We’re not like other families.
we have some pretty strict rules around social media.
which might be kind of weird to most people who’ve read our posts about This is how we Tech.
Tech plays a pretty important role in our household.
but social media does not.
Jeffrey and I are not big on social media in general. Most of this is due to our history. we started our online company in 1999 when there was no social media. we ran a community message board that had over 500,000 members. for 15 years we got a gritty first hand look at how people act/live/speak/be online. Being the perfectly honest person that I am I would say that we have a very mixed review of the world and it’s inhabitants. But the biggest lesson that we took away was that time spent online was not conducive to a happy life.
Therefore, we decided that restriction of social media was best. for all of us.
Jeffrey and I both have limited social media interaction ourselves.
I am partial to instagram, mostly because I enjoy looking at imagery and photography. I like to receive information this way. I like to look at colors. I am a weird one and switch up my feed all the time. One month I may be adding and following a dozen new hand letters, and then all of a sudden I am bored of them and I stop following all of them and instead follow all kinds of new Disney apparel designers. Next month I might just add all of the new pancake art that I see sometimes, because damn that looks amazing.
I wish I didn’t have Facebook at all but appreciate that it keeps me informed of my extended family christmas gathering dates and events. if you were to ask me if i saw so-and-so’s post of their homecoming pictures on Facebook, my answer would be a firm No.
I have all notifications of all social media turned off on all of my devices and only receive an email if I have specifically been sent a private message.
I am a really private and incredibly guarded person.
and I don’t really like noise. ( I don’t mean literal noise, but information as noise).
Jeffrey literally spends no time on any social media unless his attention is specifically turned to it. he has accounts only so that he can keep track of our kids. sorry kids.
Rules and limits.
we have limited our kids’ social media.
the older 2 have accounts on various outlets, but we do have some very clear guidelines about how much time they spend on them, what kind of interactions we will allow and we do closely follow and monitor them.
No one is allowed to open an account on a platform without our approval. We literally have to approve every single app downloaded to their phones. Every app must get our thumb print or password before it can be added to a phone.
Some platforms are not approved. Snap Chat is not an approved social media platform, and our kids do not have accounts there.
our youngest has no social media. he just doesn’t care. he has some gaming things that he keeps track of, but the usual outlets, No.
It is not that we don’t trust them. It is not that we worry that they might be preyed upon. There are dangers out there. we make them aware of them just like we do so for all of the other dangers they may encounter in life.
It is not that we think we they will do something we don’t approve of. We are very clear what is acceptable and what is not. We don’t allow them to get involved in fights, say mean things, take part in drama, post things that can be construed negatively. We really make them think about what they are putting out into the world.
Be a good human.
Teenagers have this dumb brain syndrome thing. They do things that even they can’t explain. They say “ I don’t know” a lot. (I can say this with all confidence since I was one once). They just don’t think sometimes. And helping put up rules and restrictions can help eleviate some of the chances that this happens. Sometimes the consequences are too severe.
Noise.
We talk a lot about the Noise. Absorbing the Noise of the world.
I don’t mean noise like real literal noise. I mean the abstract noise of too much information in your brain. Taking in all of the things that people put out into the world on social media is a lot on a person. your brain needs room to breath. it needs space. head space.
There are a gazillion articles out there in the universe about people feeling overwhelmed of the perfect beauty of other people’s lives as seen on their social media accounts. Noise.
reading endless tweets of quips, opinions, observations, jokes, news. Noise.
What's worse is hearing about how humans treat others social media, absorbing all of that negativity in your head after reading that awful garbage? Totally Noise.
It’s all noise.
and limiting the noise is one of the most important things I can do for my kids.
giving their brains some space is so vital to their existence.
The greatest gift I can give my children is the gift of silence. they need room to grow. they need sleep. they need to shut off the noise.
Beyond the noise, there is the karma, the negativity, the energy or whatever you want or wish to call it. Hearing from my child that the response to another person's social media post was filled with hatred, suggestions to kill themselves and otherwise harmful provocations is incredibly appalling to me. I instantly cautioned my children to stay away from that awful negativity energy that people are putting into our already very sick world. Talk about Noise. This is the worse kind of Noise and that hateful energy is so toxic that I instantly want to shelter my whole family away from that.
Obligations.
Adding yourself to a social media account, following others, in the truest form of being a social media account, requires you to act, to be a part of the Community.
This sense of obligation to interact can be so overwhelming. especially when you're an introvert and you like to be alone or you think you don't fit in, and don't think that people understand you.
This was too much for one of our kids when she was first added to Facebook. When we gifted her that account a few years ago, she was so excited to try it out, this thing everyone else was doing. We, of course, gave her guidelines, rules, restrictions, advice and a watchful eye as she embarked upon this new outlet.
Within 6 weeks she was crying. It was too overwhelming. The need and obligation to comment on everyone's status, photos and other things; the need to post something of your own; to be witty, to be fun, to be unique, to be popular, to be beautiful. That was enough for her. She said that she didn't think this social media thing was for her.
All of that noise, all of that energy put into trying to figure out what to say on your social media account. Reading all of that stuff that other people post.
Noise.
Snap Chat.
This is one social media platform that we have not approved.
We make our kids do a Powerpoint presentation when they want something that we are iffy on, something they know the outcome is a probable NO. The Snap Chat power point is the only one that we have denied after receiving their presentation.
It is just not something we are going to allow.
Now, I have read some incredibly interesting articles on this one. I understand the coolness, the applications, the dangers, the benefits, all of the things. I had read really interesting perspectives where they say it’s actually more like how we are wired in our brains… to have short term access to information, like when we first had TV. You saw it once, and never saw it again. there was no DVRs, no recording, nothing. It was there and then it was gone.
Which is super interesting to me to consider.
But, I still won’t allow the app.
Which is kinda weird when I think about it. I am an internet marketing and social media expert. I did it for 15 years! I still said Nope to this one.
I am even kind of intrigued with the new Instagram stories for myself and my own account. I played around with it a bit and regularity check out what others are putting out there. I guess I do it for a different purpose though than the kids would do. I don't actually really follow anyone that I am close to. I have no idea what Jamie or Julie or Bailey are doing every single day. I am okay with that.
staying connected and informed.
I am not worried about them staying connected and informed. I am not worried about them not knowing what is going on in their worlds. I am not worried about the fact that everyone else is on Snap Chat and they are not.
They still know what is going on. they still find out.
They are still knowledgeable about the things happening around them. Gossip and stories are still told in the age old way of spoken words. and there is always texting.
I am not worried about them not being popular because they don’t have the app everyone else has.
It used to bother them that we had enforced these rules and not allowed them to have Snap Chat. They worried about not being cool and accepted into the community of other kids. They got over it. and at this point, I think they are okay with not knowing everything that is happening with other people. They’ve deciding not knowing is actually a benefit to them.
They appreciate the lack of Noise.
Futures.
As a former employer of humans, we knew that any future employer that our kids would have would be checking into their social media interactions.
as student-athletes with dreams of pursuing their sports into their futures, their social media account becomes a reflection of them. This is SO huge in college athletic recruitment.
Making sure that they understand what they do on social media directly impacts their futures in ways that they can’t even foresee at this point is incredibly important to us.
My job as their parent is to raise responsible humans that I will set free into the world. Considering their futures is something we talk a lot about. Always looking ahead. Live today, but don’t do things that will severely negatively impact your future.
With our oldest already off to college and well into her 18th year (almost 19) I am sure quite a bit of this changes. I don't think her feelings about social media will change, in the sense that it is overwhelming and it takes too much time from her very active journey. But as these kids get older and leave home and get to make their own choices, maybe they decide to add some of these social media platforms, maybe all gloves come off and they go right into the battlefronts of each of them and engage the world and the social media communities. Using them for businesses can be incredibly important, using them for personal lives is different. I hope we've given our kids a lot to think about when it comes to future engagement into that part of the world.