Social Media and using it for better mental health not worse

[suseone]

Hi This is my first time posting and thought this would be a great forum to hear from either parents/carers or younger people around how social media is impacting them? I have two teenage daughters but as a parent we know social media is here to stay and will only become more prevalent and a bigger part of their lives. So what I am wondering, is how can we use these platforms to help our kids in their mental health wellness rather than try and remove all together and is that even possible? Love to hear other peoples thoughts and challenges?

[Croix]

Dear Suseone~

Welcome here to the Forum, a good move as many parents are unsure how to make their children's' use of social media and the internet as safe as possible, to be able to use it wisely and wiht little adverse impact.

Rather than touch on a just a few points I'd suggest one of the best sources I know is the Government's Commissioner for eSafety

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents

Which has a ton of information for parents, educators, young peple and much more.

Sing out if there is something specific not covered

I hope this helps

Croix

[dennagrace]

Hi, thank you for this post as it is certainly one that I have lived experience and also professional experience with.

I am 26 yo but I will be drawing from experiences I have had both in my teens and also in my early 20s and how I helped myself to manage my social media use and also my mental health.
Personally some key themes that have come up for me over the years, and also with friends I have as we have discussed our thoughts and feelings around social media are comparison in terms of comparing ourselves and our lives to other people, body image concerns due to how some influencers PhotoShop their photos to make themselves look a certain way, and lastly doomscrolling habits, which basically means that you spend an excessive amount of time consuming content online which can negatively impact your mental health.

What I have learnt is that social media is definitely here to stay, so it is about learning how to make it work for you and a lot of this is through trial and error.
One way I managed the comparison thoughts is by reminding myself that life is not a competition and also that people only tend to share what I like to call their 'highlight reels' on social media. You will rarely see someone sharing about what they were crying about last night, etc. So people are selective about what they share on their profiles, pages, etc.
One way I managed the body image concerns is by unfollowing accounts that brought up feelings of shame, unworthiness, self-judgement, etc, so that I wasn't constantly seeing those posts and experiencing those feelings.
One way I managed doomscrolling is by downloading an app on my phone that limits my use of apps. So every time I open an app a box pops up asking how long I want to spend on that particular app and I can select, 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes. This has been a gamechanger in helping me to limit my tech use because I can have low self-control and also lack of time awareness particularly if I am reading or watching content that is very interesting to me.

I hope this helps and I would love to discuss this more with you if you would like.

~ Dee

[useraip]

Hi suseone, 

Coming from a teenager, it is really great to hear you want to learn about social media for your kids rather than restricting them, because it really is a big part in a lot of young people's lives. I would say having regular conversations about social media may be a great way to ensure your kids know you are a safe person to talk to, if they were to ever find themselves being mentally affected by it. Social media can be a very positive thing, but making sure they understand the fake, and extremely negative side too is also very important for their wellbeing in the future.  I am not sure of the age of your daughters, but if they are at the age where they may be interested in documentaries, I would suggest to them watching ones such as 'Dancing for the Devil' on Netflix. Personally, I found this documentary very interesting, but it also made me very aware of making sure social media does not consume my life.