Since we've had the cell phone conversation and the laptop conversation, I figure it is time for the social media conversation.
Social media more than cell phones has more studies showing how it affects young people especially girls.
I had a specific question since I am one of those people that does feel affected by social media. And I wanted to put out there what I have done to mitigate the negativity.
I have gotten rid of negative people on social media or hid them. Most times, I am unlikely to feel triggered unless there is a specific person where we had more of a falling out.
The other trigger is vacation posts because I didn't have the best vacation last year. And because they are VERY prolific, so like below they become overwhelming especially in the summer.
I also feel not triggered but overwhelmed by a large quantity of holiday posts. That could be offset by a holiday post on a different day to prevent overwhelm or not looking on that day. I am easily overwhelmed by information as part of my sensory issues, so I assume most of that is a "Me" problem.
On the vacation posts though, what is the best way to post so that I am not triggering other people but still sharing my life? I know I will get a lot of, "do what you want and other people can scroll by" responses. But, I am looking to go a little deeper into the conversation on social media in general and the portrayal of ourselves/ highlight reels. I am sure I can offset some of that by posting about some set backs and not everything goes perfectly. But in general, I just stick to not posting much at all.
What is your approach to social media? And your approach for your children? Age of children?
I am not a big social media poster. I pretty much never post on Facebook. My IG is almost all people I’m actually friends with (rather than like someone’s random MIL on Facebook), so that’s where I do actually post sometimes. I post probably twice a month. Like for a kid’s birthday or a vacation or getting a new puppy or the first day of school or Halloween costumes.
We do travel quite a bit. It’s a big reason we both have always worked FT and choose to spend $ on travel instead of say, updating our kids’ very outdated bathroom or buying a bigger house. Typically for like a week in Hawaii I will do one post with a few pictures from the first half of the week and one post with a few pictures form the second half of the week. Honestly, one reason we typically travel every July 4th week is that I know that for some reason I will have FOMO that week if we don’t do something fun. I think it’s from going to college in DC and that holiday being a big deal. I know I get sad if I’m just home working that week
We are currently on vacation in a place we’ve never been before, and I was scrolling SM the day before we left and randomly saw that one of DH’s old friends, who was a groomsman in our wedding and Iives in Pittsburgh, was at the exact same resort with his wife and kids, staying a few blocks away. So we went and had a super fun dinner with them after we got here and got to meet all of each other’s kids. We could have been a few blocks apart and without her posting on SM, we never would have known and would have missed each other. My oldest is in 6th grade and no social media yet (or phones of their own - just tablets they use in our house/on wireless).
I find the older DD gets the less I post on SM. DD doesn’t like having her pictures posted which I respect 100% plus it all just feels so fake. You are getting a glimpse of time where things look perfect. I don’t know. There have been some heavy moments this year that has changed my perspective on a lot of it in a good way.
I mentioned in the other thread that DD has IG but she has her real name hidden and follows mostly baseball players and things like Disney and NASA. She only has one school friend and really doesn’t want to be found. She feels similar….none of it’s real.
Post by thebreakfastclub on Mar 27, 2024 13:34:59 GMT -5
I don't have social media accounts outside of LinkedIn.
I honestly can't imagine posting my own vacation photos or really anything like that. Like who cares about my vacation? I care 0% about seeing the photos of anyone I know, lol.
thebreakfastclub, DH has no social media except LinkedIn, but then I think sometimes he would feel bad if his friends were all getting amazing jobs. Let's be honest, no job is amazing.
A few people care about my vacations, but I assume very little like maybe 4 people maximum, 2 of them being my mom and sister. Good question if I care what anyone posts, not unless it was in the more real category, super well written, and more infrequent. If they are a frequent daily poster they get hidden because I feel overwhelmed by it again.
I have a couple of friends that are no longer good enough friends that they want to text but they still want to see my social media. I consider it kind of them being lazy in friendship. I am not judging them because I have accepted it, but not really sure how to continue a friendship that is strictly social media based. One is local, so I guess I could try to reach out once a year type thing. The other person is not local, so I assume there won't be any rekindling.
sdlaura, that sounds very fun, but DH and I are very much do our own thing and not super into meeting up with a long lost acquaintences most of the time. It occasionally happens, but we don't seek it out if that makes sense. I would love to get better at this, but unfortunately, it's just not my personality. Now, a former groomsmen we would definitely put in more effort.
To answer my own questions, DD and DS have no social media accounts (that I know of). On both of their devices apps require permissions to download. Now could they have lied about their age and logged in with a browser, maybe, but I also check their history. As far as I know they haven't done any private browsing where it wouldn't show in their browser.
abs, that is kind of how I feel. SM is fake and not real life. But I do have one friend who makes real life plans on SM (not even private message), so I guess not everyone feels that way.
FB is mostly for school/PTA and family that is far away. I don't post a ton, mostly events that are kid related (where she's ok with my posting) and some vacation pics. I mean, DH and I did the Panama Canal, which was a bucket list trip for us.
I have a personal IG, but mostly just repost some things, I'm way more political on IG. I also have a book IG, where I post more consistenly, esp reviews and ARCs.
Kid has no SM. DH has FB, but rarely posts anything.
I have definitely silenced/removed accounts that pertain to diet culture, weight loss, gym culture, “what I eat in a day”, etc. I “like” content that has body positivity, intuitive eating, anti-diet-culture sentiments. And it’s definitely kept me from seeing stuff that hurts my mental health or sends me spiraling.
Post by penguingrrl on Mar 27, 2024 14:40:15 GMT -5
I rarely use social media at this point. I liked it for connecting with people I had lost touch with, but am only interested in the lives of people I personally know. Now that FB is basically just tons of ads and the very occasional post from someone I know it's easy to skip it. I've never understood the appeal of influencers or random group posts and that's all it is now. I'm not in IG, so no idea about that. I tried it a few years ago and didn't get it at all (same with twitter).
My oldest is on social media, but not into it. They mostly use it because DMs are how they're in touch with friends (trading actual phone #s has romantic implications, everything is over IG) and follow the school groups for info. The other two aren't on social media at all yet and aren't interested.
I have taken to very seldom putting updates. I'll do a 1st day of school pic if my kids agree to it, but the past year or so they've all expressed not wanting to be on SM, so I don't. I've never put vacation pics up because I assume nobody wants to see them, and if I do it's always after the fact since we don't want to advertise that we aren't home.
I like scrolling through FB. I mostly use it as I’m planning vacations and I follow pages related to where we are going to get tips, tricks, etc. I post occasionally, not often of my kid’s faces. I have mine very locked down though. If I start to feel jealous or whatever I will hide someone or I will deliberately take a break. Sometimes if it’s just that I want to share some specific pictures, I think about who I actually care who sees them and then just text the picture to that person or those people. Like homecoming pictures, I might text to my FIL and SILs and my mom instead of posting on FB. I have Instagram, but I’ve never posted and don’t look at it very often. I also have Snapchat, but don’t really get it so I don’t use it.
My oldest is 17 and in college and lives in the dorms so for all intents and purposes she’s an adult now. She has whatever she wants on her phone. I know she has TikTok, snap, insta, FB, and probably whatever else is interesting these days. She has gotten in trouble with them so she’s had some hard lessons learned. I know she was taking a TikTok break recently of her own accord.
My middle is almost 15. After dealing with a kid sneaking social media I decided to be more flexible this time. She has FB, snap, and insta. She doesn’t use FB, it’s for old people. I know she used the heck out of snap and insta. I tried to be like I have to be your friend and follow you, but my oldest just made new accounts and blocked me from seeing them so that didn’t work either. Middle kid has a lot more leeway. She also hasn’t gotten in trouble because of it/with it. Maybe because I’m less crazy about it, who knows? I won’t let her get TikTok because I think it’s a Chinese spy device that is a huge threat to national security, so she’s not super happy about that.
My youngest is 12. He doesn’t have a phone or tablet and won’t for the foreseeable future. He has a YouTube channel that he makes videos on my phone and posts there. He also plays video games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and whatever the heck it is he plays on the oculus and talks to people on there. He’s supposed to only talk to people he knows in person. I’m not that dumb and out of touch to know that’s probably not what is happening. But it’s all out loud in common house areas so I hear it all like it or not. It seems fine at this point. Lots of cursing and name calling, but not in a mean spirited way, more in a fun way.
penguingrrl , I did not realize that phone numbers have romantic implications....
Good point on all the ads. Honestly, I mostly use it for groups specifically one group that is a chat of supportive friends.
My oldest recently explained it to me. I didn’t know either. They said asking for a phone number instead of a social is akin to asking for a phone number at a bar, and that it’s a more private thing that you don’t just give out.
They also pointed out that its’ far easier to abandon your social media handle and start that new than it is to get a new phone number if someone needs to be completely cut off, so that’s a bonus as well.
mrsGreeko , I will have to figure out the age to allow social media. Neither have really asked for it yet, and don't seem all that interested. They were interested in You Tube and that was about it. The oldest (13) would much rather play games on his phone and he has a couple of them. I'm not even sure the youngest (11) knows what is out there in terms of social media. I've heard that kids move to discord at some point in time, freshman maybe.
penguingrrl , I did not realize that phone numbers have romantic implications....
Good point on all the ads. Honestly, I mostly use it for groups specifically one group that is a chat of supportive friends.
My oldest recently explained it to me. I didn’t know either. They said asking for a phone number instead of a social is akin to asking for a phone number at a bar, and that it’s a more private thing that you don’t just give out.
They also pointed out that its’ far easier to abandon your social media handle and start that new than it is to get a new phone number if someone needs to be completely cut off, so that’s a bonus as well.
My teens have also told me that people don’t exchange phone numbers anymore because that is “super personal” and they only exchange snaps. So like if you meet a guy at the mall or whatever that thinks you are cute he will ask for your snap, never your phone number. And if he asks for a phone number you run away. 🤷♀️🤷♀️ Teen logic and culture is bizarre. Always has been, always will be.
mrsGreeko , I will have to figure out the age to allow social media. Neither have really asked for it yet, and don't seem all that interested. They were interested in You Tube and that was about it. The oldest (13) would much rather play games on his phone and he has a couple of them. I'm not even sure the youngest (11) knows what is out there in terms of social media. I've heard that kids move to discord at some point in time, freshman maybe.
IME there is a point around the end of 7th grade/beginning of 8th grade for girls that it becomes more important than anything in the world and the lengths girls go to to obtain it are impressive. My own DD1 got a burner phone, my middle’s friends use all kinds of tricks to trick their parents and access it. Boys seem to be different, but I also know my girls were talking to boys so obviously it was important to some boys, but I think boy teen culture is different than girl teen culture.
mrsGreeko, OK, I have a couple of years then. I'll keep an eye out for it. I feel like the communication of boys is so much less than girls, or at least that is my impression so far.
mrsGreeko, OK, I have a couple of years then. I'll keep an eye out for it. I feel like the communication of boys is so much less than girls, or at least that is my impression so far.
I do expect that the age where it becomes super important will likely trend downward for both boys and girls over the next few years. Purely because the ages kids are given first phones is trending down. With my oldest no one had a phone before 6th grade, with my middle it was probably 25% had a phone before middle school. With my youngest (and he’s in gen alpha whereas my girls as Z) the majority of his friends had phones prior to middle school. And I’m seeing with my 10 year old niece that most of her friends have phones already. My niece has one for diabetes, but her parents didn’t lock it down to diabetes related things from the start and she’s started to put the pressure on them for snap chat already. She’s 10. It’s crazy to me, how much things have changed in the past 7 years since my oldest was 10.
Post by gretchenindisguise on Mar 27, 2024 15:51:52 GMT -5
My 14yo has snap, not for sharing but for communicating with friends. She also has tiktok for watching videos - I'm working on her and H about deleting it off their phones. I've deleted it from mine.
My own social media use has also fallen as the kids get bigger and want to be on there less. But I want to keep out of town family updated and I can't figure out an easier way. Maybe I need to go very old school and just start sending the 10 or so letters again.
mrsGreeko , yeah, I would say 80% of the kids in her 5th grade class have phones. The 2 closer friends that she has that have phones have no parental controls on them already. One of them was in trouble with school in 4th grade for posting pictures of teachers without their permission to social media, Twitter maybe before it was X.
gretchenindisguise , Could you set up the posts to only share with those 10 people and not everyone?
I mostly use SM for input from autistic adults on how to live in a world not built for them to thrive. They have excellent advice on advocating for and helping our autistic kids in ways that don't cause unnecessary harm.
I post pictures every once in a while. The last time was Christmas though. The next time will either be Easter or probably DS' 8th birthday at the end of next month. The older DS gets the less he wants pictures taken of him.
I'm more likely to text pictures to my closest friends and family than post them on SM.
Yeah DD explained the phone thing to me, too. Honestly I think it’s kind of smart? She said she really only wants the people she truly trusts and considers friends to have her number. She won’t give it to someone she just met or even school acquaintances. She said Snapchat is what most people use for just casual conversation but she doesn’t have that yet and doesn’t want it. I think she’s like I see these people at school every day. I only want actual friends to get ahold of me outside of school. She’s seen things go wrong and wants no part of it.
She does not consider phone numbers as a romantic thing though. Two of her closest friends are boys and they text regularly.
I successfully avoided all SM for a long time but when DD joined Girl Scouts in 1st grade, the troop leaders used a private FB group for coordinating events and posting information about meetings. I told them I didn’t have FB and they said they would text me but as the year went on, they would forget and DD missed a few events. So for her 2nd grade year in the troop, I held my nose and made a FB account and put up just enough to not seem like a total weirdo stalker and friended most of the other moms in the troop.
Since then I’ve joined more FB groups for parents at my kids’ school, moms in my town, and parents of SN kids. These have definitely been helpful for being able to get recommendations and ask questions (e.g. my kid lost the paper, does before school band really start tomorrow?). I have never really gotten into posting aside from the occasionally fancy birthday cake that I’ve made and I never post my kids’ faces online. I also haven’t friended anyone outside of my kids’ school community, like HS or college friends because I am using it really purely for info not like real SM.
I made an insta account one year when my kids were at a camp that posts photos and updates there. I kind of use it more like an infinite Pinterest album - home decor inspo and pithy Dr. Becky quotes. I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything by or have any followers.
My oldest doesn’t have a phone yet so I haven’t had the SM negotiation yet with any of the kids.
We have a shared iCloud photo album with FIL, MIL, SIL, and BILs for photos of the kids.
Post by wanderingback on Mar 27, 2024 19:30:39 GMT -5
I only post on Instagram and not Facebook. I had Facebook deactivated for awhile but went back on it now for some groups but I still don’t post or scroll.
For Instagram I’ve been posting less and less. I have not posted any travel pics. But usually before I would post travel stuff and stuff semi work related/advocacy related.
I’ve posted my daughter’s face 3 times I think. I do not plan to post about her really ever and likely won’t do anymore face pics. I def won’t post about her or her face as she gets older.
Post by fancynewbeesly on Mar 27, 2024 20:42:09 GMT -5
DD1 is 12 and not on social media---which is our room, but she also is not interested in it anyway.
I am on FB mostly for groups and things like that. (Teacher groups, leukemia groups, crocheting groups--for DD) and family/friends that live far away. I do love the memories feature and check on that.
I love seeing people's happy posts--llke vacations, new jobs, new pets, kids posts. It could be because some of my friends live far away, and I feel like I can catch up with them sometime.
I am very much the same as you. I have to take long Instagram breaks when I start feeling sorry for myself. I also am heavily influenced by people whose style I like and spent more money the more time I spent on IG.
For me, when it comes to vacations I’ll typically post 1-2 photos to my stories and that’s really it. I don’t like putting photos of my kids online so I usually post photos that are not of me and my family. If it was a particular meaningful vacation (like a bucket list trip) I’ll put a photo on my grid with a caption about how special it was to us.
I try to ask myself, “why am I posting this?” Am I hoping for a lot of likes? So that people can see how well we’re doing/how great our life is? That guides what and when I post.
My kids don’t have social media and as of right now we’re thinking they can have it after they turn 18. We may re think that further one the teen years but right now we are a firm no. They’ve never asked if they could have social media. They are 10 and 14.
As a parent, there are a lot of groups on Facebook that are helpful. Whether for school events or information, travel for kids, or specific needs. It’s kind of hard to quit in that respect. It’s where I get all the school board gossip because ours is a dumpster fire after elections.
I know there are travel family IG, etc, but I find IG harder to search than Facebook. Maybe meta can work on that. 😉
Reflecting my age, my use of social media is mainly through Facebook. I do not use Instagram, have never had Twitter, and I have not looked at my LinkedIn profile in a few years 🙈 (though yesterday someone I just met told me when and where I graduated college so maybe I should look at it again). I do not love how ad-prone Facebook is, and if I see one more reel set to “all that work and what did it get me” I may lose my shit, but I like it for, in a word, “community,” and knowing what is going on around me and with people I care about. I am much more a consumer than a content creator on it. I post maybe once a month. Maybe my posts are a little highlight reely, but I post for me, and I like to have a contemporaneous record of something I did or thought about. I also use what I call the judge test, like, would I feel comfortable with the judge I clerked for reading this, and I try to make my posts at least a little “value added” in some way rather than just me-me-look at me. I probably spend too much time on it, though.
My older daughter (almoooost a teenager) has been initiating conversation about Snapchat and TikTok and I am not comfortable with that. She’s not a kid I worry about with it (I worry more about the effect social media will have on my other daughter) but we’ll see. DD1 sees her friends all day long at school and practices almost every day of the week and can text, I am not sure she needs more. I do have a rule with both of them that if they post something on YouTube that it is no names, no faces, no location, preferably no voice.