Our pod is focusing on the impacts of social media on youth and how to address this in the classroom. I watched the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, to gain insight into the inner-workings of social media platforms. It was rather distressing to learn about how psychologically engineered these platforms are to form addictions, especially considering the impact on younger, developing minds. I found the data about teen suicide, mental health, and self harm incredibly difficult to grapple wth in relation to social media. This is something educators are seeing every day, and it’s something I’ll have to deal with in my future classrooms.
Something I’m particularly interested in is how harm reduction can be practiced in relation to social media. Harm reduction is essentially the idea that people will engage in potentially harmful activities, and that there should be elements which work to protect from the most harm. Examples of this would be seatbelts in cars, helmets when biking, or providing clean needles to those who use drugs. We know that teenagers will use social media- but how can they engage in it with less of an impact on their well-being?
In our pods, we decided to track our own social media usage in order to better understand how we engage with social media and how it can impact us.
Last weekend, I spent all day doing something I love – cooking. I spent all day in the kitchen making a cake and homemade pizza. I listened to music I loved and interesting podcasts. When the day was over, I realized I barely spent any time on my phone and I noticed how good it made me feel. I don’t have any social media apps on my phone, meaning I have to either go on my computer or my phone’s web browser to access Instagram or Facebook. Even when I do check those sites, I find myself getting more and more bored with the content- I don’t actually care that much, and mostly use the apps to see what my friends in Winnipeg are up to. And on that note, I would much rather pick up the phone and talk to my friends back home over seeing an instagram story or post. I’m finding myself slowly gravitating away from social media and going towards things that make me feel happier and more fulfilled, like cooking, reading, knitting, and running. I feel that in order to be an effective educator, I need to model a healthy relationship with media to my students and encourage them to figure out what their passions and interests are outside of screen time.
