Talking To Our Teens In The Digital Age

Allison - 23 Sep 16

What do our teenagers do online? Now if ever there was a mammoth question! We began delivering E-safety presentations two years ago. Thanks to the five teenagers we have between us, we are in constant discussion (albeit often one-way) about what they are doing on their laptops and smartphones. Newspapers are filled with articles on body image, ‘Like-spamming’, cyberbullying, social media, Tinder, Grindr, gaming, grooming . . . and now prime time TV features documentaries with titles such as Revenge Porn and The Rich Kids of Instagram.

Despite there being no escape, this was never going to be an easy chapter to put on paper. But then we had an offline epiphany: we decided to simply distil the most important information we have gathered since starting this project three years ago and feed it back to parents with the intention of providing a resource of what teenagers are doing online, what the pitfalls are and what the laws are. We will also provide some personal online safety advice and share the best tips we have come across.

Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, releases several studies a year on how Britons, young and old, consume TV, radio, Wi-Fi and other mediums. In 2015, Ofcom released a study finding that 12–15 year olds are spending twice as much time online as they did 10 years ago. That same year they found that young people aged between 16 and 24 spend more than 27 hours a week on the Internet. But how many hours a week do our teens spend on social media alone? First off, how do we define ‘social media’? According to Merriam-Webster, it is a noun meaning, ‘forms of electronic communication . . . through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)’. The RAP Project polled 3,000 students aged between 13 and 18 in 2016 and found that 11 is the magic number of hours they socialise online per week. This is outside of the time they spend on YouTube, watching movies, TV or researching online.

We as parents have experienced first-hand what can happen when we don’t pay attention to our digital native’s lives online. Many kids today constantly check the number of likes they have on their Instagram or Facebook pages. Low numbers can affect self-esteem. Their addiction to online activity, to not wanting to miss out (known as Fear of Missing Out, or ‘FOMO’), can affect sleep patterns and, in some instances, their mental health. Family time is often disrupted, family relationships suffer and our kids may isolate themselves behind closed doors.

On the other hand, we have enjoyed more positive results by speaking to our younger children earlier on about the digital world. We aim to walk hand in hand with them on their social platforms. However, as this chapter illustrates, this is not a straightforward journey.

Here are some hard truths:

We cannot control what our children are exposed to online

We cannot control what emails, texts, sexts or posts they receive via social media

We cannot control the inappropriate pop-ups that occur when they are watching YouTube videos

But we can maintain a dialogue about their life online. You know how we ask our kids, ‘What book are you reading?’ or ‘Have you seen any good films lately?’ Now we can also ask, ‘What’s Emma been posting lately?’ or ‘Which of your friends’ Instagram account is the most interesting?’ This is the dinner conversation of modern families.

An extract from ‘Sex, Likes and Social Media: Talking to our teens in the digital age’ by Allison Havey and Deana Puccio (Vermilion, £12.99)

Allison

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