How to encourage healthier social media use for your tweens and teens

For many, logging off isn’t the answer, but scrolling smarter could be. Practical tips to help build balance between real life and reel life.

Since the introduction of social media, usage of these online platforms has grown exponentially. What once was simply a way to keep in touch with friends and family - no matter the distance - has now become something that teens and children are addicted to, with 52% of children feeling addicted to their screen.¹

As much as social media presents a series of positives including increased digital literacy, being able to provide a more worldly view and being able to keep in touch with friends and family, it also has its negatives and challenges. We conducted a study of nearly 25,000 parents and children around the world about smartphone and social media usage and found some alarming results. We found that 51% of children have been contacted online by strangers and 56% of kids said they had been insulted or made to feel small online.1 These finding show that smartphone and social media usage for teens, tweens and children is an unregulated space and come with risks.

Tips and tricks for healthier social media use

Many parents and teens don’t want to eliminate social media usage but encourage a healthier balance. Through our Better Phone Project sessions and HMD led independent studies¹ we were able to collate some great suggestions for parents wanting to help their teens/tweens to achieve balance between their real life and social media life:

1. Talk openly and talk early
2. Create digital boundaries
3. Focus on mental wellbeing
4. Build digital resilience
5. Offer meaningful alternatives
6. Model the behavior you’re instilling

Talk openly and talk early: Start the conversation before scrolling worsens

The pressure for teens to be online is at an all-time high as more and more people become social media obsessed. Whilst participating in the Better Phone Project, Emma Lembke, a Gen Z smartphone activist who also experienced the addictive and negative nature of social media usage first-hand said that she has had social media since the age of 12 and consistently downloaded more apps until she noticed the negative effects on her mental health.

Having an honest and open conversation about social media with your teen/tween can leave the floor open for further chats later and allow a more comfortable environment for your teen to confide in you if things go wrong. Whilst social media is great, it can be addictive and informing your teen/tween of the addictive nature as well as other risks of social media is important in order for them to be able to identify it themselves. For this, a great way to start the conversation is by encouraging curiosity, not control. Asking your teen “tell me more about this app, I’ve never heard of it” instead of “why are you on that again?”. Allowing your teen/tween to feel comfortable about online issues with you will encourage them to come forward if something negative were to occur, including bullying, being contacted by strangers or feeling as if their mental health is deteriorating.

Create digital boundaries: Help guide, not restrict

Creating digital guides and boundaries around social media screen time is important. We have previously discussed how to have open conversations about smartphone screen time, and you can read more about it here. Building a routine and sticking to it with your teen/tween will help set them up for success when limiting social media time.

Time limits on social media are just one part of the digital boundaries that need to be set. The upcoming HMD Fusion X1 allows for screen times to be set from the parent’s phone through the Xplora subscription, ensuring your teen sticks to their screen time commitment. Other boundaries that may make you feel more comfortable about your teen’s social media usage could include only allowing them to follow/be followed by people they know, having a private account and not posting their school or where they are in real time.

Focus on mental wellbeing: Encourage protecting the mind

Through the Better Phone Project, experts shared that the problem of social media isn’t as simple as “teen aren’t going outside anymore”, it is far deeper rooted than that. Multiple speakers throughout the sessions noted that smartphones and social media have caused increases in cases of mental illnesses, like depression, anxiety and eating disorders amongst teenagers.

Dr Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University shared: “You know, I had really never seen anything like it in my whole career that more teens were saying they felt lonely and left out, that they couldn't do anything right, and they didn't enjoy life. Clinical level depression doubled among teens in the US between 2011 and 2019… And we know from lots of research that the more hours a day a teen spends on social media, the more likely it is he or she is depressed. In some of the largest and best design studies. Those effects are pretty large, often that the heavy users of social media are about twice as likely to be depressed as the non-users or light users.”

Encouraging digital downtime can be a great way to help combat this. Taking a break from social media or only scrolling for an hour after school is a good way to ensure that teens aren’t over-indulging on social media. For when they are using social media, encourage your teen to follow uplifting creator, not creators who make them feel bad about themselves or post content that may not be appropriate.

Build digital resilience: Life outside of likes

Most social media thrive off short-form content and the ability to quickly scroll, keeping the user desperate for more and hanging on the app for longer, all while decreasing the user’s attention span. Professor Gloria Mark has dedicated her studies to the human attention span and has noticed how since the introduction of smartphones and social media that the average attention span has gone down to 75 seconds in 2012 and continued further down to 47 seconds in 2016, with the median attention span being 40 seconds. This much of a drop can be attributed, in part, to the growing popularity of social media platforms.

Social media is also a breeding ground for FOMO (fear of missing out) and negative comparison. With the pressure to constantly be online and be available as well as seeing all the possible things you’re missing out on (whether that be posted by friends or influencers), it can warp a teen’s perception of reality as well as provide unnecessary pressure in the formative years of their life. Dr Becky Foljambe, an NHS GP has noted a large increase in eating disorders due to the constant negative comparisons online.

To help combat this, build focus on intentional use of social media, set and intention like looking for outfit inspiration or checking up on your friends for an hour and then leave it alone. Once not using social media, you could help your teens exercise emotional resilience and set the standard of not being online all the time but using Do Not Disturb modes or Digital Detox modes on the smartphone.

Offer meaningful alternatives: Providing purposeful substitutes to social media

Reducing social media reliance and engaging in more balanced social media use is also affected by what we do offline. Encouraging teens/tweens to have meaningful alternatives to scrolling on social media can reduce boredom and therefore the need to pick up the smartphone and use social media. Some meaningful activities could include:

• Reading a book
• Trying a new hobby
• Meditating
• Playing a sport

You can also encourage shared experiences as a family. Whether it’s a tech-free board game night, a walk in the park, or volunteering together, these moments provide genuine connection and serve as a reminder that real-life interaction can be just as fulfilling as any online interaction.

Model the behavior you’re instilling: Showing is more impactful than telling

Teens and Tweens are still very much in their formative years, and as much as they may not like to admit it - what they see adults, especially parental figures doing, shapes a lot of their behavior. If you are glued to your phone and always on social media, your teens/tweens will see this as a normal behavior and will likely copy it without seeing an issues. Our research found that children are spending an average of 4.5hrs online everyday and are emulating adults who are on their devices for just as long (4.7hrs)¹

Professor Mark emphasizes that parents are the most impactful role models in a child's life and should live their digital life as an example for their children. This could mean, not going on your phone or device while having in person conversations or at all whiles with their child. It is important that you normalize the idea that social media is a great tool, but it is not a necessity.

Progress, Not Perfection

It is important to remember the initial goal of creating healthier social media habits, not removing social media all together. No parent, teen or tween will get it right 100% of the time, so celebrate the small wins (choosing family time instead of scrolling, logging off for extra time or trying a new activity), and be kind if either of you slip up.

As part of our commitment to supporting healthier digital habits, we recently introduced the HMD Fusion X1 a smartphone specifically designed with young users in mind. Created inspired by feedback from parents, the Fusion X1 includes key features that families value most, such as location tracking and the ability to manage access to any apps, including restricting social media access after certain time, helping your teens create healthier digital habits.

Instead of giving teens the full functionality of an adult smartphone from the start, the HMD Fusion X1 provides a more balanced and age-appropriate experience by allowing parents to have full control over introducing aspects at a pace that their individual teens are ready for. It prioritises safety while offering enough independence to help teens build responsible habits and gradually grow into confident digital users.