Youth experts Dr. Hina Talib and Meta's Nicole Lopez fireside discussion

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

NICOLE:

I'm so excited to be joined by Dr. Hina Talib, a paediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist, writer, mum and creator for our Screen Smart series. On a personal note, as a mum to a tween, I also heavily rely on Dr. Talib for tips on how and when to broach tough conversations with my kiddo. She offers pragmatic and thoughtful guidance on parenting. She can be found at @teenhealthdoc on Instagram and her website, but I'm going to hand it over to her to introduce herself.

DR. TALIB:

And I'm excited to be speaking with you about youth and social media as I know you have an influential role in youth safety at Meta! Yes, I am an adolescent medicine specialist practising at Atria, a primary and preventive care institute in NYC. I am a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics and serve on their Council on Communications and Media. Many people have never heard of my paediatric subspeciality, adolescent medicine. It is my life's passion to care for teenagers and their families and my speciality gave me extra training in areas such as mental health, gynaecology, dermatology, sports medicine and digital wellness to help me help you meet the needs of teenagers today.

NICOLE:

What would you say to a parent who is unsure how to start a conversation with their teen about social media or screen time? How can they encourage an open, supportive dialogue within their families?

DR. TALIB:

I have found approaching this conversation with genuine curiosity and open-mindedness to be the most successful. Here are three tips on having these important conversations. Firstly, be curious and ask them to walk you through a day of how they use their technology, what apps or platforms they use, who are their favourite follows and why, and what games they might enjoy the most. Bonus, if you can even spend some time together looking at their accounts together and playing their favourite games with them. Secondly, let them be the one taking stock. Ask them, "How satisfied are you with your social media or phone use?" that's literally what I do when I see teens in my practice. I ask them what parts of using media make them feel good, connected and productive and what parts may feel otherwise.

And thirdly, try asking about their friends and how their friends are using social media. Get the tea! It's often easier to talk about friends than yourselves and in this same vein, be vulnerable and share with your teen how you are managing with the ups and downs of social media yourself too. Other backdoor ways into talking about social media is to not start by talking about social media. Instead, ask about their mental health, school, sports, sleep, headaches or other aspects of their life and weave in how social media might be helping or challenging them. Meta has resources on their Family Centre for starting these types of conversations.

NICOLE:

What positive effects does Instagram have on teens that you've seen? Are there ways for parents to help their teens find more content that makes them feel good?

DR. TALIB:

Instagram and other social media platforms can be great platforms to find community, connect with friends, learn new skills and express yourself. Many teens share with me that they "find my people'' online, and especially teens who are from historically marginalised communities. Teens who identify as LGBTQIA+ have shared how they found support, education and resources through social media. In the last few years especially, teens also talk about the mental health tools or coping skills they've learned online through platforms and people or organisations they follow, and even some health tips! Lastly, advocacy seems to be an area that teens also point to social media, as being a place to share ideas, and I just love their hope to make changes in their world as they see fit.

For parents, it's important to learn about the tools that the platforms offer to help their teen have a positive experience, because of course, it's not all positive experiences. For example, parents can help teens with their content recommendation settings, time management settings and can set up parental supervision if it's right for them.

NICOLE:

Most parents aren't going to wait until their teen's 13th birthday to start a conversation about positive online habits. What advice would you give to parents who are preparing for their children to join social media before they get there?

DR. TALIB:

From my experience, there is no set age where I would automatically suggest a teen to join social media, but of course all platforms have terms of service with age minimums that are an important guardrail. Similarly, social media is not a monolith; it is not one thing and it is not just Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. I look at the individual teen in front of me because there are so many factors with unique importance to each person. Most importantly I also consider or ask the parent's to consider the time and availability they have to help guide their teens when I am asked to counsel a family on the starting age of using social media.

Parents of younger kids are often surprised when I share that direct messaging, or iMessage, can carry some of the same considerations as social media. Youtube Kids and iPad or tablet games such as Minecraft and Roblox are also social media. So these conversations do need to start amongst parents of primary school children and I am living that right now as I have two children in primary school. It's also important that we start these conversations early so that our kids feel comfortable coming to us when they need support. Lastly, these conversations need to happen in our families, but also with the parents of children in your classroom or year group and with the teachers too. We have to have these conversations in the whole communities that kids are living in. This is one part that parents share as being particularly hard, as families have different values when it comes to devices and social media.

NICOLE:

I totally agree, and would add that our Family Centre also has education resources for how to talk to your teens about topics like this – for example, there's a great article from ParentZone on self-awareness and emotional regulation. What specific principles do you think about when telling teens themselves about how to engage with social media in a positive way? And/or, how should they think about talking to their parents about it?

DR. TALIB:

Here are my go-to principles. Firstly, try setting an intention or saying out loud why you are reaching for your phone. It could be that you want a 10-minute distraction, could be that you want to message three friends and it could be that you want to learn more about a cookie recipe. Just saying it out loud has power and you can reflect on that after you've put your phone down too.

Secondly, follow your feelings. Pay attention to how your time on social media makes you feel or how the people who you are interacting with make you feel. Notice if you feel energised, inspired or encouraged or depleted, lonely or hurt.

And thirdly, act, speak and share online like you would in real life. If you wouldn't say it to your grandparent or want it to end up in the news, don't say it online. This is because you never know where it goes, who sees it and what context it gets taken in. Be kind to yourself and others both in real life and online.

NICOLE:

Have you ever had tough conversations with your patients about something that has happened online? What did it look like?

DR. TALIB:

The conversations about what might have happened online that were emotional or challenging to navigate are the best tools to actually inspire a change in habit or give them permission to set boundaries with their use online. The best ideas on how to do this in my conversations with young people have come from them. They know themselves the best and come up with creative ways to right some wrongs or change a pattern of their use to align more with a life or health goal.

It is also so much easier for teens to talk about what their peers are facing online, than themselves. Start there and get the tea. It is captivating, sometimes heartbreaking and they need an outlet to talk about it.

NICOLE:

As one of our last audience questions, "Social media can cause comparison for me as an adult, how do I help my kids with comparison on social media?" Dr. Talib, any thoughts here?

DR. TALIB:

Comparison is the thief of joy, I believe Theodore Roosevelt said. Social comparison can affect self-esteem and teens are developmentally in a fragile phase of life where they take comments to heart and centre themselves more than at other phases. So how can we help them? We must do what we can to build up their self-esteem in real life as well as online and teach them to guard against those who don't bring them joy, make them feel respected and valued. Truly, this comes down to feeling like you matter. Fostering a feeling of mattering can be a powerful antidote to social comparison. I recently heard Jennifer Wallace, author of Never Enough, speak about this and it is so powerful. In small or large ways, we all need to show our teens and all teens that we interact with that they matter, they have skills, they have value and that they add something to this world.

I ask teens to interact with the content that makes you feel positive. De-friend December is a real thing, and it is good to unfollow people who do not serve you well. Similarly, I will often suggest to teens to turn off likes, restrict people if you don't want them to know you are no longer paying attention to them. Most importantly again is regularly checking in with your teens about all this.

NICOLE:

So we've covered A LOT, but what should parents take away from today's conversation?

DR. TALIB:

Social media looks different for everyone; teens have different needs at different ages and maturity levels. We need to really see and listen to our teens to best help guide them in their online lives. Have conversations with your teens about how they can have the right experience on social media and how they might get tripped up. Be vulnerable and understand that your relationship with social media is a model for your teens as well… this can go a long way in connecting on this topic. Many apps, like Instagram, have parental tools and default settings to help, but having conversations with your teen is the best way to help them have positive experiences with social media.

NICOLE:

Thank you so much, Dr. Talib. We know that there's so much more to dig into as the tech landscape continues to shift and we want to continue to support parents as families find the best ways to adapt and support each other.

DR. TALIB:

Thank you Nicole and to your team for your work to continue to make improvements and share resources to help us help teens.

To learn more about Meta and Instagram's tools and resources mentioned in this conversation, and for many more, take a look at the resources below.

Family Centre

Instagram parent's page and parent guide

Instagram safety site

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