This past weekend, I had the joy of sitting down with a friend picking her brain on best practices for parenting. I went to school with her husband and they and their beautiful family dropped by for some haystacks – the Azure Farm version of a taco salad. 

It had been a few years since we had all gotten together but we both now live on our own little homesteads and the timing worked out. I quickly noticed how friendly and talkative her kids were. There are six of these awesome kids ranging in age from 3 to 18. 

So I asked What’s your secret? Why are your kids so friendly? She didn’t really have a list of exact ingredients to use but she did start to explain a few elements. 

The first – though the older ones use smartphones, the rest aren’t allowed to until the day that they personally pay for them. She described how much of an impact on kids lives the screen has and if they went back they would have limited the first use moment to a lot later in life. 

The results of screentime added a few elements I wasn’t even clear on. Sure there is the access to everything – and anything (yikes) but it’s also just a straight up addiction and I’ll admit as a Xennial (hybrid generation of Millennials and Gen X that knows how to live without technology yet loves being addicted to it) I have those addictive tendencies too. But another element she shared was that even with offering one of their kids a flip phone to text and keep in touch – he opted out because kids at school would make fun of him. No phone was better than a flip phone. Wowzers! 

The other big component is the peer pressure online where everyone is comparing themselves with everyone and how important it is to have a good and healthy self-respect and esteem so that peer pressure doesn’t get the best of you. We are all prone to it. We ask why that picture got so many likes when that other one which you liked better only got a few. Don’t people value you we sometimes ask? It’s such a trap and no wonder it’s hijacked our dopamine systems and led us to be more addicted to phones than pretty much all other drugs out there. 

But is it a mental illness? There are multiple causes for mental illness but there is a growing body of evidence which points to heavy use of social media as a key cause, particularly among the young.  

In 2017, a survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health indicated that among 14 - 24 year olds there was a growing belief that social media services like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter were having a bad impact on their general well-being.  While, on average, they felt that social media platforms had increased their self-expression and their community, they also said that they increased their anxiety and depression.  Other complaints included being exposed to bullying, concerns about their body image and Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

One of the founders of Facebook, Sean Parker, has admitted that part of the way the platform works is to exploit “a vulnerability in human psychology”. In 2014, an experiment was conducted by 5 neuroscientists that indicated that the same areas of the brain triggered by gambling and substance abuse is also triggered by over-engagement with social media. In a 24-month comprehensive study of 2,208 people – it was shown with conclusive evidence that as activity on social media increased, there was a decrease in reported mental well-being.

Light use of social media does not affect a person’s ability to feel content with life, according to The Moment, an activity tracking app.  The data in this study comes from asking the members to assess their state of mind (happy or sad) and compares this to the number of hours they spend on social media.  Instagram users have the highest rate of sadness, coming in at 63%, the worst of all the social media platforms.  These users spent an hour a day on the app on average.  The 37% who said they were happy only spent around half an hour a day on Instagram.  The highest happiness rates were found on FaceTime with a score of 91% and ordinary telephone calls with 84%.  It seems that even with the advent of so much choice, having a conversation still leaves us with the best feeling.

Here are a few points delineated more fully in this link.

1. Screen time disrupts sleep and desynchronizes the body clock

2. Screen time desensitizes the brain’s reward system.   

3. Screen time induces stress reactions.

4. Screen time overloads the sensory system.

5. Screen-time reduces physical activity levels and exposure to “green time.”

So here is my conclusion – set some parameters in your social media life just like you do with anything else that you know can become an addiction. I know it’s easier said than done but it’s at least worth a step in the right direction.  

Now to hold myself accountable to this :)