I have to agree with you that it's terrifying. I have a young son (under a year), and likely by the time I need to handle this myself, the challenges I will face will be very different. That said, there's some good news buried in the footnotes which gives me quite a lot of hope.
"We found that controlling for [psychological variables such as negative attitudes about school and closeness with parents] heavily suppressed the relationship between social media use and poor mental health."
Although it's almost a throwaway comment, my reading of it is that parents are not helpless. The effect is 'heavily suppressed', meaning that these variations have a significant impact. It is not a huge jump to conclude that there are steps that we as parents can do to mitigate the negative impact of social media, especially by being involved, engaged, emotionally available and supportive (and whatever else might be hiding behind this other 'psychological variables' mentionedsorr).
It's also important to consider that we don't know why the mental health outcomes are so negative (as others have highlighted).
However, there are some obvious likely causes of mental health issues caused by social media:
- 'Andrew Tate'-like personalities, who intentionally use controversy and creating feelings of inadequacy to drive engagement
- 'Dream body' type posters, who are not necessarily intentionally creating feelings of inadequacy, but nevertheless, they do by deliberately showing off parts of themselves or their lives that others cannot reasonably or easily attain (designer clothes/bags/shoes, expensive holidays, etc.)
- 'The Joneses' type posters (which actually I think most people end up being themselves), whose posts are innocent in motivation, but create feelings of inadequacy by only showing one facet of their lives. For example, photos of the family laughing together, dogs playing in fields, beers in a pub garden in the sunshine.
For me, my approach today would be:
- Small groups of 2-5 people are fine.
- For larger groups, create limited 'societies'. Class groups, church groups, scout groups, etc. Only allow my kids to be part of groups that they *really* belong to, and which are moderated to ensure that only people who really belong to those groups are able to join.
- No 'reposts' or content which is not original. Only share photos which you've taken yourself (or which have been taken by someone within the group). Links to external services like YouTube, Spotify, etc. should be possible but limited to those where parental controls can be implemented.
- Community moderators. Either parents or trusted community members should in place as moderators to manage harmful discussions.
It seems as though there is an absolute minefield to navigate going forward, and I wish you (and myself!) the best of luck with it.
"We found that controlling for [psychological variables such as negative attitudes about school and closeness with parents] heavily suppressed the relationship between social media use and poor mental health."
Although it's almost a throwaway comment, my reading of it is that parents are not helpless. The effect is 'heavily suppressed', meaning that these variations have a significant impact. It is not a huge jump to conclude that there are steps that we as parents can do to mitigate the negative impact of social media, especially by being involved, engaged, emotionally available and supportive (and whatever else might be hiding behind this other 'psychological variables' mentionedsorr).
It's also important to consider that we don't know why the mental health outcomes are so negative (as others have highlighted).
However, there are some obvious likely causes of mental health issues caused by social media:
For me, my approach today would be: It seems as though there is an absolute minefield to navigate going forward, and I wish you (and myself!) the best of luck with it.