Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
 Do you suffer from the “addicting” power of a smartphone? (Photo credit: Phil Roeder) Do you know where your smartphone is? Odds are that your teenager does. A new survey sponsored by Facebook and conducted by IDC shows that the majority of smartphone users in the 18-24 year old age group reach for their smartphone as soon as they wake up. For younger teens, the smartphone has become synonymous with their social life and while they might forget their homework or lose their keys, you can bet they know where their phone is all the time.
For a generation of parents who were likely adults before they even saw their first cell phone, watching their teens near constant typing, texting, and tweeting has become a cause for worry. Is there a line to be drawn that limits smartphone use? Is all this virtual interaction impeding the development of social skills they will need as adults? Has this generation shifted from avid users to addicts?
Unfortunately, the speed at which technology is changing our world makes it impossible to gauge the long term and sometimes even the short-term effects of these changes. The previous generation of parents had 30+ years to wonder about whether or not television was bad for kids before cable came along. Meanwhile today’s parents have watched the smartphone, Facebook, texting, tweeting, skyping, and gaming change everything about how their teens interact with each other and the world around them. When it comes to knowing what is best for our teens, it is easy to feel as if we are all strangers in a strange land.
If you are concerned about the time your teen spends interfacing with technology rather than interacting with face to face friends, there are some things you can do.
1. Look in the Mirror
What many parents don’t see is that they are modeling the very behavior that is causing them concern in their teenagers. If you can’t sit at the dinner table without checking your email, don’t expect your children to have better boundaries than you do.
2. Define the Line
There is a fine line between normal teenage smartphone use and addiction to smartphone use. Addictive behavior patterns are fairly standard, regardless of what you are addicted to. If you know what an addiction looks like, it will be easier for you to see where that fine line is so that you can give your teen the freedom to be a teen or get them help if that’s what they need.
3. Remember They are Not You
It can be hard for parents to grasp that the life their teen is living is vastly different from their own. The teens of the 70s, 80s, and 90s bought CDs at the mall, watched all the same shows on TV, and spent as much time as possible together without any parents around. Today’s teens have an entire virtual world to spend time together that is parent-free. They don’t need to spend Friday night at McDonald’s or meet up with their friends at the mall in order to spend time together and stay connected. They are always connected in a way us parents can only begin to comprehend.
The best things you can do as parents is provide a good example, set boundaries you believe in, and get help for your child if they need it.
Tags: Addiction, Adolescence, Android, Doorways, Doorways Arizona, Facebook, IDC, International Data Corporation, McDonald, Mobile phone, Phoenix, Phoenix Arizona, Smartphone, smartphone addiction
Posted in Communication, Relationships, Social Media | No Comments »
Monday, October 8th, 2012
October is National Bullying Prevention Month and the message of this year’s awareness campaign is “The End of Bullying Begins with Me.” This is a message that should resonate with everyone including parents, coaches, teachers, and teens. Most of us have had to deal with a bully at some point in our lives and therefore, we all know how damaging and lasting those kinds of interactions can be. This month you can make a difference in your family, your school, and your community by participating in activities geared towards raising awareness and empowering others to help put an end to bullying.
There are many ways you can take advantage of the national bullying campaign and do something to educate others, engage your peers, and encourage everyone to take the pledge to be part of the solution. Here are some great ways you can get involved and help spread the word that the end of bullying begins with each of us.
 Help bring an end to Bullying (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Run, Walk, Roll Against Bullying
This is a fun way to get everyone in your community involved. Communities around the country will be participating in this unique version of a “Walk-a-thon”. Participants help raise awareness about bullying while also raising money to support local anti-bullying programs. Most events are scheduled for October 6th this year and you can download a kit with all the information you need to plan your own Run, Walk, Roll event on the National Bullying Prevention Website.
Wear Orange for Unity Day
On October 10th, people across the country will be wearing orange as a way to raise awareness about bullying and the importance of preventing bullying behavior in all areas of our lives. Participate in Unity Day by donning orange or get more involved and organize some Unity Day activities at your school. Follow Unity Day on Facebook for ideas and information.
Sign the Petition
Stand-up for what you believe in by signing the online “The End of Bullying Begins with Me” petition. Take this a step further and encourage those around you to sign it too. If you are participating in or hosting an anti-bullying event, provide the means for other attendees to sign the petition too.
Speak Up
Ask local churches, groups, schools, and community organizations if you can come and speak to them about bullying. Sharing your story is one of the most powerful ways to spread awareness and help people understand the long term consequences and real-life impacts bullying behavior can cause. If your school is having an assembly, volunteer to speak. Talk to your school paper about writing a story or an article. Make a video and share it through social media.
Coordinate a Community Event
Bring your community together to celebrate unity and inclusiveness and cultivate a culture where bullying is non-existent. Whether you choose a fall festival, a street fair, a dance, or a rally, the most important thing is getting people together to raise awareness and encourage everyone to embrace the idea that the end of bullying begins with each of us.
Tags: Bullying, Children and Young People, Facebook, National Bullying Prevention Month, United States, Unity Day, Violence and Abuse, Youth
Posted in Communication, Relationships | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
 Teens use phones for far more than texting and talking today (image via flickr) The sight of a teenager with their attention focused on a smart phone, thumbs flying and oblivious to the rest of the world, is so common that it has already become a cliché. If you asked many parents what their teen is doing that requires so much thumb action, the likely answer would be “texting” and much of the time, they would be right. An average teen currently sends more than 60 text messages a day according to a study by Pew Research. But what many parents don’t understand is that as teens transition to smart phones, they are doing much more than texting. Here are some of the other things your teen is on their phone.
1. Listening to Music – Pandora
There are a wide range of apps that provide access to music on both primary smart phone platforms, but amongst teens, Pandora seems to be the top pick. The music service allows teens to create their own radio stations by selecting a certain musical group, genre, or song. Pandora than pulls together similar music to make a custom station. For teens, this provides easy access to new music all the time without incurring the costs associated with downloading music or purchasing CDs.
2. Taking and Making Pictures – Instagram
Instagram is the top photo editing app available for smart phones. Teens love it because they can edit the pictures they take with the cell phone – the primary method most of them use to document important moments in their lives – edit them, and then post them directly to the social network platform of their choice. It is a completely streamlined way of taking pictures, putting your own spin on them, and then sharing them with the world.
3. Playing with Their Friends – Zynga’s With Friends Games
This suite of games from Zynga, the company that made Facebook games a household phenomenon, has been popular with smart phone users of all ages right from the start. The “with friends” apps include:
- Words with Friends, which is similar to online scrabble
- Scramble with Friends, which is like a cross between Sudoku and a word search
- Hanging with Friends, which resembles a game of hangman
These games are fun in their own right, but the “with friends” part of each game is one of the main attractions for teens. Each game lets you challenge people from your social networks to play, enabling you to play very long distance rounds against people you could never play against in person. Additionally, because the games are turn based, teens can play when it works for their schedule and aren’t required to be actively playing at the same time as their opponent.
4. Watching…..Something – YouTube
Smart phones make it possible to access YouTube, Netflix, and many other content providers from anywhere which means your teen might be watching a new movie on Netflix, a funny cat video on YouTube, or an episode of their favorite television show.
Regardless of how your teen uses their smartphone, parents should set limits with the phones. Parents can simply monitor what their teen does on their phone by knowing what apps are loaded, how much they talk and text, as well as simply limiting how much and what times of the day teens are permitted to use them. Simply instituting the rule that there are no phones allowed at the dinner table can go far towards increased healthy communication with your teen. In this age where the world of entertainment can literally be at our fingertips, we need to remember that nothing can replace the value of face to face communication and interaction.
Related articles
Tags: Adolescence, Compact Disc, Facebook, Netflix, Pandora, Smartphone, YouTube, Zynga
Posted in Communication, Relationships, Teens | No Comments »
Monday, August 27th, 2012
 ‘Spice’ — a designer synthetic cannabinoid. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Keeping up with today’s teenagers is hard work. You would think that with cell phones, Facebook, email, voicemail, and Twitter, parents would have an easier time that ever knowing what their teens like, who their friends are, and what they are up to on their own time. Unfortunately, all this connectedness hasn’t really helped parents understand their teenagers any better than their parents understood them. Teens are trendy, parents generally are not. Teens are all about the next new thing, while parents move at a different pace. This can be the source of those infamous parent-teen power struggles but it can also create a dangerous communication gap between what parents think kids are doing and what teens are actually doing. There is no area where this problem is more serious than drug use.
For most of today’s parents, “drugs” means cocaine, heroin, marijuana, crack, and maybe ecstasy and meth. These were the primary drugs of their youth and they understand them. They know what to look out for, what the signs are, and when to get help. What they may not know, is what the list would include if you asked their teenager. To help parents understand the drug landscape of today, here are some of the drugs today’s teens are exposed to that may be new to parents.
Bath Salts
This synthetic drug which until recently was available to anyone over the counter, is unregulated, and can be deadly. Although this drug is called bath salts, it has no relationship to anything you put in your bathtub. It is a synthetic derivative of a stimulant called cathinone which affects the central nervous system. Sold in foil packages, Bath Salts are sniffed, snorted, swallowed, smoked, and injected. They are also known under a variety of street names like Bliss, Drone, Purple wave, White Knight, White Lightning, and Vanilla Sky. Bath Salts mimic the effects of cocaine and were included in the recent federal ban on designer drugs.
2C-E or Europa
This is your teenager’s version of Ecstasy and is a popular party drug. Effects are similar to those experienced when taking ecstasy and often include vivid hallucinations.
According to the CDC, marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug amongst teens. K2 and Spice are believed in be in second place. These synthetic drugs are made from a mixture of legal herbs that is laced with a synthetic cannabinoid and mimic the effects of marijuana. However, with K2 and Spice, the drug is more potent, remains in the body longer, and doesn’t show up in urine-based drug testing. Until the recent federal ban on these and other designer drugs, K2 and Spice could be legally purchased in many states and over the internet.
Pharming, Pilz, and Trail Mix
While not drugs, these terms, which describe the casual and often social use of prescription medication should be on every parents radar. Pilz is the teen term for any prescription medication taken for recreational use. Pharming means gathering and using “pilz” stolen from their homes and the homes of others. Trail Mix is something that may be found at parties and social events and is a combination of “pilz”.
Related articles
Tags: Adolescence, Bath salts, Designer drug, Facebook, Health, Ivory Wave, Recreational drug use, Synthetic cannabis
Posted in Substance Abuse | No Comments »
Monday, March 19th, 2012
 Do you know if your teen is being bullied? Image via Wikipedia It is on the news. It is on the web. It is in your child’s school. You know that bullying is a problem and are confident you could help your child if they were being bullied. You may be right; but the reality is, you might not even know that it’s happening. Studies have shown that although almost 50% of children are bullied at some point in their life, less than half of them will talk to their parents about what is happening. If the bullying is happening in cyberspace, that drops to 5% according to StopCyberBullying.org. In order to protect your child, you need to know what to watch for and when to step in and take a stand for your child while teaching them to stand up for themselves.
Here are 7 signs your child may be the victim of bullying.
1. They Stop Being Social
Tweens and teens are, by their very nature, social creatures. They have entered the part of their adolescence when the opinions of friends and peers become more important than those of their parents and families. If your formerly social teen suddenly stops spending hours on the phone, texting at dinner, posting everything to Facebook, or playing their favorite online game, you should take that as a big red flag. Watch for a suddenly shrinking social circle, unwillingness to participate in activities like dance classes, sports, youth groups, or extracurricular activities they have always enjoyed.
2. Acting Out at Home
When teens are unhappy, stressed, or struggling with issues they can’t fix, like being the victim of a bully, they often lash out at the people who love them like parents and siblings. This is a normal response called transference and is a red flag for parents. Pay attention if your teenager’s attitude toward family members radically changes and they start lashing out angrily at younger brothers and sisters or you.
3. Avoiding School or Other Places
Teens who suddenly resist going to school without any stated reason may be struggling with a bully. This holds true for other places as well, especially if it is a place where they generally spend time with their friends or other teens their age.
4. Grades Take a Nosedive
If your A and B student suddenly starts getting D’s and F’s, you may need to consider that they are being bullied before exacerbating the problem by getting angry, imposing punishments, or otherwise responding to the grades themselves.
5. Unexplained Illnesses
If your otherwise healthy teen suddenly seems to be sick with generalized, non-specific symptoms all the time, it can be a sign that they are being bullied. It is important to have them checked out by their pediatrician or family doctor in order to rule out any medical conditions, but if the doctor can’t find an underlying cause, it may be the stress of being bullied. Feeling unwell can also give teens a way to avoid going to events or interacting with people, which is another red flag.
6. Changes in Habits or Routines
If your child’s eating habits, sleeping habits, or other routines radically change overnight, it may be a red flag that they are being victimized by a bully. Teens may suddenly eat much more, stop eating, sleep all the time, have trouble sleeping, and/or experience nightmares as a result of being bullied.
7. Depressed, Hopeless, Suicidal
Teens who are being bullied can become very depressed and sad and express a feeling of hopelessness about the world and their lives. They may talk about suicide and blame themselves for things that are not their fault. While teenagers can be moody, wild shifts in mood accompanied by changes in outlook and attitude may be more than just hormones.
If you suspect your child is being bullied, talk to them, talk to their medical provider, talk to the school, and keep talking until you feel confident that your child’s well-being is not being endangered by another child’s bullying behavior. If bullying is confirmed, you will want to find a counselor who can also help you and your teen process the effects of bullying on their self esteem.
Tags: Adolescence, Bully, Child, Facebook, Parent, Red flag, Talk radio, Wikipedia
Posted in Communication, Relationships | No Comments »
Friday, September 2nd, 2011
How Social Media is Affecting our Teens-
Since computers starting coming into the home and video games left the arcade, parents have expressed concerns about how much is too much and how these virtual interfaces will impact the lives of our children over the long term. For years, the main concerns around overuse of electronic media have centered on physical activity levels, studying, and the effect of violent, sexist, and racist themes on young minds. Recently I was asked my thoughts on the impact things like Facebook, Twitter, and video games are having on today’s youth. My answers might surprise you.
One of the main problems that I see is an increase in teens and young adults with significant social anxiety problems that seem to stem from spending too much time interacting with a computer and not enough time interacting with actual people. This is especially pertinent for teens that are in the 12 to 15 year old range that are actively developing and refining the social skills that will help them throughout their lives. The more time a child spends in isolation posting on Facebook, playing Xbox, chatting online, texting, and watching YouTube videos, the less time they spend interacting with their peers and families. These real-world interactions are necessary for developing social skills, understanding social protocols, and building interpersonal relationships.
What Parents Should Look For
- Parents should trust their instincts and if they are concerned there might be a problem, seek the opinion of a professional.
- Parents also need to make the distinction between what is normal behavior and what is healthy behavior. Your son might spend 12 hours a day playing video games which seems normal when compared to his friends, but most health professionals would agree that even if it is normal, 12 hours of video game play in a day is definitely not healthy.
- Watch for resistance to social situations and avoidance of social interactions. If your child is having a significant emotional response to a situation that requires social interaction, there may be a social problem that needs to be addressed.
What Parents Can Do
- The most important step parents can take is to start young. Set expectations and ground rules about media use early in childhood which will help your child develop good habits as they grow into teenagers.
- Provide multiple social outlet opportunities for your children through church, community, sports, and educational activities. But, beware of over-scheduling; children need downtime too.
- Don’t accommodate their anxiety; it’s ok for them to be uncomfortable in social situations because they are learning how to manage those types of interactions. Giving in and allowing them to avoid socializing only reinforces the avoidance behaviors.
Tags: Adolescence, Facebook, Interpersonal relationship, Licensed Professional Counselor, Social anxiety, Social media, Social skill, twitter, Video game
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Few parents escape the teenage years without dealing with daily doses of drama that are an inescapable part of growing up. But how do you know when your teen is just being over-dramatic, when they are hurting but healthy, or when the drama is a sign of clinical depression?
Many teens today are dealing with the relationship drama that is part of being a teenager and mood difficulties can be the result of all the drama. Many teens are struggling because they find themselves in relationships, romantic or not, that they aren’t equipped to handle. Depression can result when a relationship fails or does not work out as they expected and the drama associated with sudden changes in relationships only complicates the situation.
Many teens find themselves in relationships that got too romantic too quickly, and not just in the physical sense. The end of a whirlwind relationship can be just as devastating if the connection wasn’t physical, if there was an emotional aspect, that’s enough. The emotional highpoints of a new relationship and the emotional drama experienced when the relationship suddenly disappears can lead teens to feelings of depression.
Social networking, online friendships, and electronic communications have also changed the rules of the teenage game. Unlike the teen years of their parents, today’s teens are hyper-connected to everyone they know, every minute of the day. Twenty years ago, a fight between two friends may have resulted in a flurry of phone calls and drawn in three or four other people. Today, that fight is played out on Facebook in front the entire school. We know as therapists that human beings are not designed to participate in a hundred relationships at the same time which is in essence what social networking sites like Facebook ask us to do. As a result of all of these relationships and the hyper-connected nature of their lives, teens today are bombarded with an exponential amount of relationship drama that is playing out like a television soap opera 24 hours a day.
The implied intimacy of knowing the thoughts, feelings, and everyday activities of the people in your life provides the façade of friendship where no real relationship exists. Many of these online friendships and relationships weren’t built the way real relationships need to be built in order to be sustained. Pair this with the fact that most people will say things to others online that they would never consider saying in person, and it is easy to understand why all this drama can drag our teenagers further into potential mood problems.
Even more concerning for the long term is how social networking impacts the skills teenagers need to develop in order to be able to handle relationships as they move into adulthood. Today there is a whole generation of people who have developed friendships online through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and chat, but these relationships are not the same as relationships that were formed and built in person. This group of teenagers doesn’t understand how to build real relationships and sustain them over time. As a result, when a real relationship comes into their life, they don’t know how to participate in it or how to take care of it, because the skills they need are missing. And when they lose that real relationship, they don’t know to handle the loss because it isn’t the same as having someone de-friend you on Facebook.
So what should parents do to help their child have healthy relationships and avoid relationship-caused mood problems?
- Encourage your teenager to get involved in extracurricular activities at school, church or other organizations. From participating in sports or youth groups or volunteering for a community organization, all of these live activities provide teens with important one-on-one interaction and the opportunity to develop relationships with people.
- Monitor computer and cell phone usage; set boundaries. I’ve heard some parents say that they insist that their kids share their passwords and give their parents 24 hour access to their social media accounts or text messages. While some might think this is extreme, as parents who are responsible for the well being and safety of our children, it might be a good idea.
- Have regular family time. Another family started a tradition when their children were young of going out to pizza as a family every Friday night. Often times they would invite friends of the kids. Even though the children are now teenagers, and one in college they still look forward to going to dinner as a family every Friday night when the can. The benefit was that the family and kids spent the time eating and having conversation, something they didn’t do when they were all running in different directions.
- Encourage your teen to go out with groups of friends instead of just dating one person exclusively.
Related article
Tags: Adolescence, Facebook, Health, Parent, twitter
Posted in Relationships, Social Media | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
 Image via CrunchBase
Since computers starting coming into the home and video games left the arcade, parents have expressed concerns about how much is too much and how these virtual interfaces will impact the lives of our children over the long term. For years, the main concerns around overuse of electronic media have centered on physical activity levels, studying, and the effect of violent, sexist, and racist themes on young minds. Recently I was asked my thoughts on the impact things like Facebook, Twitter, and video games are having on today’s youth. My answers might surprise you.
One of the main problems that I see is an increase in teens and young adults with significant social anxiety problems that seem to stem from spending too much time interacting with a computer and not enough time interacting with actual people. I call this “Social Phobia.” This is especially pertinent for teens that are in the 12 to 15 year old range that are actively developing and refining the social skills that will help them throughout their lives. The more time a child spends in isolation posting on Facebook, playing Xbox, chatting online, texting, and watching YouTube videos, the less time they spend interacting with their peers and families. These real-world interactions are necessary for developing social skills, understanding social protocols, and building interpersonal relationships.
What Parents Should Look For
- Parents should trust their instincts and if they are concerned there might be a problem, seek the opinion of a professional.
- Parents also need to make the distinction between what is normal behavior and what is healthy behavior. Your son might spend 12 hours a day playing video games which seems normal when compared to his friends, but most health professionals would agree that even if it is normal, 12 hours of video game play in a day is definitely not healthy.
- Watch for resistance to social situations and avoidance of social interactions. If your child is having a significant emotional response to a situation that requires social interaction, there may be a social problem that needs to be addressed.
What Parents Can Do
- The most important step parents can take is to start young. Set expectations and ground rules about media use early in childhood which will help your child develop good habits as they grow into teenagers.
- Provide multiple social outlet opportunities for your children through church, community, sports, and educational activities. But, beware of over-scheduling, children need downtime too.
- Don’t accommodate their anxiety; it’s ok for them to be uncomfortable in social situations because they are learning how to manage those types of interactions. Giving in and allowing them to avoid socializing only reinforces the avoidance behaviors.
Tags: Adolescence, anxiety, dating, depression, Facebook, Interpersonal relationship, parents, Social anxiety disorder, Social media, social phobia, teen relationships, twitter, Video game, YouTube
Posted in Social Media, Stress, Teens | No Comments »
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