“Some people always use the word “social media” as a negative and think no good can come of it.”
Romans 8:28 – And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
There was a study that came out of Oxford University in 2019 that found that teenagers who spent one or two hours online for personal use each day had better emotional well-being and connectedness than those who did not. It is important to note that when there was more screen time than two hours teenagers’ emotional well-being did start to decline.
Przybylski, A. K., Orben, A., & Weinstein, N. (2020). How much is too much? Examining the relationship between digital screen engagement and psychosocial functioning in a confirmatory cohort study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 59(9), 1080-1088.
Social media can be a fantastic way to meet positive people, to learn about new and exciting causes and ideas. One of the things we know that can build well-being is learning a new skill, such as learning a language or how to cook. By following some of these how-to pages your children can learn lots of valuable life skills.
- Parents should try to teach their children about positive social media use.
- Try and teach your children to think carefully about the people who they follow, do they follow people who make them better people?
- Do the people they follow have a spirit of generosity and want to make the world better?
- Or are they following people who create anger and diversion?
- Do they feel angry after being on social media, do they ever feel worthless?
- Following people who always brag about their achievements, without talking about their struggles can give people an unrealistic view of what success involves.
- It is really important to have these conversations with your children, ideally before they start using social media, but it is never too late.