Social media for teens

I've noticed these last few weeks there's been an increase in ads on TV and social for new settings for teen accounts on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

As a parent on the threshold of having a teen in the house, I'm half expecting the request for access to these platforms will come thick and fast as high school life takes hold.

So far, we've relented on letting our eldest have a phone (my old iPhone). We've kept the apps on there fairly limited. Just the ability to message with friends and a few other apps and it's all limited to a set time of day (the new features announced this week will be great to tailor these settings even further). But one rule we've stood by so far is no social media.

These ads haven't done much to move the dial for me either. The features they're pushing are certainly beneficial, things like age-appropriate content and limiting who they can interact with. But I'm yet to see anything on what I think is the bigger long-term danger: the endless scroll.

I've written a few times about my own struggle to find a balance between being on social media without it taking over my life and it's still something I'm constantly reviewing and tweaking. For me, it's a battle to claw back time lost to just scrolling through Reels. They grab you with content that interests you and suddenly you've lost 2 hours of your day. I'm not perfect, I still fall fowl of this so I'm not throwing shade on anyone who does it.

Bringing it back to the teen accounts, endless scrolling will develop habits that will undoubtedly have serious knock-on effects as kids grow into adults. Reduced attention span being one of them but also the simple fact that when push comes to shove, spending time on social media, is a massive time drain and I'd argue for the majority, you could classify it as a complete waste of time.

Show me anyone on their deathbed saying "I wish I could just scroll through Reels for another week".

I was going to say something about what I'd like these companies to do. Maybe have teen accounts which don't have Reels or are limited to view 20 Reels a day or something.

Let's face it, none of the platforms are going to do that.

They want kids getting addicted to this stuff. They want kids building the habit young so they've then got a lifetime of use out of them. More eyes on more ads means more money for them.

As much as social media has provided me over the last 20 years, the last few years has taken a turn. I think back to the early days of Instagram or Gowalla when it was just about sharing stuff with your pals. But time has shifted. They don't want you to just have fun. They want your soul.

So, yeah. Thanks for the updates but in my opinion they don't go far enough and I'll be resisting letting my kids loose on social media for as long as humanly possible.

Ideally, never.