Parents should try to minimize or stop the dangerous content their child is exposed to, including posts related to suicide, self-harm, disordered eating, racism and bullying. The APA recommends that parents should also closely monitor their children's social media feed during early adolescence, roughly ages 10-14. "Or is it hard for them to detach from social media? Do they lie so they can engage with it?" Those are the kinds of things that parents should be on the lookout for when they're monitoring their child's social media use, Evans says. "Is it getting in the way of your child's sleep and physical activity? Is it getting in the way of their school, or other activities that are important in their development?" Evans asks. While social media can provide opportunities for staying connected, especially during periods of social isolation, like the pandemic, the APA says adolescents should be routinely screened for signs of "problematic social media use." "We're in a crisis here and a family's ability or a parent's ability to manage this right now is very limited," says Robert Keane, a therapist at Walden Behavioral Care, an inpatient facility that helps teens with eating disorders. To implement this guidance requires cooperation from the tech companies and possibly regulators. The 10 recommendations in the report summarize recent scientific findings and advise actions, primarily by parents, such as monitoring teens' feeds and training them in social media literacy, even before they begin using these platforms.īut some therapists and clinicians say the recommendations place too much of the burden on parents. The report, he says, marshals the latest science about social media to arm people "with the information that they need to be good parents and to be good policy makers in this area." "Right now, I think the country is struggling with what we do around social media," says Dr. And, as NPR has reported, there's mounting evidence that social media can exacerbate and even cause these problems. This comes at a time when teenagers are facing high rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness. The advisory, released Tuesday, is aimed at teens, parents, teachers and policy makers. A new health advisory suggests ways to protect them.įor the first time, the American Psychological Association has issued recommendations for guiding teenager's use of social media. There's growing evidence that social media use can contribute to mental health issues among teens.
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