As parents, we are painfully aware of the many dangers facing children in our world. And while we don’t want to live in fear, or seek to wrap our kids in bubble wrap, unintentionally stifling their maturation, we need to recognize that not all risks are immediately visible.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and a good time to reflect on this problem. The last two years have seen an increased reliance on technology — for school and social connection. Social media in its various forms have helped keep kids connected during COVID-19 lockdowns and after. But this comes with a cost.
There is a growing body of research that social media, while useful at times, can also have risks. Multiple studies have detected a connection between heavy social media use and higher rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness and suicidal thoughts for teenagers. Instagram, in particular, is reported to have a detrimental impact on teen girls, particularly in terms of body image.
Research conducted by Facebook, which owns Instagram, found that nearly a third of teenage girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, engaging on Instagram made them feel worse. Additionally, 25 percent of teenagers surveyed who believed themselves to be “not good enough” reported that belief originated during their time on Instagram. This was the result of teens looking at images of others, and comparing themselves, their bodies and their lives unfavorably.
Beyond unintended negative effects of online engagement, teens can also experience active harassment. Approximately one in 10 teenagers reports that they have been the victim of direct cyberbullying on social media, and many more have been subjected to offensive content.
Sites such as Discord, a messaging app, are lightly monitored and children who roam the site freely can be exposed to indecent language or pornographic images. Online games designed for children, including player-interactive capabilities, can attract predators who pretend to be teen peers. These online predators can engage in grooming, manipulating and blackmailing children into providing sexually explicit pictures of themselves. If a teen sends an explicit picture to the predator pretending to be a peer, this can be used as leverage, threatening to send the picture to the teen’s friends or school if they do not send more pictures of an increasingly graphic nature. These teens feel trapped and ashamed, and often, their parents are unaware this is occurring.
For generations, parents have given one crucial rule to their children — don’t talk to strangers. With current technologies, children run the risk of interacting with strangers, not in public, but in our own homes. Parents can mitigate these risks by having frequent conversations with their children about their online activities and with whom they engage. If children understand how to safely make use of technology, while also knowing to bring any concerns or uncomfortable interactions to their parents immediately, they can avoid falling in with those who would take advantage of them.
Horne is director of clinical services for diocesan Catholic Charities.
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