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Tweets, Trolls, and TikTok: Navigating the Online Jungle
67 Plays13 days ago
Social media is everywhere, and for today’s youth, it’s almost unavoidable. While it can foster creativity and connection, its challenges—like its impact on self-esteem, mental health, and the pressure to fit in—can feel overwhelming, even catastrophic.
In this episode of Exhausted Sparrows Unite, I sit down with my good friend and social clinician, Jennifer Greene, to explore the rollercoaster of emotions that come with life online. Together, we unpack the challenges and celebrate the bright spots of social media, offering practical insights and tips to help young people develop healthier online habits and thrive in a digital world.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Topic
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Exhausted Sparrows Unite, the podcast where we learn to live authentically, love ourselves, drown out the noise of negative people around us. It's me, Krista Jones, your host, and I am here today with my good friend, Jen Green, a licensed clinical social worker,
00:00:25
Speaker
and my assistant, Chantel Shafer, and today we're going to talk about social media because it is everywhere.
Social Media's Challenges for Youth
00:00:32
Speaker
While it offers us connection and creativity, it can also bring us challenges to our mental health, our self-worth, and our personal development. We're going to dive into the impact that social media has on our youth today. We're going to explore ways that we can guide them and help them navigate these spaces in a healthy and empowering way. Good Morning or afternoon ladies, depending on where you are in the world listening. Hello. Good morning. So let's dive right in. Social media. I mean, I said to Chantal a couple of weeks ago, we really could have like a 15 part series on social media because it is just that bad.
00:01:18
Speaker
or that good. I mean, it has good and bad to it, but there's just so much to it. I feel it's just really hard to encompass all of it into one podcast. So we kind of decided we're going to focus a little bit on youth today because, you know, we, the three of us, even Chantal, who is slightly longer younger than Jen and I, slightly. Just slightly. ah All of us at least started our childhood without social media.
Growing Up Before Social Media
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I'm slightly older than Chantal for sure. And, you know, we didn't have access to any kind of technology like that until we were well into adulthood. So it's, it's really a whole new realm of technology for, for those of us in, in my generation, for sure. Yeah. I, I entered my pre-teens, maybe early teens with the AOL dial up and the messenger. So I kind of grew with it.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah. Do you remember the days when we used to have to stay on the phone and it would rain? Like it was like the wrong, like to connect you to the internet. You may not remember that. kind I remember that when somebody would pick up the phone while trying to connect to the internet and it was like, no, you're just dropping my connection. Right. So you were around for all that, but you know,
00:02:35
Speaker
i I have to say I love those days because if Sally did not invite me to a party, I didn't know. They were not pictures immediately as the party was happening. you know I might have heard about it in school a couple of days later, but by then you know you still didn't really know who was there.
00:02:54
Speaker
And now it's this immediacy thing and we know everything and we don't even, you know, it's filtered. It's not even necessarily true. It's, you know, I say to my kids all the time, it's it's the cliff notes of somebody's life. A lot of people aren't living out, you know, their best life and their worst life on social media.
Parental Struggles with Tech
00:03:13
Speaker
ah You know, so it's just, um it is just a lot of information that I feel and Jen, I'd love for you to speak to this.
00:03:21
Speaker
that really the brains of our youth just cannot handle? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that I know for as a parent, without having experience with technology and social media, that I think we didn't know, right? we There was a lot of things we didn't know about the impact and how that was going to you know affect our kids. and You know, I remember when I first got a TV in the car and that was like such a big deal because it made my life easier, right? And so we do tend to sort of look for those things that are going to make our lives easier. And, and technology certainly does that in a lot of ways. And I think, especially, you know, when you're running a busy life and you want your child to be okay and occupied, right? It's sort of an easy go-to that a lot of people sort of kind of fall to but I think you know when I look at adolescents and the impact of talk about comparison right it sort of really brings that constant comparison into their lives and you're right it's completely filtered people are showing the best of themselves especially young people
00:04:35
Speaker
you know i've heard you say this before christa right that that one photo that's perfectly you know filtered and photoshopped and whatever they're doing to make it look as they would view it as perfect they took a hundred of those to get that one and so it it sort of keep holds kids to this impossible standard You know, and you know, when, when we were growing up, maybe that was in the magazine commercials and things like that. So now you've just really amplified that through. So, you know, all these different social media platforms. Absolutely. Because when we were growing up, you know, the magazine was at the grocery store stand. So like you, you know, you might've bought it. You might not have, you know, you, you were exposed to it, but, but, but here, you know, it's right in your face every single day, every single minute of every single day, right at your fingertips.
00:05:26
Speaker
And even at work, you know, um you know, everywhere we go, it people cannot seem to stay off that
Literature on Tech's Impact
00:05:33
Speaker
phone. You know, I was um talking to Chantelle. She's reading a great book. Yes, it is called ah The Anxious Generation, How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt. Wow. And you said that there's just there's a lot of great points in that book. It's it's kind of scary being a parent raising a young child and knowing the pressures of providing them with a phone and technology and social media so they don't feel left out, which is, you know, Jen and I talked about briefly before we started recording um and weighing that against their mental health and their self-worth and their wellbeing. it's a it's It's eye-opening. Yeah. And like you said, Jen, you know, we kind of grew up
00:06:18
Speaker
as it was happening to our children. So we didn't have all this research and this background stuff and you know, but now you see all this stuff coming out and you, you know, as a as a licensed clinical social worker, you deal with this on an everyday basis.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, i mean I think that you know so many kids are not only struggling with the things they're missing out on because they're using technology, because they're on their phones, because they're you know they're you know for some kids, so much of their lives is invested in social media.
00:06:54
Speaker
And so I think it's tough for parents to help their kids sort of balance those things, right? Where they don't want to be completely left out of the conversation with their peers, right? But we want them to also be getting something other than what they're seeing on TikTok or Instagram and things like that. And so um so it's I think one of the best things that parents can do is is to be checking in and talking to their kids about it. Yes, yes. Making sure that, you know, at the very least, as they're caregivers, um that that we're staying connected, right? that That we're making sure that there's still a positive human connection at home to be talking to them about what are you seeing and sort of making sense of what they're seeing online, right? Because otherwise, kids will start to make all kinds of assumptions about
00:07:46
Speaker
how the world is based on what they're seeing online. and And it's really important, I think, for the adults in their lives to to be to be helping them process that and understand it in a way, and also just to be understanding the impact it's having sure you know on your child. Because I feel that social media sometimes it replaces these face to face conversations, which is why a lot of our children struggle to actually have these conversations face to face. You know, everything that they're doing is, you know, behind a keyboard and that's completely different.
00:08:22
Speaker
it is Well, we're way more brave. I mean, this is true of anybody.
Social Media's Effect on Communication
00:08:25
Speaker
We're way more brave when it's behind a keyboard than we are having a conversation in person. And I really think that, um you know, kids are missing some really essential skills. And i i so I spend a lot of time in my practice with my adolescent clients and even my adult clients about how to effectively communicate with other people.
00:08:47
Speaker
And so, you know, I think it's it's definitely an issue for our time. and And I think that, you know, I think that the swing of parenting, right, like we see sort of these trends in parenting, and it's just really important that we're not so distracted.
00:09:06
Speaker
by social media and our phones, right? That we're making sure that we're being aware of what are we modeling also for our kids in terms of how much time are we spending.
Doom Scrolling and Negative Algorithms
00:09:17
Speaker
I just learned this term doom scrolling, like what a terrible thing.
00:09:22
Speaker
Do have you know? So what exactly does that mean? What's the definition? of Well, the way I've interpreted that to mean is sort of, you know, when, when we're on social media, these algorithms are feeding us more of, of what we want or more of what we're sort of clicking on. Right. And so, you know, that.
00:09:44
Speaker
the doom scrolling is sort of like, I don't know, the election comes to mind, right? Like what, what stories are we being given about the fate of the world, depending on what candidate, you know, wins the election. And and so, you know, it just gives us more and more and more of that negativity. And I think that can happen in lots of different arenas, not just political elections, right? But like,
00:10:07
Speaker
where we're just being sort of fed this negative information. And then the more we click on that, the more we read it, the more we get it. And I don't know if I'm guessing you've experienced this too. It's like you get on your phone and you look up and an hour has passed.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it's like, where did that time go? How is it that I got you know swept up into something? And it's is it really adding to my life or is it taking away? Sure. And there's a lot of good points to that. And this whole dooms scrolling that you're talking about is also dangerous because these articles aren't necessarily reputable articles. I mean, anybody and everybody is just saying anything nowadays without fact checking. So then you see this not in the just in the political arena, like you said, but You know, and I say to my kids, well, where in the world did you ever get that i idea? And they're like, well, no, this is what it, but that doesn't mean that article is a reputable article. So, you know, the fact that we're not really able to monitor the kind of information that's going in either is also dangerous. You know, and then, you know, you were saying, yes, it
00:11:12
Speaker
I'm admitting that, you know, as an adult, my screen time is awful because when I'm not physically at this computer, I am still always checking this phone because Sparrow's Nest is on this phone. And for those of you that are tuning in and you're like, you know, exhausted Sparrow's at night, that, you know, birds and they're tired. um The name of this actually is because I'm the founder of a charity called Sparrow's Nest and we feed people that have a cancer diagnosis. So I'm just kind of giving you the background.
00:11:42
Speaker
But, you know, um we give them meals every week and we're in five counties here in New York, in the Hudson Valley. And that is where, you know, I do all of my advertising, right? Like, if you need to know it about an event, um sometimes a recipient will private message me on there. So I am on this thing constantly as an adult. And, you know, I said that to my kids. I'm like, how can I set boundaries for them? When I was talking to my husband, I said, you know,
00:12:10
Speaker
How can I set boundaries for them when they don't see boundaries for me? Yeah, it's super important what we're modeling and and you know having that self-awareness of what are we modeling for our kids. And what you're missing out on, right? If you're scrolling in bed when you're supposed to be chatting with your partner or you know you know and having a good dinner and you know a nice dinner with your family and you're on the phone, you know you're missing out on all of these things that you're you're just never going to get back.
00:12:39
Speaker
Yeah. But that's the world we live in. Yeah. So help us, Jennifer Green. Oh gosh. how pressure I'm feeling the pressure over here. But you know, let's
Cyberbullying and Positive Influencers
00:12:49
Speaker
continue. There's a few more things like cyberbullying with children is is is also a ah very big thing with our youth. um You know, there's there's so much awareness of it.
00:12:59
Speaker
one would think that we would be better with it. But what do you think? Do you think that is the case or do you think that that's just another avenue that these children, because other children are behind a screen, are really able to say some awful things?
00:13:15
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, when you think back to before phones, before kids had phones, you know, bullying was still obviously a thing, right? I mean, it's been around probably forever. And, you know, but when you came home, it ended, right? Unless you got a phone call on, you know, on the landline, right? From a mother of Jimmy.
00:13:38
Speaker
I wanted to talk to you about smacking them with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when you were in third grade. I'm so sorry, Jimmy. Go ahead. No, it's not true. It's not even a true story. I don't know what Jimmy go ahead. You know, so, but, but now for these kids, those things continue, right? It's how many people are sharing, you know, this embarrassment, embarrassing moment that somebody caught on video. That's a good point. And it just, and then, so these kids get no escape from that when they get home.
00:14:06
Speaker
Sometimes there's you know it's it's even getting amplified. And so again, like this idea of it's it's really easy to say something about somebody or to bully somebody from behind a screen than to do it in person. And so again it's it's again, the adults have to be dialed in to understand what's going on. And the schools have responsibilities around this as well in terms of you know um what is happening even outside of school.
00:14:35
Speaker
right So there's, you know, having worked in a school before, you know, there are things that the state has put in place with schools around these kinds of things. But it it can be really, really difficult to monitor. And oftentimes, even when, you know, there's sort of corrective action taken after these things happen, the impact of it has already been felt. Yes, you know, and that it does stay with it does stay with kids, you know, that it's it's a tough thing for them to navigate.
00:15:03
Speaker
So social media comparison, right? And how it affects our self-esteem and distraction from real life connections. There's cyber bullying and there really is a thing called FOMO. This fear of missing out, right? It's seeing people doing fun and interesting things, you know, and then it leads, I think,
00:15:22
Speaker
to feelings of isolation or or jealousy you know on on on many of our youth when they're you know seeing others doing things or being invited to events and things they're not included in. Right?
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and and like you so know, at the start of this segment when you said, right, that they're aware immediately that they weren't invited to an event or people are leaving them out of something, you know, and so, you know, I don't think that there's any sort of easy solution to any of it. I think that, you know, as Chantal was saying, right, like really as a parent limiting the exposure as much as you can, talking to your kids about it, um making sure that, you know, you're checking in with what are they believing as a result, right? Like, I think to made ah a great point about, um you know, I have a joke in my house with my kids like, oh, it must be true because they saw it on TikTok. But it is, you know, it's it's sort of my way and a humorous way of saying to them,
00:16:31
Speaker
You have to use your critical thinking skills. You have to look at that and and dig a little deeper before you just believe it right away, right? And even to you know be looking at what are what are our kids believing about themselves from what they're seeing on social media and to try to try to make sure that we're talking to kids about what that is.
00:16:54
Speaker
yeah right? And they associate, I feel sometimes, their self-worth to the likes they get on a picture, right? yeah The mental health you know issues just surrounding that,
00:17:08
Speaker
in ah I don't know where we go, I don't know where we go, but you know, um something I try to have my children do. ah They're older now, but when they they were you know teens, I tried to also watch the influencers that they they were following, right? Because there were there are a lot of great influencers out there.
00:17:29
Speaker
that are all about kindness and you know food that you can make and you know like all these great fun things. So i i I tried to make sure that they had some of that in the stuff that you know that that they they were scrolling through and people that they they were following because you know it's not all bad.
00:17:49
Speaker
It's not all bad. And, you know, i I purposely in my Instagram feed get lots of laughing babies and puppies and kittens because sometimes it does help. Right. How can you listen to and see a laughing baby without laughing or smiling? Right. So there are these positive you know pieces to it if you if you can manage it well. And so, you know, one of the interesting things that I have found with with adolescent clients and young adult clients is that They have grown up with this. And and for even even when it is also a challenge for them, I hear them saying to me, I'm not going to let my kids have a phone as young as I had a phone. i'm I know the dangers. I understand the impact of this technology on me and my peers and my friends. I see my younger siblings who got it earlier than me. So I think that
00:18:48
Speaker
you know i'm hopeful right that because they've experienced it differently than we did as their parents that they're gonna be wiser about it that they're gonna set limits maybe that we didn't know we needed to set. um so i'm I'm hopeful i'm hopeful that the next generation is raising kids.
00:19:09
Speaker
Have a little bit more information about how to how do we protect kids you know sure because it's you know it becomes this addiction it really is an addiction yeah and like any addiction how do you wean people off of that slowly i mean shantel you have you have young children the girls are.
00:19:28
Speaker
They are eight and 10. And it's funny you're talking about adolescents acknowledging this problem. And we were at a birthday party and it was for one of my eight year old's friends. And we watched one of the the the kids from the birthday party. We were at Fun Max. So I don't know if you know what Fun Max is. It is trampolines and chaos. Fun though. fun Fun, like I was jealous I wasn't participating. i mean you should have And one of the kids from the birthday party pulled a cell phone out of her fanny pack in the middle of this trampoline and started taking selfies. And my child looked at me and goes,
00:20:02
Speaker
Why isn't she having fun? Why isn't she playing? And I said, because she's more interested in her phone than in what you're doing. And that's why I've drawn that line in this and for my kids that you will not have a phone until you are more mature and ready for that responsibility because it is a responsibility. And you know what? It might be a flip phone, might not be a smartphone.
00:20:24
Speaker
You might be able to call me, but not get on TikTok because when an eight year old is more interested in taking a selfie than jumping on a trampoline, it's a problem. It is a problem. Yeah, it was sad. you I think I let my children have it in sixth grade and we said, well, you know, they're going into middle school and they're going to stay after. And I really do laugh at that because I mean, we used to have to walk to a pay phone and then call our parents on the landline.
00:20:53
Speaker
you know And I think we will get into adults and and the way that affects adults eventually. But I always say this story. My dad, when he got home from work, if he didn't wanna answer his boss, he just didn't pick up the landline, right? Because, oh, I wasn't home. you know Now we have these cell phones that if you're not picking up, somebody's texting us, if you're not answering that, they're sending you a private message on you know Instagram or whatever, they're trying to find you.
00:21:21
Speaker
So it's also like really hard to disconnect when this device keeps us all so closely monitored. I mean, my children used to follow on, I don't know, Snapchat or something. You could follow all your friends. They'd be like, oh, so-and-so's at the mall. I'm like, stop, get, what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think it has you know this this sense of immediate gratification. this immediate yeah that There's this immediacy in terms of, I think, kids' expectations, right which then you um bleeds into other areas of their life. But you know I remember um in my first job after I got my master's in social work, we were I was sitting with this eighth grade young girl.
00:22:04
Speaker
And she started talking in this language I had never heard before. I was like, what do you mean? What do you mean he left you unread? What does that mean? Right. And why is that causing you such distress? Right. Right. And I was like, well, that sounds like passive aggressiveness to me. Right. Like so helping give language for them of sort of what they're experiencing, but us also needing to learn their language. Yeah. And so I was recently with a ah a client who's a young adult and She had sent a message to a coach or something, and she said, well, geez, he hasn't even responded to me yet. And I said, well, when did you message him? Well, like two hours ago. And I was like, what? Wow. Wow. And because the distress and the, you know, she was sort of appalled that two hours had gone by without a response. And I was thinking when by her reaction, it had been several days, you know, so the expectation of this immediacy. And then think about it on the flip side, that kids then feel this pressure.
00:23:14
Speaker
to immediately respond that they, oh, they can't leave somebody unread for too long because then they're going to think that they don't like them anymore. Right. There's all of these, this sort of unspoken rules, you know, that I think as parents, it's important for us to understand and teach them about like a ah kid whose phone gets taken away or their phone dies. And there's this sort of anxiety because they're not plugged in. They're not able to respond quickly enough. And what will other people think? It's, it's really, really problematic.
00:23:44
Speaker
It is. When you said that on red comment, I immediately, I was like, oh my gosh, she's, she's so right. Like my children are in this panic, right? That they're, I'm i'm like, couldn't the person be busy? I don't really know how that works, but like, maybe they're just, you know, like you got to go back and forth for what? 78 times? Like you have to keep re- like you have to keep opening these? Why? So, um, it's unhealthy. You know, it I don't let my children, at least I didn't, they're older now, I don't have a choice.
00:24:13
Speaker
But they couldn't have their phone in their room at night. So I would just take the phone and I would put it downstairs. And that was a lot of anxiety because they would wake up the next day to stop. And like I mean, they did have friends that were mad, you know, because I had to say, we we have boundaries, you know, and as they got older, they were allowed to. And then I was realizing, you know, as they were older, they had it in the room.
00:24:34
Speaker
But you know, Fiona Jones, she'd work on four hours sleep. I'd be like, why are you exhausted? Well, you know, she'd be up until two on the phone, which is now affecting your entire next day. It's affecting your schoolwork when you're going to school. Like it's affecting your attitude. It's affecting you mentally, physically, like
00:24:55
Speaker
It's a lot, but there is hope and we can of course set some
Setting Boundaries and Reinforcing Self-Worth
00:25:00
Speaker
boundaries. Yeah, so important to set boundaries for our kids, even when they don't like it. Right? Yeah, and they're not gonna like it, let's be honest. They're not gonna like it, and that's okay. And that's okay, and it doesn't have to be extreme boundaries, but starting very small and building your way up is great. I think having them model people that,
00:25:21
Speaker
influencers, have them follow people and seeing some positivity on on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these others are great. Um, I think you can also have parent controls on some of these apps. Yeah. So my kids have iPads and, um, I have it set where they cannot install anything without my permission. Um, and they, for me, our, ours is you don't get it until six 45 and all of your stuff has to be done and you only have it for that hour before bedtime. Um, you know, there's times where my kids will come home from school and and the iPad will start ringing and they're like, Oh, somebody's calling. I'm like, okay. It's not, it is not your time for your iPad. Go outside, eat some dirt, play, have fun. Drink from the hose. Yes. Yes. Like I'm a, I'm a big believer in you need to be
00:26:10
Speaker
playing, you need to be problem solving and making connections. um My past career I was a speech therapist and I worked with preschoolers and I cannot tell you what technology has done to the development of language in children. The number of children that are speech and language delayed that never should be because they're given technology as a babysitter from two, three years old and they're not learning how to read facial expressions, how to communicate because they're just watching something talk at them all day long. Sure. um Yeah. Sure. I don't know where I went on that tangent.
00:26:49
Speaker
No, you went on that tangent because we as parents, you know we we have to be diligent. We have to respect and honor that. This is the way of the world. It really is. And we can certainly you know find a balance with that for these kids. We have to give them some of these freedoms, but you know we we should be checking in. Like you said earlier, Jen, you know just taking an hour and sitting at the dinner table and You know, we used to do that at my dinner table. You say, tell me your best and your worst. So every day they would tell me their best. And I was like, and if you don't have a worst, that's fine, but there has to be a best. So we would do that at the dinner table, you know, just engaging with them and showing them that you care too, because
00:27:30
Speaker
We want our children to still have that one on one connection with us because we don't want them taking any of their issues and their struggles and their problems and we don't want them throwing that out there in the social media world for their friends to solve and for everybody to weigh in on. We still want them to have that one on one communication with us so that we can help guide them through things that are.
00:27:50
Speaker
going on in their life. So you know social media is here to stay. I think it's just really about figuring out what your boundaries are for your children and to keep reinforcing how beautiful and uniquely made they are and how worthy they are. I could cry but you know I think so many kids don't feel that.
00:28:10
Speaker
And it's our job as adults to just keep pouring into them how loved they are and how, you know, the real world is in front of their eyes. it's it's It's not on a screen. Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself. So do you have any parting words then, or those were our parting words? I think those are great parting words, Krista. Well then, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to wrap it for today. In a world that is constantly online, it's up to us to help guide our youth.
00:28:39
Speaker
We know that it's there, and we know that we may not be able to get rid of it, but how are we going to help reinforce to our children that they are loved and that they are worthy? We need open conversations with them. We need to promote in them their own self-worth. We need to equip them with tools so that they're able to navigate these spaces wisely. And more than ever, we just need to let them know they're loved. Until next time, be kind to yourself.
00:29:09
Speaker
and to each other.