Social Media Is Just One Online Habit Hurting Teens

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Last spring, my tween was begging for more independence, starting with being allowed to walk home from school alone. The mile-plus walk involves crossing a few busy streets. I was hesitant; she doesn't have a phone, so she had no way to contact me if something went wrong. But we practiced a few times (with me trailing her a block behind) to be sure she was confident of the route and talked about what she would do in various scenarios.

Then, we allowed her to do something that some parents in our uber-connected era might find truly wild: roam free.

The chance of something happening to her is vanishingly low, but it still took a few days to shed my anxiety. I reminded myself that building her independence requires mutual trust — and that comes with accepting some risk.

And failing to give kids sufficient independence carries risks, too. That's a recurring theme of Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World, a new book by Devorah Heitner. There are downsides to constantly tracking our kids, whether that's using Find My Phone to keep tabs on their locations or following their performance at school through apps like ClassDojo or PowerSchool. Even monitoring teens' texts and perusing their social media accounts — as often suggested by parenting experts — can backfire.

“The culture of surveillance is shaping our children's sense of identity and independence — and impacting our mental health, our family's connectedness, and our ability to self-define in adulthood,” Heitner writes. “This impact starts as early as kindergarten.” This teaches our kids that it's normal to be constantly surveilled, she argues. Living in this digital panopticon can increase their anxiety.

And hard though it may be to admit, parental vigilance