Sometimes things happen in life that make you stop and take stock of who your “real” friends are. Like when I feel anxious and I call my friends to give me some moral support. If I need a hand with a ride somewhere for the kids, I call on my local parent crew. If I want to vent about the latest parenting issue, I might post on Facebook and get some reactions from my contacts around the world.
Robin Dunbar, a University of Oxford anthropologist and psychologist, studied social networks and brains, and proposed that people can typically handle a certain sized social network, ranging from five people you would consider “confidants” to about 150 that may be in your “social group”. Subsets of “friends” and “close friends” exist in between.
But how do social media networks change that picture? I have 777 Twitter followers and 4300 Facebook friends, and some of those are connected to my work on Screenagers. My daughter Tessa counts about 1000 among her followers on Instagram. There are apps you can get to boost your Instagram follower numbers and increase your Facebook “likes”. So, just how important are these numbers? And how significant are these connections?
May 2, 2016
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
Sometimes things happen in life that make you stop and take stock of who your “real” friends are. Like when I feel anxious and I call my friends to give me some moral support. If I need a hand with a ride somewhere for the kids, I call on my local parent crew. If I want to vent about the latest parenting issue, I might post on Facebook and get some reactions from my contacts around the world.
Robin Dunbar, a University of Oxford anthropologist and psychologist, studied social networks and brains, and proposed that people can typically handle a certain sized social network, ranging from five people you would consider “confidants” to about 150 that may be in your “social group”. Subsets of “friends” and “close friends” exist in between.
But how do social media networks change that picture? I have 777 Twitter followers and 4300 Facebook friends, and some of those are connected to my work on Screenagers. My daughter Tessa counts about 1000 among her followers on Instagram. There are apps you can get to boost your Instagram follower numbers and increase your Facebook “likes”. So, just how important are these numbers? And how significant are these connections?
May 2, 2016
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
A growing concern I have is how young girls, some as young as 7 or 8, are becoming fixated on beauty products. In Screenagers Elementary School Age Edition, we show clips of elementary-aged girls talking excitedly about their favorite skin and makeup items. In today's blog I look at how this beauty obsession is reaching younger ages, fueled by pervasive beauty ideals on social media.
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Ever hop on social media to escape boredom, only to feel even more drained afterward? Teens know this feeling all too well. A college student recently told me how frustrated she is by the habit: “I turn to Instagram out of boredom, and it ends up just making the day feel emptier.” This week’s blog dives into a powerful insight from Dr. Katie Davis, a leading researcher on teens and tech, who calls this pattern “boredom in, boredom out.”
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If ever there was a time to talk about the topic of TikTok with our kids and students, now is it. Yes, it happened. Saturday, the TikTok app went dark in the US, a day after the ban approved by Congress was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Then, by Sunday, it returned. In today's Tech Talk Tuesday, I am providing questions you can use to discuss this with kids and teens.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
