How to fight social media addiction? This post is meant for parents of teens and young adults but can actually work for kids too. The best thing about social media is it’s a nice way of being digitally social, great for keeping up with news and trends, plus good for small businesses that don’t have marketing budgets. But we have all landed up on X(Ex Twitter), Fb or Insta for some checking and forgot when the hour passed.That’s the problem.
How to fight social media addiction in teens and young adults
1. For me, the best way to fight social media addiction in teens and young adults: fight it like you would fight any other addiction. Prevention is still the best cure. Internet yes, social media no. Just don’t let them get started and sucked into the loop of likes, shares and hoopla.
Internet yes, social media no
Dr.Amrita Basu
Just like parents don’t let their kids try tobacco or alcohol, social media is in no way helpful. Being social in real life is important not digitally. Especially in this day and age where deep fake and identity theft is a real thing, sharing identifying content on social media is a strict no-no.
Companies before recruiting candidates check social accounts, most colleges do too. If your child has plans of working in high security industries having a clean digital profile is crucial. These are however things you need to discuss with your child in detail.
2. Is it for a hobby content for setting up their own business or educational research? Use Happinetz to blacklist links of social media sites you don’t want her device to access. That prevents inadvertent clicking and surfing behaviour.
Just like everything in parenting, you will have to set the boundaries and the best practices for behavior.
If you are on social media due to work or pleasure/hobby/educational content, show them what you do and avoid doom scrolling (we have all been sucked into that net).
Show them they can enjoy good art, nature, and content on YouTube or Instagram but you have to be with them to help them make those choices first.
Her hobbies are important in these cases. In case she wants to start her own hobby channel, be careful her identity and data are protected. While her creating content is okay, you will have to help with uploading and the legal side of it to keep her safe.
As a blogger, I adore the internet. It has taught me how to set up my blog, podcast, vlog, make money online and all while being a doctor, a mommy, and managing my thousand and one interests. The Internet is the reason I could make many things possible. So helping them learn to choose right is crucial.
3. As teens and young adults, their peer group will hold sway over their opinions and thoughts and the only way to prevent unsuitable friendships is again help them choose people who don’t cause chaos by their behaviour. Friends with risqué content on social media often cause peer pressure for other kids to imitate. Even if it’s the parent doing the uploading they do immense harm inadvertentantly.
As a social media content creator, I have refused collaboration which requires me to use my child’s identity with full f images as props. That was a choice I made even before I was aware of identity theft being a real problem. Maybe sharing this post will help them know what risks they can face.
4. Spend time with them and talk to them. Get to know them as social beings not just your kid. Human beings are social by nature. Having social maladjustment is a problem.
Nurture fun hobbies like gardening, crafting, writing, playing, painting, going for nature walks, anything you can do together. Help them become creators in real too, not just digital consumers.
5. Deaddict with a plan. Addictive behavior has deep roots. They may be mirroring a caregiver. One addiction can promote another. Plus it has a genetic predisposition. So in certain cases, prevention is the only way. Always remember inertia. Tantrums, shouting, and disobedient behavior can all be a fallout of strict regimentation.
Come to a compromise by helping her choose activities online or her favorite hobbies or favorite shows, online art courses, or any other recreational or educational content that she really enjoys or wants to learn about. Set a dedicated time daily/weekly according to her schedule when she can go online. Giving her choices will help her be in control. That’s crucial if you want her to learn to choose right.
Bonus tip for everyone. (I need to do this too)Getting those apps off the phone and desktop is the first step. If you have to manually login every time you are bored will be a good demotivation for reaching for social media time-pass
This post is a part of Happinetz – #SafeInternetForKids. Use my code AMRIB01 for a surprise discount at checkout.
This post is also part of #BlogchatterHalfMarathon
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