Grounded in the media literacy principles we’ve taught for 16+ years in classrooms, the Social Media Driver’s License and Ready Set Screen are informed by our years of observing what is real, what is hype, and what is missing when it comes to helping teens and their parents develop healthy digital media habits.
That experience has led us to develop a set of tenets that guide the work we do, helping us create programs that drive connection, conversation, and improved mental health outcomes without relying on onerous rules and restrictions.
Here are 7 tenets that are core to everything we do.
1. The teen mental health crisis is real and urgent.
Suicide has become the second leading cause of death for 10-24 year olds in the United States. In other words, we need a solution now to improve teen mental health and prevent the next crisis. Today’s 13- year- old can’t wait 10 years for governments, corporations, schools, or healthcare systems to enforce or adopt healthier norms around kids’ use of smartphones and social media.
2. Media literacy is a crucial life skill.
Like financial literacy and reading/writing, media literacy is essential for us all as we try to handle being constantly immersed in “content”. This is particularly true for young adolescents. Well-executed media literacy education teaches kids what questions to ask about the media they encounter, as well as effective ways to think about their media environment. Those skills make it possible to fold social media and smartphones into their lives in a balanced and healthy way.
3. Research and expertise are valuable, but so is first-hand experience.
Emerging research is a great guide to uncovering the roots of the problems we’re facing. And partnering with parenting experts, mental health practitioners, researchers, and educators is critical to developing impactful programs. But we don’t stop there. We know that teens themselves know what teens need. So we bring them into our development process to make sure our programs are relevant, engaging, and effective.
4. There are good aspects of smartphones and social media.
It’s not all doom and gloom: Social media connects people, broadens our access to knowledge, and facilitates many social and practical aspects of modern life. This is why we take a balanced view of technologies and promote media literacy as a non-judgemental, proactive approach to combatting the downsides of smartphones and social media.
5. You have to be realistic and practical to make a sea change.
Idealism is great — until it doesn’t work. The truth is, kids are going to find ways to get online and explore. So rules and restrictions alone won’t work to protect them from the darker sides of digital media. In addition, it’s become clear that social media bans are not feasible. And in-school phone bans are useful at school, but gloss over all the out-of-school time kids spend on smartphones and social media. Acknowledging these realities is what led us to focus on media literacy as the most effective way to inoculate children against the potential harms of these platforms.
6. Parents and caregivers need to be able to work with their children, and for that they deserve compassion and trust.
Each child truly is an individual, with different aptitudes, personalities, and learning styles. Even more, parents know their kids best, and need to be the ones to decide when to broach the “big topics.” That’s why our approach is always non-judgmental, supportive, and realistic. We give kids guidance on how to deal with thorny issues (online predators, body comparison, exposure to porn) without directly exposing them to things they aren’t ready for or that their parents may wish to avoid for now. And we create opportunities (and tools) for parents to engage with their teens as they learn.
7. Kids and teens require independence and agency to become healthy and effective adults.
This is particularly true as they reach adolescence. That’s why we work to help young people (age-appropriately) self-manage their online experiences and develop their own digital wellness habits. This minimizes the need for rigid rules and restrictions that require intensive parental involvement, and enables children to grow into independent and successful adults.
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