I think it's fair to say that Social Media use is a big issue for teens and their parents. Instagram is rolling out new Teen Accounts with increased restrictions. From the press release, it sounds like Teen Accounts will have the most restrictive setting enabled by default and parents would need to give approval to make changes. It's not perfect, but I think its a step in the right direction.

• Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don't follow them can't see their content or interact with them.
• Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to.
• Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels.
• Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. We'll also automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens' comments and DM requests.
• Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
• Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs.

https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/instagram-teen-accounts/

aglaohfour said:

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Scotts Tot said:

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Those issues are inherent to the medium, and the only effective way to avoid them is to not participate, which many parents/teens equate to social suicide (until they get off them and often report improved mental health).

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My daughter is 11 and over the past couple of years I've thankfully seen more and more parents come around to the "delay is the way" philosophy. A lot of people have learned from the mistakes they made or saw others make with their kids who are in their early 20s now.

Many of my daughter's peers do have phones, the vast majority of them are of the "dumb" variety, as is my daughter's. They can only call and text. No cameras. No social media. No internet.

The kids whose parents do allow them smart phones are, to a certain degree, the ones who are kind of isolated from the crowd in the sense that most people won't allow their kids to go to the homes of anyone with a smart phone or social media because it's just not worth the risk. "What are your household rules about technology?" is a way more common question before a play date than "do you have guns in the house?" these days.

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That's encouraging! Our kids are not to smartphone/social media age, but we think about it a lot, trying to have policy in mind when they get there. I've listened to a lot of Jonathan Haidt (writer of the Anxious Generation book) on podcasts, and it seems like a lot of parents have been coming around to his view on how to handle tech with kids.

wangus12 said:

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The only phone a teenager needs

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I gave my of my kids phones like this into their freshman year of high school. All they needed was for them to call me. No wasting time on apps.

Girls are harder to deal with than boys. Girls by nature want to be admired and liked. That is what social media taps into - esp instagram and tiktok. Boys usually don't GAF.

This is a welcome development. I think meta is trying to get ahead of the regulatory curve because there's increasing public pressure for Congress to act on teen social media use.

I also have to think the federal government was pressuring them to do something considering how many people get busted for catfishing kids and teenagers on instagram. Many of these safeguards are designed to prevent strangers from contacting or friending the kids. That's where most of the grooming starts.

Meta reports literally tens of millions of cases of potential child exploitation to the federal government every year through the NCMEC.

Oh it's definitely public and political pressure forcing them into doing stuff like this, but it's still a positive step.

infinity ag said:

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wangus12 said:

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The only phone a teenager needs

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I gave my of my kids phones like this into their freshman year of high school. All they needed was for them to call me. No wasting time on apps.

Girls are harder to deal with than boys. Girls by nature want to be admired and liked. That is what social media taps into - esp instagram and tiktok. Boys usually don't GAF.

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This is true about the differences between boys and girls with social media, but boys getting the same issues/anxiety from gaming. I highly suggest giving gaming the same rules/regulations at home as social media.

This is a bit off topic but this thread reminds of the predicament that my older daughter is experiencing. She is currently a freshman in high school.

Like y'all my wife and I are ardently opposed to our girls having social media accounts and access to the wide range of troubles that they can cause. A few years ago we got my HS freshman a Gabb phone which is essentially a Samsung smart phone with strong parental controls. She can only make calls and send text messages to contacts that we approve (we have an app on our phones to control this) and she cannot receive or send pics and videos. She can take videos and pics but cannot send them but they can be downloaded.

The problem we are running into is that this phone has limitations on apps that can be installed. She is actively involved in marching band and softball. She's pretty much the only one that does not have an actual smartphone. Her teammates and bandmates use apps like WhatsApp and Signal to communicate. She's at a disadvantage because this causes her to miss out on important communications. The wife and I are debating on whether or not we should get her an actual smart phone now so she's not left out. Any suggestions?

This is a difficulty with kids who are involved in really any activities. My daughter is a theater kid and most theaters use the Band app as well as the MTI app, neither of which are available on her simple phone. For a while I just had them on my phone, but when she's been in multiple shows it just became too much to hand it over every time she needed to practice or reply to messages.

My solution isn't foolproof I'm sure, but I bought a "house"
iPad exclusively for this purpose. It does not leave common areas and has all the possible parental controls that apple offers and the only apps on the device are the ones she actually needs (no safari, no games, no iMessage, no FaceTime, etc).

The majority of the time that she's using it, it's mirrored to the living room tv so she can use it to rehearse. Sometimes she needs to film herself and our rule is she can't submit a video until I review it. And I'm also logged into all the apps on my phone, with the notifications turned off, so I can look at messages anytime. So far, as best as I can tell, she's never tried to circumvent any of the rules or controls I have on it. And only once has another kid said/posted something questionable in the Band app, and another parent actually caught it and handled it before my kid even saw it.

Appreciate the info! I'll look into it. As for the social media aspect of this thread many of my older daughter's friends and peers have Instagram accounts. Not sure if their parents have any control over their accesses or not...

No official communications should be running through WhatsApp or signal. Either way, people using signal can send messages to nonsignal users, it just treats them as a normal SMS. It sounds like they are trying to have private chats....which would be concerning.

I am getting my son an Israeli made pager. Your pager blew up? Well maybe you should be more responsible.

aggiesherpa said:

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No official communications should be running through WhatsApp or signal. Either way, people using signal can send messages to nonsignal users, it just treats them as a normal SMS. It sounds like they are trying to have private chats....which would be concerning.

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Ah! Hadn't thought about that. Yeah the different instrument sections use these apps the most. Still have reservations about smartphones at this age. So yeah...still trying to figure things out!

An aside from a former teacher here:

It should be obvious, but any communication from your child's teachers/coaches should be coming through a separate app like Remind, SchoolMessenger, etc. These apps given admin and the district access to what the teacher sends and restrict hours in which they can be sent. In my former district, texting a student outside of the approved app or after hours (exceptions for when there was a school sponsored event) would be grounds for immediate dismissal. Honestly no teacher should want to text with a student outside of an approved app, for their protection as well.

Funny you mention Remind. My daughter's HS marching band is out of town for a regional competition this weekend. The information and itinerary packet they sent parents told us to download Remind as that would be the primary source of communication. Apparently too many people tried to get on the HS's thread and crashed it! Now the band directors are communicating with parents through good ol' fashioned emails!

ThunderFighter06 said:

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Funny you mention Remind. My daughter's HS marching band is out of town for a regional competition this weekend. The information and itinerary packet they sent parents told us to download Remind as that would be the primary source of communication. Apparently too many people tried to get on the HS's thread and crashed it! Now the band directors are communicating with parents through good ol' fashioned emails!

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That works too!

Remind is actually pretty great. Parents can also see what messages are being sent from their child and to their child at any time, get notifications when messages are sent, communicate directly with the teacher, etc.

nai06 said:

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An aside from a former teacher here:

It should be obvious, but any communication from your child's teachers/coaches should be coming through a separate app like Remind, SchoolMessenger, etc. These apps given admin and the district access to what the teacher sends and restrict hours in which they can be sent. In my former district, texting a student outside of the approved app or after hours (exceptions for when there was a school sponsored event) would be grounds for immediate dismissal. Honestly no teacher should want to text with a student outside of an approved app, for their protection as well.

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Hey nai06,
Do these apps also restrict hours in which messages can be sent to the teacher? Because I know an elementary school teacher who gets messages from students' parents at all hours. It'd be nice for her to have time when parents know she is not available.

yep. In Remind it's called office hours. So if a parent calls or texts you outside of those, the call doesn't go through and the text doesn't arrive until the next office hours

sellthefarm said:

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We had this convo in my church small group recently and I was shocked to learn that many school extracurriculars were using social media for communication purposes. In some cases things like practice times, team meet-ups, etc. are advertised exclusively on Instagram. The students are forced to follow some account in order to stay up to date on things. This is a failure on the adults running these programs and they should be made to change the way they communicate. They should be using email.

My kids are small so I haven't experienced first hand yet, just hearing from others that have older kids.

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You're right, but I'm not sure how to put the genie back in the bottle.

Parents and students want instant communication that can be referenced back to or sent to others easily. It's easy to fall into using social media for this use.

I was involved children's activities management just as social media started booming and it was a problem trying to get everybody on the same page/app. The best success in communicating with other coaches or players was plan old texting.

ME92 said:

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sellthefarm said:

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We had this convo in my church small group recently and I was shocked to learn that many school extracurriculars were using social media for communication purposes. In some cases things like practice times, team meet-ups, etc. are advertised exclusively on Instagram. The students are forced to follow some account in order to stay up to date on things. This is a failure on the adults running these programs and they should be made to change the way they communicate. They should be using email.

My kids are small so I haven't experienced first hand yet, just hearing from others that have older kids.

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You're right, but I'm not sure how to put the genie back in the bottle.

Parents and students want instant communication that can be referenced back to or sent to others easily. It's easy to fall into using social media for this use.

I was involved children's activities management just as social media started booming and it was a problem trying to get everybody on the same page/app. The best success in communicating with other coaches or players was plan old texting.

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I think it's pretty easy to correct in regards to school extracurriculars. Don't allow the adults running the programs to use social media to communicate to parents and students. Require they use a messaging app and/or a school controlled website or face termination. Almost every district has that capability now and it's better protection for all parties involved.

This was a surprisingly informative conversation on the general board. Thanks for sharing y'all's experiences.

I got my kids Apple watches with parental controls. Easier to keep up with and harder to have stolen because it's strapped to their wrist. They can't add apps and don't have a web browser. Call and text approved contacts, and we cab see what they're texting. We can see where they are. They can take pics, but we can see them. And Verizon's standalone plan is pretty cheap.

Social media is terrible. have a friend in a mess with a son's ex-girlfriend.

bullet points for this saga:

- he asked her to homecoming.
- she decided to breakup.
- she starts trashing him on multiple apps (my assumption is that he was upset about the breakup)
- the older sister texts her to the side and asks nicely for her to stop posting about him
- the ex tell sister no
- the sister threatens to tell her parents
- the ex puts screenshots of the texts up for the world to see proclaiming that she broke up with the boy b/c he and his family are crazy



WTF

My kids got iPhones at 7 and 9 respectfully. They mainly watch YouTube with them but the tracking features are nice and they are pretty locked down with screen time. The spend more time on their VR's than on their phones.