tempting promises of social media is that it gives us a way to “take a break” and escape the stress of modern life. Social media companies know this, and design their apps to reward our brains with a special treat—dopamine—each time we swipe, like and tweet.
Dopamine isn’t a bad thing; God put this “feel good” hormone in our brains to motivate us to do things we think will bring pleasure, like hunting and gathering food…or in my world, searching the fridge for a leftover slice of chocolate cake. Dopamine is also what keeps us auto-playing TikToks and Reels that make us laugh…and refreshing our phones to see how many people have “liked” our posts.
But you know what’s weird? Even with endless taps of pleasure at our fingertips, research shows social media makes us less and less happy. So why is this?
It turns out, if you are looking for pleasure with no one else around, it will never lead to happiness. Pleasure seeking + isolation = the road to addiction.* You can tap, tap, tap for dopamine hits till the end of time, and you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll always want more.
Ironically, while we are trying to get a quick hit of pleasure, we miss opportunities for something even better…enjoyment. To be fair, pleasure and enjoyment seem like the same thing…so what’s the difference?
Our greatest clue is a closer look at the root word of enjoyment—JOY. And you know what is so cool? In Scripture, we find that expressions of joy often include the presence of God’s face. The LORD make his face shine on you (Num 6:24)… Blessed are those who …walk in the light of your face (Ps 89:15) …For God made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). **
True joy isn’t just about pleasure. It’s about pleasure + face-to-face presence of others + making memories. It’s why watching a sunset with a friend, taking a hike with the fam, and even crying on someone’s shoulder are always going to lead to deeper, more lasting satisfaction than a little isolated Tiktok pick-me-up.
Do you see the theme? Social media takes something that God says is good—our desire for acceptance, relationships, and pleasure—and it leaves open gaps and traps that are easy to fall into. Sometimes, these hazards will be glaringly obvious and easy to avoid…but most of the time, social media hazards start as tiny little fires that can grow quickly, destroying your peace and freedom and joy.
Here’s the gritty truth: as a teenager, your body sometimes moves faster than your teenage brain. And the casual culture of social media makes it super easy to make impulsive mistakes. But what you need to know is, in the digital world, you can make one tiny slip and you can go underwater incredibly fast. Small mistakes — which are unavoidable in your teenage years — can quickly become humiliations that hundreds or thousands of people see.
So. When it is time for your first social media account, take things slow. Proceed with caution and actively monitor your social media habits for smoke signals-if you have a feeling that something isn’t quite right, trust your gut and follow your “fire-escape plan”…who will you ask for help when things get smoky? Do not go it alone.
And one more thing: if you are in the growing club of teens who are waiting for social media until you are older—enjoy the freedom of not having to carry these heavy burdens quite yet! Your time will come, and when it does—you’ll never regret the years when you didn’t have the weight of social media to carry.
*Arthur C. Brooks / Build the Life you Want— excerpted from Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 781.
** Jim Wilder & Michel Hendricks / The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation
Social Compass Minilesson No. 2
Empowering your kiddo to identify and avoid three big social media hazards: harmful content, sextortion, and addiction.