When I made my social media exit public two weeks ago, I promised you that I would give my reasons for quitting and I listed the following topics:
Time & Attention
Parenting
Profit, Privacy, Provocation
Misinformation
The Soul’s Price
What I’ll Miss the Most
To kick us off, I thought I’d talk about the one that is the most tender to me: Parenting, social media, and my relationship with my kids.
The Problem(s):
This is really vulnerable and honest to admit, so I apologize if it comes out a little clunky.
At the root, I realized that I was putting a lot of my own personal worth and validation on the successes and narrative of my kids. That’s the honest truth. When my kids did well — whether they got straight A’s or they were on the top of an athletic podium — it made me feel like I was good, too. If they struggled or didn’t do their best, it made me feel like maybe I wasn’t that good of a person or parent.
It wasn’t an obvious thing, so it manifested itself in some covert ways that were harder to catch. Often times, when we see parents project their own lack of self worth onto their kids, we see it play out in dramatic fashion, the “Stage Parent,” the one who is yelling at their kids on the sideline, ripping into coaches, or demanding an unreachable standard of perfection. Kids end up feeling like they have to earn their parents’ love and it can become a spiral.
I wasn’t the yelling parent on the sideline, but I was absolutely the parent who splashed those successes all over social media.
(Now, before you get your hackles up, please hear me — I’m talking about ME. My choices are not reflection of YOU.)
You might be wondering, can’t you talk about how proud you are of your kid? Is that so bad? Of course it’s not bad! I’m my kids’ BIGGEST FAN. I am embarrassingly proud of them every single day and they are never not a marvel to me. However, this went deeper and I knew it. Could I just be proud of my kid? Did I have to put it on social media for nearly 10,000 people to see? Who did that serve and to what end? My kids don’t even have social media, so it’s not like I was cheering them on in a way that would encourage Rowan and Scout. No, I posted to encourage ME.
Needing or wanting the encouragement isn’t bad either, we all need it and it’s wonderful to receive. But more questions surfaced: Where am I seeking the encouragement? From who? For what reason? This pokes at a lot of the fundamental problems of social media that we’re all talking about these days — the addictive nature of the positive feedback loop, the scrolling, the comparison, mental health, etc. If I needed some validation that I’m doing okay as a parent, why would I go to social media, rather than go to my closest friends who know & love me and my kids? Why would I not reach out to those who could give me that encouragement in a more meaningful way?
Long gone are the simple methods of having pride in your kid, like the “My child is a Pleasantville Middle School Honor Roll Student!” bumper stickers. We’re in a different world now. It’s not like people would stop behind you at traffic lights, get out of their car, and run to your window to give you a high five for your bumper sticker.
We now have one of the most powerful, addictive, and instantaneous feedback loops ever created in social media. Post a brag & photo about the kid, get the likes & comments, creating a dopamine hit reaction, keep checking for that validation, crave more, post again. Before you know it, the urge to post and receive that validation is wrapped up in the successes of your kids. We’re so enmeshed in the system of post & praise when it comes to our children on social media, we don’t stop to think about what this is doing to our ability to be healthy parents. I can only speak for me and after years of being in the feedback loop, it was difficult to just be a parent who loves their kid and is proud of their hard work or accomplishments.
That was the root. And if unhealthy attachment to my kid’s successes was the root, the inevitable byproduct is a crushing sense of comparison. Not only are you subject to the feedback loop, you’re also scrolling through post after post, many of which are about other children. Never mind that every kid is unique with a different set of gifts and challenges. Never mind that every family has different values and passions. None of it matters when your own personal validation is wrapped up in the posting and praising of your kids.
When I would see the success of other kids, it would make me question whether I was a good enough parent. An awful feeling to experience over and over again, subjecting yourself to this kind of judgment & being unable to stop. When it came to parenting, it got pretty dark in my own soul & how I viewed other people, and I knew I needed to quit for that reason alone. It reminded me of something I read recently:
“How can you find happiness without authentic self-esteem? How can you be authentic when everything you read, say, or do is being fed into a judgment machine?”
― Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
But, there were other more practical reasons to quit. My kids have spent a LOT of their lives seeing me staring at a screen, engaged in a world to which they don’t have access, a whole world in which they aren’t a part. The people I follow aren’t people they know, the things that would make me happy or upset aren’t things they could see, the discussions that were important aren’t discussions they could ask about. It created this invisible barrier between myself and my kids and I chose to sit behind it a LOT.
Not only were my kids seeing me behind a screen, I was missing time with them. Listen, it’s not like if I quit social media all of that extra time would be filled with magical, deep, meaningful conversations with my children. But maybe if I wasn’t scrolling and I became more present to them, I would catch those moments more frequently. I know it sounds cliche, but the thing about cliche’s is there’s some truth to them: The days might be long, but the years are short. I cried on Rowan’s 13th birthday, out of both pride and longing. I want to stretch time a little longer, linger on these sweet years of being young and sweet. It’s going SO fast, and I don’t want to lose any more of it to a social media addiction.
I also felt like I was asking something of my children that I couldn’t reciprocate. We have expectations around screens in our family (loose ones, but expectations all the same), and here I was, blowing past every expectation because I was addicted to my phone and social media. How on earth was I supposed to train and support my kids about phone use and screen time if my own behavior & phone use is completely out of control? Multiple times, I would ask one of the kids to turn off the Nintendo or the TV, and they would look at me and say, “Well, you’re on your phone?” Touche, tiny human. Also, ouch. I’m a big believer of leading by example, by bringing people along with you rather than dictating from on high, even as a parent (as much as possible). Nothing I was doing around my own social media use and screen time reflected those values.
Finally, I struggle with my kids having a digital footprint before they’re old enough to dictate that for themselves. I’ve talked about this before, and there are nuances and complexities to this. Parenting is not an island, and it’s hard to talk about or share my experiences as a mother without my kids being a part of the picture, but it still concerns me. I can’t go back and change what I have shared and written, but I can change it moving forward, especially as we’re entering into the tender preteen and teen years. Just yesterday, Scout told me that she was able to Google herself at school. She had more search results about her and our family than any other kid in the class. When I asked her how that felt, she replied, “It was a little weird, to be honest, Mom. Everyone can see me.” This isn’t a new conversation in our house — a few years ago, my kids and I agreed that I would ask their permission before posting anything about them on the internet. I held true to that, but it’s still a concern, especially now that they’re getting older and they’re starting to internalize what all of this really means.
Anyway, I don’t know if any of this is helpful to you, wherever you might find yourself in your parenting journey. I do want to take a second to affirm you, to encourage you to remember that we’re all doing the best we can with what we’re given. What works for one person might not work for someone else, and that’s okay! When it came to who I was as a parent and how social media was shaping me as a mother, I needed to make a drastic change. Parenting is hard enough on its own, I don’t need to subject myself to anything that just makes it harder and more complicated. So, I pulled the plug.
I’m so glad I did.
Some resources that helped inform my perspective of technology, social media, and family life:
Books:
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier
The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch
Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World by Devorah Heitner
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood—and What That Means for the Rest of Us by Jean Twenge
Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World by Ana Homayoun
Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids – and How to Break the Trance by Nicholas Kardaras
Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
Screen Time/Teen Tech Organizations:
Wait Until 8th — National nonprofit organization that promotes a family pledge to wait until 8th grade to give a child a smart phone. Complete with resources, digital training, and device ideas.
Screen Sanity — National nonprofit organization helping families pursue digital health, so that kids grow up captivated by life, not screens.
Better Screen Time — helping parents learn positive strategies to help your family know when and how to make that transition without letting screen time take center stage.
Common Sense Media — App Reviews and Tech Recommendations for Families
Case Studies and Reports:
Pew Research Center Study — Parenting Children in the Age of Screens
National Library of Health — Smartphones, social media use, and youth mental health
“Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show” — Wall Street Journal
“What Is the Right Age for a Kid to Get a Cellphone?” — Education Week
“Is Your Child a Phone Addict?” — The New York Times
"…engaged in a world to which they don’t have access, a whole world in which they aren’t a part. The people I follow aren’t people they know,…"
My girls' constantly see me looking at or reacting to a reel on IG and ask who that is. I feel embarrassed when I have to answer, I don't know, just someone on IG. I don't really know them, it's not produced content so-to-speak, it's someone somewhere obsolete from our lives, yet I'm investing my time and attention in it. Uffda…
Yes! Yes! Yes, to all of this.