This content is an introduction to navigating social media as a parent, or another caregiver. It covers parent opinion and perceptions of social media, in addition to the pros and cons of children and teens using it.
Social media can be a challenge to navigate, especially for children and adolescents. As a parent, guardian, teacher, sibling, or caregiver, it may be even more difficult to ascertain your role in supervision. You are not alone, and furthermore, there is no definitive ‘correct’ way to approach social media usage for kids and teens. However, one thing that is definitive, is that most parents are concerned about the amount of time their children spend in front of a screen, in addition to lacking confidence about their ability to know how much screen time is appropriate, which social media accounts for an increasingly large portion of (Auxier et al., 2020). When it comes to monitoring content that their children consume, parents are also divided. In a 2016 survey, 35.5% of parents preferred co-viewing, 33.1 checked website history, 13.5 used family filter, and 17.9 did not monitor at all (Dinleyiciet et al., 2016). Because of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) passed in 1998, prevents companies from tracking data on children under 13, most platforms require that you are older in order to join. However, this is minimally enforced, and underaged users can easily circumvent restrictions by providing a false date of birth. TikTok allows children under 13 to use their app, but they are limited to curated ‘safe’ content, and cannot post, comment, or search (TikTok for Younger Users, 2019).
Content Created By Tara Conway
