Talk With A Doc

Wellness Briefs: Social Media and Kids Transcript

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
I think it's. Really important that we focus on teaching our kids how to use media and social. So instead of the message being, don't do this, which we know doesn't work right and is not realistic for 2025 and beyond. But really teaching them how to use it safely and appropriately.

Jennifer Semenza
Hello everyone and welcome to talk with a docs, Wellness briefs, a podcast offering a quick dose of healthcare information on a wide range of trending topics in under 15 minutes. Today we'll be discussing kids and social media, according to the Pew Research Center, approximately 92% of US teens are active on social media and children in the US start using social media around 11 years of age. I'm Jennifer. And here with me today is Doctor Elizabeth. She's a board certified pediatrician, practicing pediatric hospital medicine in seat. She's also a speaker for the American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. A perfect guest for our topic today. Doctor Meade, welcome and thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Thank you so much for having me here to chat.

Jennifer Semenza
This is a topic I think that a lot of our listeners, especially parents, who are going to be really interested in. Let's get started. We hear all the time about the dangers of social media, but let's start by discussing the advantages of social media. Are there some positive impacts that come from social media use for children?

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Are so when we talk to kids and youth teenagers, we're finding that a lot of them are using it first day in touch with friends. Sort of. Learning about digital literacy and citizenship and how to. Online, they're using it as a creative. We often find they express a lot of creativity through digital time, and then often they're saying that they're finding communities or people who really help them feel accepted and valued and seen for who they are can be enormously helpful when we're talking about this age group for WH. That's really a challenge, right?

Jennifer Semenza
Yeah, yeah. Are there some examples that you can give us on how social media can be beneficial for children in an educational? Setting.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Yeah, you know, I I will. I will go on record as saying that I don't think any educational setting needs social media or needs digital time necessarily. But there can certainly be benefits, and so lots of young people will tell us that they're using digital media or social media. Not just for learning on their own, but also really for collaboration on group projects or school work. I think it's also really important that we focus on teaching our kids how to use media and social media, so instead of. The message being don't do. Which we know doesn't work right, and it's not realistic for 2025 and beyond, but really teaching them how to use it safely and appropriately. How to be a good digital citizen? How to sort of identify what's good content versus bad or inappropriate? How to stay safe and then how to kind of avoid some of those privacy and data issues that are certainly. The mix.
Speaker
OK.

Jennifer Semenza
That's really. So it's really more focusing on kind of the the critical thinking skills of social media. That's fantastic.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Yeah, I mean, we know social media is here to stay and we. That it's going to be used for educational. And so I think rather than saying, well, should we should we or shouldn't we then it's appropriate really for us to say how can we best use this right?

Jennifer Semenza
You know, when my kids were younger, it was always, you know, how much time are they watching TV? Social media seems to have really replaced TV. A primary source of entertainment for kids. You know, and where they get their news. So is it any more dangerous than, say, TV was for younger generations? Well, I think that the.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Challenge that's different now is just that it's. So television, you had to be at home in a certain room, you know, sitting down to watch the television and often doing that with family members, right? Wasn't just sort of by yourself? The difference now is that kids just have access to it every minute of the day in their bedroom when they're trying to sleep at school. You know, all these places where it didn't infiltrate before. So it's not that I think necessarily the content or the platform is any more dangerous, it's just that it's. Much more accessible. I think that one thing that we really are moving away from is that time based. So rather than saying, you know, one hour a day or you have to put time limits on it, we're really trying to focus on how is your child using it and what are they? Are you viewing it with? Do you sort of know what's happening in their digital life? And isn't taking space away from. So instead of saying, we're going to put a time limit, we really say, you know, is this something that's making your child have a good experience? They feel good after they use it. Or does it make them feel terrible? Do they feel depressed after they're spent an hour on on whatever platform we're talking about? Do they know what sort of good and appropriate content? Do they know how to talk to you if they come across something that's not, do they know how to behave online, right? Are we acting with others in these spaces? And then is it taking away from other things? Is it disrupting sleep? Taking away from. Or school. That's sort of the messaging that we are really moving toward. At this point.

Jennifer Semenza
What are some of the most common dangers for children on social media?

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
You know, I think a lot of parents worry about things like trafficking or grooming, and while that absolutely does happen, it is not very. Thankfully so. More commonly, we worry about things that are potentially less scary but certainly worrisome, and so we certainly worry about children being bullied or having negative experiences on. And we know that that's. We worry about them coming across content that's. We worry about their sleep getting disrupted and then again we worry about it sort of crowding out other things that are important to have a balanced life like physical activity or family time or schoolwork or some of those kind of in person activities. One of the real. With media is that there just is so much. Content. So in a single minute there are 500 hours of content uploaded just to YouTube. It is impossible for us to keep up. This. So I think rather than trying to police and use filters, which all of that's important. The baseline fundamental thing is that we have to talk to our kids about what to do when they inevitably come across content that doesn't feel appropriate or. Feel safe.

Jennifer Semenza
Yeah, it's really not a matter of if they're going to see that's what they're going to do. They do see it someplace. Yeah, yeah. Does being on social media diminish their their ability for for cognitive or critical thinking skills?

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
There is no evidence. Social media itself directly diminishes a child's or teens cognitive or critical thinking skills. Digital time can certainly displace other things that. Bolster those. So things like. Or real life interaction for school, work or educational time. I think it's also really important to note that for some kids, especially for young children. More media time definitely can impact their ability to emotional, emotionally regulate and to help kind of control their emotions than just have their big feelings without becoming dysregulated. For that reason, we really do recommend limiting screens in early childhood and really trying to focus on real life learning and play experiences. But especially for older kids and teens, there's no evidence that it directly negatively impacts cognitive or critical thinking skills, but certainly through some of those other pathways that I talked about, we might see an impact.

Jennifer Semenza
I imagine that cyber bullying is one of those issues that's really becoming more common and more talked about how does cyber bullying on social media impact a child's mental health?

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Cyber bullying can certainly have disastrous effects on youth mental health, unfortunately, and it's something that lots of kids are. We know that many young people are telling us that they have experienced it or they know someone who has experienced it. We know that youth who are bipolar, LGBTQIA plus certainly have particularly high rates of online bullying. They might be more at risk for some of. Negative impacts as well. The most important thing I think we can do as parents is to talk to kids early and often about. That looks like. How to avoid it or how to tell an adult if it's happening and then how not to? A part of instigating it themselves. Like one of the most foundational things that we can teach our kids about how to be a good citizen of the online space.

Jennifer Semenza
What are the top 345 warning signs that a child might be experiencing negative effects from social media use?
Speaker
Replay.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Three warning. I think parents might want to watch for when it comes to youth and social media is that number one, your child is having a negative impact on their own emotions just after viewing or using certain media. They might feel down. Might feel critical of themselves or. Sad. These are all signs that we should be moving to some sort of different content. If we're using media that that's not a good space for them to be spending their time. The second thing is if media is crowding out other things that are important to a. Life like. I keep saying it over and over, but sleep school work time with friends, physical activity. If it's displacing those things, then we have to think about the next. Impacted that and sort of how to mitigate that. And then the third one is a biggie, which I think is disrupted sleep. Particularly for older children and adults. We know that the vast majority of them are sleeping with their phone or device in their room and often in the bed with them, and they're getting tons of notifications and disruptions when they should be sleeping. And this is a place where I think we can have such. Positive impact if we find ways to mitigate those disruptions.

Jennifer Semenza
Is there a direct correlation between the amount of time spent on social media and the associated risks? I mean, do do these dangers increase exponentially? Greater usage.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
You know their data here is very mixed. Really. There have been articles that have been published that have found that. Increasing hours spent on social media is correlated with things like depression and anxiety. There have been a ton of studies that don't find any. And so when a team of researchers really pulled all the data and all the research in the last decade to say, well, what is the overlying theme or kind of message that we're finding? What they found is that there was no conclusive evidence that time on social media really was directly correlated with these. So again, that's a way I think we've moved away from that time based messaging to say it's maybe not so important exactly how much time your child does. But what are they viewing? Are they interacting? Are you watching it with them? Is it displacing these other things that are really important in life? It disrupting their sleep. If none of those things are. I don't particularly care how many hours it is, to be honest. If I have a patient who is eating a balanced diet, who's physically active, who's involved in activities with their friends, who's present with the family. I don't care if it's one hour or three hours that they're on this device as long as all of those other things are in a good space, and as long as they're not coming across or. Their time on content that's making them feel bad.

Jennifer Semenza
Right, yeah, which is a perfect segue into the next question. Is there a danger of kids getting all of their news from social media? Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
I think that there's danger in anyone getting all of their news from social media because there's so much misinformation and disinformation that's out.

Jennifer Semenza
Right, right. Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
So we know people use it as a news source, and I think that's absolutely appropriate because it's an easy place for people to find information, right? It's very accessible for folks. So I don't want to discourage or say that it's not a place people should look for. For news, I just think it's important again to teach our kids and to teach ourselves how to find reputable sources. To know that something. Is true right before we're taking it as possible and spreading it around to other people. And that's something that I think we all can work. And so again, this is a place where I think education around media is actually super important for young people. That huge part of that education is teaching them how to find sources that are reputable, how to validate information and not just to take every. We see at face value.

Jennifer Semenza
How does exposure to social media impact A? 'S sleep.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
So I think it's honestly less about exposure to social media and it's more about physically having those devices in the room or using them right before they're trying to go to sleep. Absolutely we. Common class information that feels stressful or scary and that can certainly have a disruptive impact on sleep. But the more prevalent. Is that again, we're finding that when we talk to young people.
Speaker
People.

They're sleeping with their phone in their. Sometimes it's in the bed next to them and they're really getting a ton of. So there's, you know, adolescents get an average of 240 notifications in a day. Mean it's. How many notifications are getting and interacting with about 25% of those? That's one every few minutes during waking hours, right? So we talk a lot with our families about how to mitigate some of these things. And so that could look like, you know, if your child feels like they have to have the phone in their room with them. It's their alarm or somebody might need to get. Them or whatever. Can it be across the? Can it be put on do not disturb? Can you at least turn off the notifications? And so one thing I have people do is to go through your apps and turn off the notifications for everything that you don't think is critical, right? We want to get phone calls. Want to get text? Maybe we need to get messages from a certain person? We need to get notifications from an app. School, for example. But if we can turn off notifications for everything else, that makes a huge difference in sleep disruption. If we can get the device out of the room, fantastic. Not, at least not in. Bed with us, right? And then I think the other thing is if we can just help kids set limits on their own. So on an iPhone, for example, you can set a social media limit for an hour for yourself. Or you can time limit a certain app and that can be really helpful with people, at least just recognizing how much time they're spending and making changes if they want to make changes.

Jennifer Semenza
I imagine it's a great time to invest in a $10 alarm clock too, because you really don't need that function on your phone.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Absolutely. I think that too many of us are guilty. That and.

Jennifer Semenza
I know I am.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
There are much better ways to do it right.

Jennifer Semenza
I'm guilty of that one completely. Yeah. So let's switch and talk about strategies for parents so that they actually leave with with something actionable. So can parents. Monitor their child's social media usage without invading their privacy.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
This is such a tricky question and such a tricky business. I think for parents the most important thing I think is to be honest with your child. Really have a conversation. Time when you choose to allow your child to have social media. I think it's important to sit down as a. And say these are our ground rules, right? You can have social media. But know that I will have access to your full account. This might be appropriate for a 12 year old. Not for a 17 year old. I think as kids get older, we absolutely. To allow them. More autonomy and more. And that's really appropriate. But for younger kids, people who are not adolescents yet or who are an early adolescent really sitting down and saying, OK, this is something that you're being granted access to. Just know that I'm going to be checking in from time to time to kind of make sure everything. OK, that is so much better than not saying anything going in and looking at it and finding something ainting to talk about. Then what do we? Do we say to our? I looked at this and you didn't know I was going to. Do we not tell? But then we want to bring it up so it really gets very. So I would say #1 being honest about what the ground rules are and making sure everyone's OK with that. And I also think that there are certain situations where. It's appropriate to display it on the table so you know if you have come across something that you feel is truly dangerous for your child, you're concerned they're. To hurt themselves. They're going to hurt someone else that someone else. Going to hurt. Then we just do what? Have to do to protect our kids. You know, barring that, I think. We we decide what we're OK with and we really clearly communicate that to our children so that they know.

Jennifer Semenza
Yeah. How can parents educate their kids about the importance of privacy and data security on social media?

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Oh, this is. Important and I think it's important for. To. It's important for schools and teachers to do this, especially if they're using social media or online platforms in their classrooms. There actually are curricula that can help with. So common sense Media is a fantastic organization that actually has a curriculum for how to teach our kids about this in ways that are age appropriate. So that's a resource that parents can go to and it's. And so that's a really, really wonderful place for people to start. If they're not sure where to start. But I think that it is extremely important for us to teach our kids how to be safe and what some of these concerns are, and that they really founded. We find that kids probably around age 8:00 to 10:00 somewhere in there, they can really start to kind of. These mental. Models about what looks like good and bad online behavior, and so this is the age where we find kids are really receptive to hearing. Okay, here's some types of inappropriate content that you may find. Here's what to do. If you do, you know, come talk to me. To your teacher, whatever it is, and also to tell kids. There are things that can feel creepy to you, so there are certainly data collection and privacy issues, and around that eight to 10 year age group. Kids can sort of start to grasp that and it doesn't feel good to them to feel like somebody's spying on them. Collecting information and so. This can be a real touch point for kids to kind of think about. How do I want to have a healthy relationship with media and how do I want to use it in a way that feels? That to me.

Jennifer Semenza
I think you just mentioned one resource, but. You can. Say that again and then recommend any other resources or tools for parents that want to help manage their children's social media activity.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Yes. So the one I mentioned was common sense media and they have a website. They have reviews of different movies. Video games. Shows for different age groups and so that's a great resource for parents, but they also have this curriculum that really helps teach our kids about how to behave well online and how to kind of navigate some of those risks. That's a fantastic resource. 1st The other one that I will just shout from the rooftops all the time is that the American Academy of Pediatrics has developed a center of excellence on social media and youth mental health. I am a speaker for them, so I'm very well versed in what they do. They do. Just incredible. So it's a team of researchers, pediatricians, developmental experts. Have parents and youth. Involved as well, and it's an incredible resource. To find information so they have information there about different media platforms. You know a lot of us as parents are like, I don't even know what that is, right? Don't know how to tell my child to navigate it. Never heard of this? They have information about some of the research that we've talked. They have some really fun activities for all different age groups, so even young children, school age kids and then adolescents about just. I don't have some of these conversations. Are some starting. What are some games you can play with younger children to help kind of? Approach this in a way that's fun and light, so I just can't say enough about that and we can put the link to that I. In. Show notes, but that's an incredible resource for families. You can also there's a question and answer portal and anybody can submit a question. A teenager, a parent, a pediatrician. You anyone? Can submit a question for these experts on social media and youth mental health, and they will answer the question and then all of the questions are there in an Evergreen fashion. We can all benefit from reading answers.

Jennifer Semenza
Yeah, is social media usage or or the concern of how it's being used? Is that something that parents should bring up with their pediatrician if they have concerns?

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
Absolutely. You know, I think a lot of parents aren't sure if this is something they should talk. With their pediatrician, and I would say absolutely, absolutely yes. And I think more pediatricians are also getting savvy about bringing this up themselves. But you know, appointments are. There's not a lot of time to talk sometimes and and so sometimes it can get glossed. So I think if you have concerns or just questions, definitely talk to your child's doctor about it and what I would say is absolutely, if you have concerns about what your child is viewing, how much time. Or kind of what it's crowding out from their life.

Jennifer Semenza
Disrupted sleep.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
These sorts of things. Those are absolutely great to bring up. But even if you just want to sit there and have a quick chat about, you know, I'm thinking about this. I've got a six year old. Do. Sort of prime them to have this healthy relationship with media. Can I do now to set up those healthy habits? It's a great thing to bring up and just to kind of navigate that with your child's Dr.

Jennifer Semenza
So let's. Kind of bring this down to a bottom. What advice would you give to parents who are concerned about their child's social media use?
Speaker
Wait, so first of.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
All I would say you're not. This is a very, very prevalent issue that people are concerned about. The most important thing is to try to talk with your kid about it first, and sometimes that is more productive than not. Depending on, you know, the child and their feelings and your relationship and all of these variables. But having a conversation saying these are the things I. Worried about are you like? Their perspective is is so important, your child may say I'm not worried about this at all. Here's why I'm playing sports. I'm having time with my friends. I'm spending time with the family. I'm not feeling bad about. This is why I think everything is fine and that's really helpful information. Your child. May not have insight into the things that you're noticing, and so you may get a response that doesn't feel so productive that feels like I don't talk to mom. Everything is totally. And that's maybe not so helpful, right? But I. It's a great starting place to just have that conversation with your child to begin with and then if you feel like you're not getting anywhere, your child's Dr. again is a great place to turn. But again, I'm going to just plug the AP. Excellence, because I think it's such a fantastic place for parents to go to get more information, to get reliable science backed evidence based information and to see what questions other parents are posing. What questions are there youth are posing that they may be able to learn.

Jennifer Semenza
Those resources sound. Thank you so much for making us aware of. Absolutely. This conversation has been really insightful and helpful, especially for parents whose kids are on social media. Doctor Mead, thank you so much for your expertise on social media Management Today. Your time has been really, really well spent, I think. Thank you.

Dr. Elizabeth Meade
I hope it was helpful.

Jennifer Semenza
I. Also want to thank our audience for joining us today and talk with the Docs Wellness brief. We look forward to continuing the important conversation on health and Wellness with more experts from Providence to get continued information on other important healthcare topics. Please subscribe to talk with the doc on your favorite podcast platform and on social. Connect with us on Facebook, TikTok and X at Providence and on Instagram and LinkedIn. Under Providence Health systems. To learn more about our mission, programs and services, go to providence.org for all of this and more, please download the Providence app on your smartphone. And remember the information provided during this program is for educational purposes only. You should always consult your healthcare provider if you have any questions regarding a medical condition or treatment. Thanks for listening.