Social media is an aspect of life ingrained in the culture of modern humanity, especially in younger generations. According to a study done by Pew Research Center, over 90% of teens use some platform of social media, with a majority of those surveyed reporting to have had negative experiences with it. Due to its prevalence, the influence of social media can be hard to avoid, but its introduction to young children can be delayed.
Health teacher Melanie Jozokos has organized a student panel event along with Dean Amanda Welch and Detective Anthony Bernadin scheduled for Tuesday, May 20 at 6:30 p.m. in the Lecture Hall. Beginning with presentations from Jozokos, Welch, and Bernadin, and followed by a student Q & A panel, young parents will be able to ask students at WA about their experiences with social media and how it has affected their welfare, allowing them to make educated decisions in their parenthood.
“[The Q & A] is going to be more for parents of young children who haven’t necessarily given their kids a cell phone yet. It’s not to turn people away from technology, so to speak, it’s really the whole idea of keeping kids away from social media as long as possible, especially young kids,” Jozokos said.” The studies that are coming out now are showing a real detrimental effect on young people’s mental health, and I think that’s a real concern. What I want to do is open parents’ eyes to the effects of what social media can do at young ages and what some of our students are facing as well.”
The panel consists of 14 students from different grade levels who want to speak about their personal experiences with social media. Each student will be available for questioning and friendly conversation concerning their experiences and observations of how social media has affected their peers.
“I got my phone freshman year but [before that] I knew other people who were communicating [with their phones] and had social media whereas I didn’t get Instagram until last summer,” junior panelist Srishti Choudhury said. “For me [the social media panel] feels like a very relevant topic because I wasn’t exposed to social media until high school and a lot of people around me were [exposed to it before high school], and I saw the effects of that. Sometimes I felt left out but then I was never affected by cyberbullying.”
Some of the other topics covered in the presentation include cyberbullying, sleep disruption, fear of missing out (FOMO), social pressure, mental health, and addiction. According to Jozokos, the presentation will also touch upon mature subject matter like sextortion and sexting; coined terms that refer to the soliciting of inappropriate pictures, videos, or behavior via a threat or the promise of money.
“As far as that information goes, it’s definitely going to be an eye-opening presentation, and I would not recommend this for anyone younger than high school students just because the subject matter is going to be for mature audiences,” Jozokos said. “We’ve had students here be victims of [sextortion], and we’re seeing a trend in that it’s young boys. So for a lot of years now, we’ve been worried that it’s our girls that are the targets of this, and it’s really young boys which a lot of parents don’t necessarily recognize.”
According to Jozokos, in the modern day, a lot of parents rely on devices to babysit their children, which results in older children with reduced attention spans and much less patience. Although the panel will focus mainly on social media and its effects on teens, these negative impacts show that the problem goes much farther than adolescent dependency on social media. That being said, social media can be hard to avoid, as it is often used as a platform for school clubs and extracurricular activities.
“I don’t want to say it’s too late for high school students, but I do want them to recognize that it could be a problem for themselves and maybe put [the phone] down every now and again,” Jozokos said. “I also want these parents of young children to see that there could be some negative effects for these high school students and [for them to] say, ‘maybe I do wait a little longer,’ not necessarily for the phone, but for the social media aspects of it. Maybe get that flip phone instead of the one that has the apps.”
