"Oh my god, did you see what Stacy posted last night!"
But your daughter missed it because "you didn't let her have an Instagram account!" It seems to me that such worries are well-founded. At best, she made the decision herself and still feels the pain of it.
Then they get to blame the parent. "I want to use social media but my lame parents won't let me." Then they're left out of some things, but they get to deflect that social stigma. I'm willing to accept being the lame parent. That ship sailed a long time ago.
> Then they're left out of some things, but they get to deflect that social stigma. I'm willing to accept being the lame parent.
I know this is anecdotal, but my experience doesn't show that pans out. I am on the older edge of the millennial cohort age-wise and had a very strict parent growing up who would not allow me access to TV, most movies, and contemporary music. Which meant I never listened to what my classmates did, wasn't familiar with their pop culture references, couldn't go with them to movies, sometimes had to sit out movies shown in class (!) and none of my classmates, all of whom picked up on it and most of whom bullied me for it, cared that it was my parents forcing the situation upon me.
Strangely, I was given unmonitered and unrestricted access to the pre-social media internet and used it to associate online mostly with adults and found it very rewarding re: my education & hobbies. Until smartphones became popular it made me a firm believer in this idea that "the internet is infinite knowledge" and "once everyone gets it we'll be infinitely smarter!" The idea of "crap, X broke let's research online how to fix it" has saved me a lifetime of hiring people for car or home repairs.
Anyway I am starting to go off topic but I am very skeptical of this idea that "my lame parent won't let me" means much when bullies latch on to "hey, little Jane/Johnny over there doesn't know what X is!"
I can see that, but also being out of the loop on social media is incredibly fleeting. If you haven't seen Star Wars you'll feel left out of some conversations, if you don't know about the long nose dog meme or whatever, just wait a week until no one remembers it anymore.
The "lame parent" is so much better than the "cool parent". I've got plenty of "cool parent" friends, and they all have one thing in common: their kids are assholes.
You're looking at it in isolation because you are not privy to the kids' social circle. What the gp is describing is a social cost imposed on the non-participant kid. If repeated often, this will lower their status within their social circle and (much like chickens) the least popular kids become the default target for emotional abuse and bullying. If they withdraw form their social circle to cut their losses, then they potentially become a general bullying target, because they are not part of a protective circle.
It's easy to be dismissive of these ideas, but there is an extensive and rigorous literature on network topology and dynamics. A good introduction with a strong quantitative/mathematical orientation is Social and Economic Networks by Matthew Jackson. Arguing on the basis of your own developmental experience in which significantly different conditions obtained (eg the non-existence/availability of social media or the internet) is equivalent to just wishing the problem away.
I'm a parent, and I was what you call a "non-participant" kid who was bullied when I was in junior high and high school. Here's the thing: School ends. It's a tiny part of one's life. I know, when you're in it, it feels like it takes forever, but once you graduate high school, nobody on earth gives a shit about where you were on the social totem pole. In the grand scheme of things, the cliques and social circles are entirely unimportant, and I plan to teach my kid that. Keep your eye on the prize. K-12 school is something you simply endure until you are an adult in the adult world.
I get what you're saying but we shouldn't escalate this into a type of prison gang situation, there's significant middle ground.
When the research is becoming clear that these dynamics and these years of a teen life cause so much harm, we can't be so fatalistic to say that giving in is mandatory.
Oh, I'm certainly not suggesting just giving in to it. But in contrast to the person I replied to, I think we should take teens' perspectives on their social cliques seriously, because even though the cliques don't have importance in society, they have impacts on those within, and our understanding of how cliques operate is surprisingly under-appreciated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary's_karate_club
Now combine the natural fact of cliques and fissures in small groups with the amplification/reinforcement effects that social media provides, and you can see the potential for acceleration/intensification of social stresses during formative years - like Mean Girls but potentially spread across the entire internet, or at least similar cohorts.
> But in contrast to the person I replied to, I think we should take teens' perspectives on their social cliques seriously
Of course I take teens' perspectives seriously. There really is no reason for you to personalize things in that way. You have talked about being accepting, yet you have consistently 100% dismissed the lived experiences of parents who disagree with your opinions.
I responded to your original comment of 'That's letting kids parent themselves' with an in-depth answer, and then you later went off on me in quite a sarcastic way. A very short comment like that doesn't give others very much to go by.
Kids setting their own bounaries and deciding what and when they can do literally is kids parenting themselves. Parents are more than just older people who ask kids what they want to do, tell them they are perfect, and give them money.
It's easy to be dismissive of these ideas, but there is an
extensive and rigorous literature on network topology and
dynamics.
Parenting through rigorous literature on network topology and dynamics?
Arguing on the basis of your own developmental experience
in which significantly different conditions obtained (eg
the non-existence/availability of social media or the
internet) is equivalent to just wishing the problem away.
Actually, it was a description of having fixed the problem, because it wasn't as much of a problem as people believe beforehand through network topology that simulates k-12 social circles. When parents love their children, talk to them, are privy to their kids' social circles, and make decisions in the best welfare of their children, those children are able to recover from the intense loss of missing what Stacy posted last night.
The problem comes down to putting kids in forced confinement with a bunch of other kids for 6 hours a day with no way for them to escape. Mandatory "education" of teens is harmful on the net. It wastes some of the most energetic and productive hours of life while teaching very few useful skills (and those could be taught in a fraction of the time).
To parent means to raise and nurture a child from infancy to adulthood,
providing them with love, care, guidance, and support as they grow and
develop. Parenting involves a wide range of responsibilities and
activities, including providing for a child's physical needs, such as
food, shelter, and medical care, as well as their emotional and
psychological needs, such as love, affection, and encouragement.
Effective parenting also involves setting boundaries and rules, providing
discipline when necessary, and teaching children important life skills,
such as communication, problem-solving, and decision-making. As children
grow and mature, parents often adjust their parenting style to meet their
children's changing needs and help them develop into independent and
responsible adults.
Problems are problems. On the one hand, you find out stuff yourself. On the other hand, sharing with your peers(parents) and getting info from them can help an enormous amount too. shrug
Parenting is by far the most difficult, stressful thing I've ever undertaken. My kids are mostly not too difficult, but they're very different nonetheless. My son is Mr. Compliant and is exactly the kind of kid that makes people think they must be rockstar parents. My daughter, on the other hand, routinely makes me feel like an ineffectual failure at parenting. I love her more than anything in the world, but she might well be costing me a few years of lifespan :).
One major problem, at least from my perspective, is managing the transfer of responsibility as a child progresses from toddler to adult. It's not like you throw them the keys at 18 and say 'good luck!'. So there is ongoing give-and-take, rules, negotiations, and extending trust. My kids are 10 and 12, which is an exciting time for sure. Puberty is a wild ride whether you're the victim or not :)
Haven't let her get a smartphone yet, but this is an ongoing battle. Because when she says 'but all my friends do!' she's not lying. I have to temper my fears and try to remember what it's like to be a kid. As an adult I had largely forgotten what it was like in middle school.
> Parenting is by far the most difficult, stressful thing I've ever undertaken.
From my observations, I don't think this can be overstated, at least from an American perspective. It is easily the single largest factor in my decision-making on this topic, and seems to be something which many people underestimate.
Not all 12 year olds are in a single social group. If one is being left out because they don't have an instagram account, there's another social group they can gravitate to that has other interests besides instagram posts.
Most likely there is in nicer schools. There are social groups around swim competitive clubs, ski race teams, hockey teams, ball hockey, summer long duration live in camps etc.
In many ways hanging out with kids who are banned from social media is hanging out with kids from a pretty exclusive club. This is why unless you homeschool it is REALLY worth it to put your kids into school where parents are from a similar group as you are.
I have a daughter who's 11 years of age and has plenty of friends at school. She doesn't have an instagram account and hasn't asked me to get her a device so that she's able to create an account and log on. So I really doubt there aren't social groups in school and other settings where instagram isn't a primary focus.
Do they? Is social media being used in morning classes to plan lunch? Will a socially isolated student even have friends? I haven't been in school for many years so I don't know the social dynamic but it isn't hard to imagine.
Do you really think kids are “planning lunch” over social media, when they sit at the same tables every day? And the cafeteria is providing it? Sounds like you’re grasping at straws to make it seem relevant.
The kids here communicate via imessage and rarely during class.
When I was in school, kids whose parents chose not to expose them to cable TV were ostracized. I can imagine something similar happening today with social media.
I definitely felt left out not having an N64 or Playstation growing up, but in hindsight I didn't actually miss much. What stings at the time is the feeling that you're missing out.
