50 Comments

My two oldest kids are 13 and 10. We've just decided we do not do social media in this house. I have it for my work, but am trying to figure out how to get off of it completely in the next few years. I do not think everything on social media is all bad! It's been the source of so much good for me! But I do think social media platforms are built with ill intent. So the kids don't have it. My kids - so far - have FAR healthier body images than I did at their age and I credit some of that to how we talk about bodies in our home and some of it to the fact they're not scrolling through fitspo, even inadvertently. I just don't think tweens/teens have the perspective that's necessary to see beyond the world the algorithm serves them., I don't even know that I have that perspective. This doesn't mean we don't do screens or learn from online voices. I am just trying to figure out how to seek them out, instead of being served what an algorithm thinks will make me feel mad, sad, or consumer-y. (Is that a word? no.) Thankfully, social media is seeming less and less cool to some kids. They're disillusioned with the platforms we've built them as they come to understand their actually coded with anti-Black, fatphobic, misogynistic, transphobic bias.

Expand full comment
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

My partner teaches high school and has found that her kids don't understand the ease and huge distortion that filters and photoshop provide. They tend to assume that all images on social media are real and untouched, so my partner has started doing a mini-lesson on how images can be manipulated.

She's also found that boys are highly influenced by seeing the "superhero body" everywhere, but there's little acknowledgment of that and it's harder to reach them. Many girls have had at least a little exposure to feminist thought that gives them a framework to talk and understand why image manipulation is so prevalent. Boys don't.

When I have kids, I am somewhat tempted to take the Luddite path and allow only the tiniest access to the internet. I am still not sure how I'm going to navigate this.

Expand full comment
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

My 7 and 10 year old daughters got iPads for Christmas, and even though my partner and I have been really diligent about what apps they can use, the ads are so awful. I paid for some ad free versions of apps they like but sometimes, we still see the ads (so frustrating) and I don’t know who to contact. Lots of very graphic, clearly totally fake weight loss ads… and ads for other apps- my 7yo asked for an app where you’re a girl who’s trying to “get prettier” for a guy. Hard pass.

Expand full comment
founding
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

Not a parent! One thing that is always hard about reading about teens and technology is like...how pervasive is the problem, really? I read a really long piece (who knows how long ago, sometime during the panini) about teens and face tuning. And it was terrifying. As someone who didn’t grow up when Instagram was around, I shuttered to think about teen me adjusting my face and body and posting those pictures. Anyway, I think that parents need rigorous guides on how to teach media literacy at different ages. But also, phones provide a lot of opportunities for community, and I don’t see how kids today can grow up without them.

Expand full comment
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

I wish there were more & better resources online for gender non-conforming youth navigating body image issues. Especially given the current climate around anti-trans legislation at the state level, gender non-conforming and trans kids are as vulnerable as ever, with potentially fewer options to explore safely and value their bodies. The internet might be the only place some youth could ask questions and find community, due to classroom & athletics bans and restrictions on gender affirming healthcare. Once resource I've offered to youth in my life is Scarleteen: https://www.scarleteen.com/tags/transgender

Not a parent myself, just a doting auntie, but I still wanted to weigh in!

Expand full comment
founding
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

I’m a new parent of an almost 1 year old, and I worry how my little girl will see herself once she’s exposed to a lot of the toxic stuff on the internet. I want her to be able to talk to me about what she feels and experiences online. Looking forward to reading everyone’s thoughts. Also…. Virginia, be sure to get date shakes at Shields and visit the Living Desert to feed the lorikeets and giraffes. It’s magical!

Expand full comment
founding
Apr 10, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

My kids are 12, 14 and 18. I find myself amused by all the comments by parents saying they don’t or won’t allow their kids to use social media. If kids want social media, they don’t need parental permission or knowledge to get it. All they need is a device, theirs or someone else’s. It all depends on your kid and whether they are willing to follow your rules. My 18 year old got around every parental and school control. I have found that conversations with my 12 and 14 year olds have been far more effective than hard and fast rules. They are also very different kids than the oldest. We have not purchased phones until around age 14 and my kids have always been the last of their peers to get them.

Expand full comment
Apr 9, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

My almost-16-year-old was just telling me today that she has 1k+ followers on TikTok, where apparently she posts skincare and makeup stuff. I honestly don't know wtf to do or think about this. I do know that thinspo/fitfluencers and social media were a big part of what triggered her anorexia as the pandemic began. One of the many benefits of the residential ED program she did last summer was that right before discharge, her therapist sat down w/ her and her phone and they went thru who she followed, whether she had "sick" photos hidden somewhere, whether there were friends she needed to unfollow, etc. It was hugely helpful to have an actual ED professional handle that conversation (and spot the more insidious stuff that wouldn't necessarily have jumped out to me).

Expand full comment
Apr 9, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

As the mom of two boys, I have no idea what to do to keep them out of the mania that is social media. I'm pretty determined to keep them phone-free till 16 and then hopefully give them a "dumb" phone but like with friends and school does that even really matter? I'm concerned about their own body image but I'm also really concerned about the sexualization of girls and the idea that a beautiful girl has to look the way the girls on the internet look. ugh. As someone who got off Instagram at the beginning of the pandemic and only recently got an account again (and only to follow a few people/help out at work) I'm amazed at how quickly the app has changed in the 18 months - 2 years I've been gone. Like, it's not even the same? The rate at which it all changes is truly astounding.

Expand full comment
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

I have three daughters (14, almost 11, and 4). I originally wanted to wait until 13 or 14 for phones, but we moved to an area where most kids get them around the beginning of 5th grade. We live biking-distance from a nice town square and town pool, so the phones allow them to go to those places by themselves at 10 or 11. My two older kids are on Tik Tok and Instagram. One posts mostly art pieces and the other posts about a video game. My worries about diet culture are mainly related to Tik Tok. The videos I’ve seen my older daughter watch often feature very slim and filtered girls. My younger daughter’s Tik Tok feed is mainly cats, so I’m not so worried about hers yet.

Expand full comment
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

These are the questions I think on often. We have decided to not get our kids phones till they are able to drive (so probably at 16) and I'm good with that as of now. My oldest is 9 so we have some time- thankfully. The internet can be a positive place but overall, I think it is negative. I have heard so many stories of teen girls during the pandemic and their struggles with social media and it is so painful.

I don't know what the answer is but I think delaying getting our kiddos phones, setting app controls when they do get phones and doing our best to have good relationship with our kids is the basic strategy for now.

Expand full comment

When I think about phone usage for my kids (who are too young to have to worry about this just yet), I think about the smart way my cousin approaches it. It's like DOR for technology (but still imperfect, like DOR). I was at their house when their tween went to get ready for bed, and they reminded her to put the "house phone" back in its spot before she left.

The house phone is an old iPhone that has charging station on a side table in their living room. They explained that as working parents whose daughter got home from school before them, they needed her to have access to a phone in case of emergencies, but didn't want her to own a cell phone. So the phone lives on this charging dock, and she has access to it when they're at home, but it doesn't go into any other room with her. Her parents have access to it as well. They noted that since there are some natural limits around the phone (the parents decide where and when it's used, and what apps are put on it), she really doesn't tend to "binge" the phone. In fact, she was headed off to her bedroom to read for a bit before bed when I was there.

The later the night got, her parents showed us all the text notifications that were showing up on the phone from her friends. It got to be 11-12 at night, and the phone was still blowing up. They said it often continues into the wee hours of the morning. I thought it was a really smart way of making sure your child isn't staying up all night doing who knows what on their phone, while still helping them learn about healthy limits and listening to what their mind/body is telling them to do around technology - sure, it's fun to text with friends or go online, but it's also fun to go read a book and get enough sleep. As for diet culture, the parents were able to monitor content a lot better with the phone being out for the whole family, instead of belonging to the tween only.

Expand full comment
Apr 11, 2022·edited Apr 11, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

I would love for you to do an episode about ADHD and ED. Every single ADHD article talks about food w/r/t treatment. Rejection sensitivity also plays a tremendous role in susceptibility to ED. Again, very hard to find resources or info on the comorbidity of ADHD and ED and how they feed each other (sorry, terrible pun).

Also: I believe unhealthy social media use is a symptom, not necessarily a trigger. In my experience, a child who is not vulnerable to ED will not go down those rabbit holes. Peer and social pressure are still the main triggers, along with poor self image and/or OCD and/or ADHD. Keeping an eye on the kinds of shows my son watched (eating contests, baking/cooking shows, Joe Rogan and all his toxic masculinity, etc.) helped me understand where he was mentally.

Expand full comment
Apr 11, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

I feel like we can't have the kids on the internet conversation without having the porn conversation. And I think porn access is strongly related to (naked) body norms which are so damaging. My kid is young, so I'm just in the knowledge gathering stage and reading everything I can to prepare.

Expand full comment
Apr 8, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

My kiddo isn’t quite 4, so we have some time, but I don’t know how we’ll navigate this as he gets older. As a former awkward/bullied kid, I’m relieved that I grew up without the added pressures of social media, but I did stumble onto a bunch of pro-ana/pro-ed Livejournal communities as a teen (and spent a lot of time there), and my parents to this day have no idea. So I’m aware that we can’t control or even necessarily monitor everything our kid does online. (Fwiw, I was using a family computer in the living room, heavily monitored, and I still found all kinds of ways to explore things that would have appalled my parents.)

Someday I’d like to help my son use the Internet to find art and good writing and justice movements and new ideas and safe places to learn more about himself… but I know we’ll also have to teach him about all of the shit he’ll need to wade through to get there, and the way that images (in formal advertising and the ‘native’ advertising of social media) can make you believe really insidious things about yourself that aren’t true.

I want to help him define and shape his values in a way that allows him to remain true to them in real life *and* the metaverse - I think that’s what I’m saying.

Expand full comment
founding

I have so many thoughts to share, but I'll focus on one of the sneaky ways that the internet exposes kids to fat phobia: advertising. So the fun cooking or dance video (or, really almost any content) on YouTube your kid watches may start with an ad for a weight-loss company. Ugh.

And speaking of YouTube...the "autoplay" feature (where it automatically starts playing a video the algorithm thinks you'll like) can be really tricky. Without ever having to *choose* to see a video about changing your body or restricting food, a child can be exposed to this content within a few minutes. I worked with a family whose child developed an eating disorder after getting sucked down some despicable "pro-ana" content that popped up as suggested videos after some cooking how-tos. Scary stuff. I believe there is still a way to toggle off that auto-play feature.

Expand full comment
Apr 9, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith

My son starts middle school this fall. We don’t intend to allow social media until high school. Middle school seems to be where it’s worst. He does have a Gizmo watch for calling us. Sixth grade will include a mandatory digital literacy class, which is encouraging.

Expand full comment