Many of the parents in the study discussed the idea of a child being ‘ready’ for social media. This often was not based on evidence and instead often coincided with significant moments such as birthdays or entering a new year level at school.
These significant moments appear to be similar to popular articles in the media suggesting this age makes a person ready for social media. Considering the other themes in our study emerging around how and why young people use social media, often this process is about parents acknowledging that the child will simply ‘need’ social media in order to keep up with their friends.
What is interesting in our study too is that while some parents had specific, set ideas about when they believed their child would be ready, often circumstances would change, meaning that changes and allowances had to be made.
While a newfound sense of confidence is sometimes attached to children moving into this more independent use of social apps existing peer-relationship the child already has can be challenged. Some of the children taking part in our study said that social app features like location sharing and the ability to choose who can see content added a level of anxiety for them.
Parent discussions with children about social media use tended to focus on safety however children were struggling and coming to terms with other elements that were important to them such as changes to their friendships. Children could feel pressure in terms of their own ‘performance’ on these apps. For some of the children, alongside this strong desire to feel included was a need to present a certain, consistent version of self. One of the main ways in which the child participants were able to do this was through the use of the streaks function on Snapchat and other apps.
Conversation tip: Talk to your child about features of social media app that they find useful and those that they don’t. A good place to start is to talk about the streak feature of Snapchat and whether they think it helps a friendship or not.