26/09/2024
For our children and teens, managing social media is like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose. It’s relentless, overwhelming and unmanageable. It’s no wonder that a survey released in August shows that we’re more worried about the effects of social media than we’ve ever been.
The Healthy Futures 2024 Report by Southern Cross and Kantar surveyed 2,000 of us and found that while in 2020, 67% of Kiwis were concerned about the impact of social media on self-esteem, in 2024 that percentage has risen to 78%. As a co-founder of Pause Breathe Smile, a charitable trust that teaches mind health in primary and intermediate schools, I know that devices and social media platforms are adding to the stress our children feel. Teachers see it too and what they’re experiencing is backed up by all international research.
The teenage brain is all about pushing boundaries and taking risks; it thrives on instant gratification. The phones in their hands provide that dopamine hit every time they open TikTok or Snapchat. And it’s not just social media that we’re asking them to manage. It’s the entire internet, which includes extreme views, disinformation, pornography and violence. It’s mind boggling and alarming, really
US social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, says that tweens and teens are on their phones approximately nine hours a day. They don’t have an opportunity to work through boredom or find creative ways to distract themselves. Their brains are overloaded with the internet of things and when they lie down to sleep at night, a deluge of information bubbles up as the brain attempts to process it. The Fight-or-flight response is activated, and because the brain can’t tell the difference between a tiger in the jungle and the tiger of anxiety, a response is triggered. Once in that state, children can find it difficult to ‘down regulate’ and calm themselves. The advent of the smartphone has led to an increase in anxiety and depression in children and an increase in suicidal ideation.
We can turn this around, Haidt says, and quickly, by not giving our children a smartphone before high school; not allowing them social media accounts until 16; implementing phone-free schools; and bringing back more play-based time.
I believe that mindfulness —being in the present, appreciating the small things and developing the ability to calm the stress response — could be transformative too. Mindfulness practices can help kids and teens to regulate their brains — we see it all the time in classrooms around the country. It is not a panacea, but regular practices build psychological strength over time.
This is potentially where those smartphones can be used for good, not just for lining the tech giant’s pockets. A global study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour in June found that four mindfulness meditations administered via apps and computers reduced stress in participants. The study was conducted in 37 sites around the world.
Mindfulness apps can help children and young people to become more equanimous in the face of social media and the internet. Eventually, they can register what nourishes their wellbeing and what doesn’t, and decide for themselves what they want to see on their phone. They can even put the phone down, go outside and play.
So, download a free mindfulness app (we have one, but there are many that are excellent) for you and your whānau. It could transform our kids’ phones from a device designed for doom scrolling, into a tool that is beneficial to their life and wellbeing.
*Grant Rix is the co-founder of Pause Breathe Smile, a free mind-health programme for primary and intermediate school children.