Middle and high school students might be spending too much time on their phones during summer break, some Charleston experts say. But more time outside the classroom doesn’t have to mean more time on screens.
Fronde Stille, director of school counseling services for the Charleston County School District, said parents should start conversations with their kids about what is an appropriate amount of time to be using social media every day.
“Try to keep the conversation open ended,” Stille said. “Do more listening than talking, and ask students what they consider to be a reasonable amount of time to spend on screens. Then negotiate expectations. It’s important for families to have conversations with students about what they get out of social media. What are the positives and what dare the negatives that students are identifying?”
The world of social media can affect kids’ perception of their worth and can affect their confidence, Stille said.
“If they’re on social media a lot, they’re comparing themselves to media influencers,” she said. “And they may be comparing themselves to their friends at school. Harassment and bullying on social media is a big issue, and we want our students to understand why boundaries are so important.”
Benefits versus risks
There are some benefits of social media, but there’s also a profound risk of harm if it’s not managed carefully, said Elizabeth Wallis, director of the Medical University of South Carolina’s Division of Adolescent Medicine.
It’s not that social media is never safe, but there has to be a certain degree of “buyer beware,” Wallis told the Charleston City Paper, especially since kids don’t know the risks they are vulnerable to when using TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.
“While there’s not enough evidence to determine whether it’s safe enough for kids and adolescents when it comes to their mental health, we do know there are situations in which it is directly harmful. If kids are using it more than three hours a day, they have significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety. We also have to think about the behaviors in which social media normalizes. I treat a lot of eating disorders, and things like dieting and disordered eating are very much normalized in social media. And so, for a consumer like a teenager who’s somewhat impressionable, that can have a real impact.”
Family media plan
Creating a family media use plan is a great way to get on the same page with kids and establish guidelines for the household, she said. The nonprofit HealthyChildren.org with the American Academy of Pediatrics offers the option to make a family media use plan online.
“Parents can decide when certain content is OK or can start to be introduced – what’s the maximum amount of time kids are allowed to consume content and what types of content are not OK. And those rules probably need to apply to everybody.”
Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) is a free resource that Stille recommends. It provides short videos for parents and students geared toward different age groups, covering topics such as screen time and online safety.
One manageable way to approach healthy social media use is by keeping a schedule throughout the summer similar to the school year with boundaries and limits on screen time, Stille said.
“There’s tons of things out there for parents that are free and engaging for students, whether it be going to your local library or making plans for kids to hang out together.”
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