While, of course, social media has its benefits, it has also taken over young people’s relationships and is constructing their daily reality—homework, weekend plans, flirting, friendship, their sense of self and belonging—all within a system that is designed to capture and monetize our attention.
Because so many educators, PTA groups, and parents are concerned about how technology is affecting children, one of the easiest, strongest ways you can help is to write to them. To save you time, we’ve provided simple draft language for your principal, PTA chair, or parents.
We know this can feel overwhelming at an already challenging time. Here are a few important steps you can take today to increase your family's well being.
This documentary powerfully illustrates the impact of technology designed to steal our attention. Use our Discussion Guide with your family, your school, or your community.
Delete Tik Tok → Make a dance or funny video and send it to people you love directly
Delete Snapchat → Use Text & WhatsApp
Delete Instagram → Or at least unfollow people who make you feel badly about yourself
Ask yourself and your kids not “Do you like this app?”, but “How does this app make you feel?” both during and after using it.
Smartphones and social media can overwhelm the human limits of a young mind: the ability to focus, delay gratification, form identity, form meaningful relationships, and to maintain mental health. We highly recommend that communities delay the introduction and use of smartphones/social media in young people’s lives.
Block YouTube distractions: You and your school can use Safe Youtube links, which create a safer learning environment, keeping unwanted videos from playing/appearing. You can also install Youtube DF, which allows for greater focus.
Take tech breaks: Carve out dedicated time device-free time, whether it's a day or an hour. If you can coordinate with others in your home, collective offline time is even better. Mealtime is a great place to start.
We offer these family guidelines with the hope that they will help parents navigate the use of technology at home and in school.
While CHT works to fundamentally transform the tech industry, right now youth, families, and schools face significant daily struggles with technology. Here are some resources to help.
Note: The resources linked here will direct you to organizations who we think are doing great work. These third-party sites are not formally affiliated with CHT and their content may change without notice. Please review with care and discretion.
Here’s a collection of practices that people we’ve spoken to have found helpful.
Smartphones and social media can overwhelm the human limits of a young mind: the ability to focus, to delay gratification, to form identity, form meaningful relationships, and to maintain mental health. We highly recommend that communities delay the introduction and use of smartphones/social media in young people’s lives. Please also remember that you can delete problematic apps altogether.
SAFElab is a research initiative that does great work focused on examining the ways in which youth of color navigate violence on and offline. Drawing on computational and social work approaches to research, they engage in qualitative and natural language processing methods to understand the mechanisms of violence and how to prevent and intervene in violence that occurs in neighborhoods and social media environments.
SAFElab is working on a variety of different projects to improve wellbeing outcomes for youth of color. You can learn more about and support those specific projects here.
If excessive gaming is getting in the way of your or your child’s life, here are some powerful resources:
CHT’s Education Lead Max Stossel gives powerful talks to groups of students, parents and educators. Please reach out to us to inquire about a talk at your event.
Max pulls back the curtain for students on how tech is designed to be manipulative and discusses game addiction/design, self-comparison on social media, feeling addicted to apps, and more.
Max provides helpful info & resources for parents and educators, and proposes making school a time where young people can learn focus, patience, and how to be without their devices.
Both academic and social learning is jeopardized by the presence of phones in schools.
As technology companies know more and more about us with every click and scroll, it is essential that we help the next generation win the race to know themselves. We are big advocates for the SEL movement as a way of arming young people with a fighting chance to have healthy relationships with technology.
Communicating behind a screen seems to obscure our ability to empathize with one another, and has invited new forms of bullying.
As human beings, we are very prone to bias, and social media has poured gas on this fire. We are seeing rising cross-partisan hatred and an “us versus them” attitude that motivates people to accept the worst possible version of the other side’s beliefs, and the most flattering version of their own. These visions are distorted and counterproductive to learning and growth.
Many schools have integrated technology into their systems without understanding persuasive design and before the harms of these products were well-known. Here are some recommendations to re-evaluate.
If you’re having a problem that’s not addressed by these suggestions, we’d love to hear from you so that we can better support you. If you know of a great resource or intervention for parents, educators and youth not reflected here, please let us know and tell us why it was helpful.
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