I'm taking off my teacher hat for a moment here and looking at this from a parent's perspective. This is not to say that the issues raised are not highly relevant to educators of adolescents - namely identity, safety, privacy and relationships. All images from Pixabay In an era where the intersection between youth culture and media is enormous, parents face a unique challenge: how to best protect and guide their children in the digital age. How to walk the line between supervision and respect for privacy. How to teach necessary skills and allow autonomy. How to embrace the benefits of social media whilst arming their children with the tools to navigate it safely. This question speaks to issues of youth culture, identity, safety, privacy and relationships. Navigating these murky waters is no mean feat for parents who in general terms, want the same things for their children: for them to be safe, and for them to develop sound decision-making skills as they creep ever closer to independence. Using these basic tenets as a framework for this investigation, this essay will examine the question of parental access to children’s social media, taking into consideration the purpose of these children having social media accounts, parental concerns surrounding their account use, the range of options available for monitoring children’s social media use, and likely outcomes of employing these options. Young people and social mediaIn 2019 youth pop culture is now fully immersed in digital technology. Since the advent of the viral social media platform MySpace in 2004 (Watkins, 2009), young people have flocked to social networking sites. A report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA, 2013) found that 92% of 10-11 year olds have used social media with this number rising to 99% of 16-17 year olds. While much public reporting about the effects of social media use highlights the potential pitfalls and dangers of its use (Johnson, 2005), platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Instagram boast member numbers in their billions (Statista, 2019), and young people report using these sites to connect with others, feel good about themselves (ACMA, 2013), feel validated, and increase their social status (Siegle, 2010). The age of adolescence is also a time at which young people are most actively engaged in the investigation and construction of their personal identities, which are sourced through interactions with both digital and non-digital sources (Hughes, Morrison & Thompson, 2016). Thus, social media is now a critical part of the fabric of our culture from which young people draw their sense of self (McGraw, 2017). The choices that they make regarding their use and engagement with social media are heavily influenced by their social groups (Siegle, 2010; McGraw, 2017), and their online friendships are critical in that they often work to create a relational, or ‘open-source’ identity which is dependent on online interactions (Larson, 2016). Indeed, the offline persona that may be presented to parents is often, although connected, different to adolescents' online identity which is in turn more carefully crafted as they experiment with ways of understanding and expressing themselves (Hughes et al., 2016). Thus, young people tend to view their online activity as both personal and private (Hessel, He & Dworkin, 2017). Young people’s resistance of adult intrusion into this personal space is evidenced by the continual evolution of social networking sites that tend to lose their appeal once they become more ‘mainstream’ and hence lose their ‘evasive pleasure’ (Fiske, 2010). As a result, parents often tend to feel on the outer of their children’s social media experience (Hawk, Becht & Branje, 2016) which can lead to anxiety about the potential influences, implications and safety of their online activities. The risks associated with social media use may well constitute the ‘moral panic’ of our time, with stories abounding about potential consequences for young people. And despite the fact that many lament the lack of promotion of the positive effects of media use (Johnson, 2005), there are established links between media use and a host of social, emotional and cognitive problems (Padilla-Walker, Coyne & Collier, 2015). As such, it would appear that parents’ concern about their children’s media use is warranted. What is unclear however, is how they should best manage this issue. One suggestion, and that which is being considered here, is that parents should have access to their children’s social media accounts. If ultimately, what parents desire is to keep their children safe, and encourage them to make positive independent choices, the value in adopting this approach must be considered, along with its alternatives. Thus, this paper will consider the implications of parents’ access to their children’s social media accounts both with and without their permission, as well as alternative monitoring practices. Parental access to children's social mediaCentral to the question of whether parents should have access to their children’s social media accounts, is the notion of privacy. As our children grow and mature, they slowly gain independence from us and manage their lives themselves. Throughout this process therefore, the boundaries and understandings around privacy are constantly evolving. Critically, during adolescence, as young people assert their desire for autonomy and independence (Bell, 2016), this is one arena that is often hotly contested, with young people and their parents frequently holding differing views about where the boundaries of privacy lie. Domain theory provides one way of understanding the privacy issues which surround the question of parents’ access to their children’s social media (Hessel et al., 2017). This theory holds that our lives are mentally organised into moral, prudential, conventional and personal issues and that tensions arise when there are perceived transgressions by parents into the personal domains of their children (Hessel et al., 2017). Importantly, research suggests that while adolescents and their parents generally agree that parents hold some sway over the moral, prudential and conventional domains, they view their online activities as part of their private domain, and as such, they resist intrusion into this space (Hawk et al., 2016). Whilst we know that parental monitoring of children’s media use can be effective in that it may mitigate some of its negative effects (Padilla-Walker et al., 2015), parents nevertheless must tread carefully as research also suggests that perceived invasions of privacy are linked to a range of negative outcomes for young people (Hawk et al., 2016). Another critical factor in trying to determine whether parents should have access to their children’s social media accounts is age. Although most social media platforms have a 13 year minimum age for joining, many young people sign up (often with their parents’ consent), well before this marker (ACMA, 2013). As adolescence is a time of significant change and development for young people in their feelings, their behaviours, their bodies, and their brains (Bell, 2016), it seems reasonable to suggest that what may work for one age group may not be suitable for another, and indeed the monitoring processes that are suggested here, have different implications for different stages of adolescence. So how do parents gain information and better understand their children’s social media use? Active monitoring assumes that parents should have access to their children’s accounts, but qualifies this by suggesting that parents and children use the platforms together. This approach is commonly used by parents of early adolescents as it is defined by a high degree of parental involvement (Padilla-Walker et al., 2015) which is unlikely to be welcomed by older adolescents. Children’s social media use in this case is guided by parents and their activity discussed and analysed in order to facilitate a better understanding of the implications and meanings of their actions (Siegle, 2010). Proponents of this approach argue that it works to develop children as more critical consumers of the messages and ideas that they encounter on social media, and in this way that it can ‘inoculate’ them to a degree against some of the potential dangers they may encounter (Padilla-Walker et al., 2015). Developing a conscious consumption of media may also be one of the advantages of using social media in this way, with it acting as a cognitive workout for our children (Johnson, 2005). Thus, allowing, but having access to our children’s social media in this scenario would appear to be both justified and beneficial with research pointing to added benefits of this approach including increased self-regulation and empathy which in turn may lead to more prosocial behaviour and less aggressive and externalising behaviour (Padilla-Walker et al., 2015). As mentioned however, having access to children’s social media and actively monitoring their accounts is an approach which becomes less viable as children get older because of their increasing sense of intrusion into an arena they perceive to be personal and private (Hawk et al., 2016). Unsurprisingly, as adolescents get older, their parents’ anxiety about the potential dangers they face online increases. It is during this time that accessing their children’s accounts without permission, or snooping, actually becomes more common (Hawk et al., 2016). This approach, while it may garner the information that parents desire, is highly contentious and perceived by most young people as a gross breach of trust. While there may be obvious evasive pleasure (Fiske, 2010) in the cultivation of a private identity online (Hughes et al., 2016), many young people also enjoy positive relationships with their parents and are willing to share information about their social media use and experiences. Importantly therefore, the unpredictability of snooping also fails to afford young people autonomy around disclosing information about their social media use (Hawk et al., 2016), which may only add to their sense of the inappropriateness of this behaviour. In addition, attempts to restrict use as a result of information gleaned by snooping, again through a sense of unreasonable intrusion into a private arena, have been linked to negative outcomes for young people, including depression (Hessel, et al., 2017). Obviously, allowing unfettered use of social media, and snooping behind young people's backs are not the only options available to parents. If parents choose to respect their adolescent’s privacy and decline to access their accounts, they may still be able to learn about their online activity through opening up dialogue with them. While, ultimately, it is adolescents themselves who are the “gatekeepers of parents’ knowledge” (Hawk et al., 2016 p 443) about their online activities, parents can encourage their children to disclose information and it is perhaps here that the benefits of positive relationships and, indeed, of active monitoring may be seen. Who initiates conversations about online activity appears to matter, with more positive outcomes being correlated with discussions led by children, than those led by their parents (Hessel et al., 2017). Therefore, though speculative, if open channels of communication are developed through active monitoring in the early stages of adolescence, young people may perhaps be more likely to continue to voluntarily disclose information to their parents as they get older. my musings...As a parent of young children on the cusp of entering the world of social media, this is an issue not only highly relevant, but also very important to me. As with many aspects of parenting, I feel anxious about adequately managing the task of gradually guiding my children towards independence, particularly as concerns their experiences and activity online. Providing guidance in the digital world is unique in that it may be the one area of parenting where many of us are not leading with the benefit of experience. Our unfamiliarity with many of the platforms that young people engage with is symptomatic of this issue. In this sense, I can empathise to a degree with those parents who choose to access their children’s social media accounts without their permission (Hawk et al., 2016). Particularly interesting to me however, is the indication that while parents generally prefer not to ‘snoop’, when they feel it is necessitated, they also perceive it to be more justifiable than do their children (Hawk et al., 2016). Perhaps this is because of a sense that adults are more realistically aware of the potential dangers of social media than their adolescents, and this justification comes from a place of perceived protection. Regardless of intention however, I have only to look to my youth to understand the intensity of the feelings of betrayal that I imagine young people feel when their parents transgress their privacy. I once threw away a diary I had kept rather than risk a well-intentioned, but curious, parent looking at it, so intense would the sense of a betrayal of trust have been. While this example may appear to differ from the issues of social media because they stand in a more public arena, the core issue to me is trust, and the critical need to maintain it. Equally important however, looking back also reminds me of the distinct and delicious pleasure as a teenager that came from deliberately breaking rules and defying expectations (Fiske, 2010). The pleasure of which now translates into fears around knowing that my children will feel exactly the same at some stage of their lives, with the added complexities of the digital world thrown into the mix. I am however reminded that this is nothing new and typical of the way each generation tends to feel about those following. In much the same way that young people in the days before social media worked to experiment with and cultivate their identity among friends and beyond the parental gaze, young people today perform versions of the same “identity-in-practice” online (Lemke, as cited in Larsen, 2016, p 23). The difference appears to be that today this performance is recorded (Siegle, 2011) and so parents have the ability to access this area of their children’s lives, which is nonetheless still perceived as private (Hessel, et al., 2017). Ultimately, I don’t feel that having the means justifies this intrusion. final thoughtsIf an understanding exists between parents and children that their social media accounts are private, my personal stance is that they should remain this way. This is despite my residual fear of the risk that increasingly sophisticated technology poses to their safety. What has resonated for me throughout this investigation is the importance of the maintenance of trust, which is something I feel can only be built through strong relationships between parents and their children. The development of open channels of communication throughout a child’s life, which manifest in an acceptance of active monitoring (Padilla-Walker et al., 2016) of their social media accounts appears to be both acceptable and beneficial for early adolescents. If in turn, active monitoring progresses towards the entrustment of social media accounts to young people who are armed with the ability to critically engage with what they see, and this is coupled with frequent and honest discussion, I would hope that parents would feel confident that this approach best adheres to their design to grow independent young people who are critical consumers of social media. referencesAustralian Communications and Media Authority (2013). Like, post, share: Young Australians’ experience of social media. Quantitative research report prepared for the ACMA. Retrieved from: https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/mediacomms/Report/pdf/Like-post-share-Young-Australians-experience-of-social-media-Quantitative-research-report.pdf?la=en
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About meI'm a teacher, student and advocate for better education through ongoing questioning, thinking and learning.
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