Social Media Evaluation

 It's undeniable today that social media plays an integral part in children's lives, both inside the library and out. However, it's important to remember that it wasn't always this way; with the advent of the internet and smartphones, social media use in children has been on a steady increase. This article from the Pew Research Center breaks down usage by most popular social media apps today. To me, one of the most surprising results is YouTube and TikTok's breakthrough spike in usage; from the infographic shown, it seems that it wasn't even on the radar of children's usage back in 2014-15. Today, however, they are the most used social media apps by children (with Youtube used by 95% of teens and TikTok by 67%). I'm not surprised that TikTok has grown in popularity, considering that the app didn't launch internationally until mid-2017. However, YouTube has been around long before Pew's initial survey in 2014 and 2015. Perhaps YouTube was previously considered a video streaming service rather than social media? However, with a video streaming component being included in almost every social media app listed in this infographic below, I think it's safe to say that video streaming and social media have converged and are used similarly.

Image Source: Pew Research Center

As this trend of video-based social media rises, the issue of "screen time" becomes the first line of defense for some parents. By limiting screen time to a set amount of hours per day, parents can limit the adverse effects that teens and children may face by overexposure to social media. These adverse effects can include depression and mental health issues, and these side effects are more likely in girls. This CNN article shows how the visual component of social media can cause teen girls to compare themselves unduly to edited photos; this can easily lead to depression, anxiety, trauma, eating disorders and a slew of other negative effects. It's easy to see why parents might jump to limit screen time when looking at how other children have responded to other children spending lots of time on social media. 

When children and teens are already hooked on these adverse effects, additional actions to limit the negatives consequences of these affects should be taken. An article from K-12 Dive explained how, in the face of this growing social media use and adverse effects, a school board in Arizona began mobilizing to sue the owners of social media companies such as TikTok and Facebook for damaging the well-being of their students by targeting them in their content. The crux of the case assumes these companies know the damages social media use might have on younger users and target them anyways. This is a chilling thought, and all the more reason to take action to protect teens and children from these adverse effects.

With all this information circling on the ill effects of social media, I've had parents approach the youth desk at the library and ask for additional resources on this topic. Often, they want to consult books published on social media use in teens, but since this is an ever-evolving topic, our selection on this is not very large. I often turn to online resources (government-backed sources such as this one are always good to recommend) as a starting point for parents' research, but our library has also created an internet use guide for parents to read and teach to their children. This seems to be a long-discussed topic in technology and education, but considering the speed at which the conversation evolves, the topic never grows tiresome. It's important to stay on top of new information that comes out on social media use in teens and use it to inform the approach we have towards kids' use of it.