Questions From Sapiens
Answering your questions about humans and tech
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6 min read
Hello! It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Spare batteries and wrapping paper bits are littering the floor, holiday cookies have become a breakfast food, we’re in the midst of our Tech Vacations, and we’ve lost track of what year it is1 (reminder: it is almost—gasp—2022). So why not do something a little different this week? Here are my answers to a few recent reader questions.
Welcome to the first installment of Questions from Sapiens!
Question #1: Should I feel guilty about using social media?
Guilt is an emotion, and all emotions serve a purpose. We tend to feel guilty when we’ve done something that goes against our values2. Guilt motivates us to apologize, to fix things, to make a bad thing we did better. It encourages us to change how we’re operating in the world, to reflect on our values and who we want to be.
If you’re feeling guilty during or after using social media, take a second to reflect: What about using social media feels “bad”? Chances are, there’s something happening when you use social media that conflicts with the kinds of things you want to do and the person you want to be.
Maybe you’re using it too much. This feels bad because you actually want to be doing other things (working, spending time with friends) instead. Maybe you’re reading people’s mind-shatteringly annoying tweets and it’s making you hate them. This feels bad because you consider yourself a nice person, and you don’t like hating people. Maybe you’re posting on Instagram, and then refreshing every few seconds to see whether people liked or commented on your post. This feels bad because you consider yourself a confident person who does not generally care what other people think. Or maybe you plan to spend a minute or two on TikTok, and then fall into a rabbit hole that spits you out two hours later with a sudden knowledge of the lyrics to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U” and a desire to get bangs. This feels bad because you consider yourself a person who is in control of their time, and who does not want bangs.
There’s no “should” in how you feel about using social media. But reflecting on why you feel the way you do can give you some insight into whether, and how, you might want to change your behavior.
Question #2: How do I stay on top of all the potential social media platforms my teen could be using?
It’s 10pm: Do you know where your children are [watching Noodle the pug videos]?
Let’s just be upfront about it: monitoring our kids is harder than it used to be. This is partially why I advocate that social media platforms give us more options to keep an eye on our kids online. Until that happens, we have a few options.
In a future post, I’ll talk more about ways to monitor what our kids are actually doing on their phones and online, and how to balance that with their (very real and important) need for privacy. For now, let’s focus on this more basic question: How do I know what apps my kid is using?
This is hard. I know. It seems like every week, some new social media app is released, and it’s designed specifically to poison our kids’ brains with viral dance videos, and all their friends are using it. But let’s start with the facts: the vast majority of teens are spending the vast majority of their social media time on just a few apps, and changes to the popularity ranking of these apps usually evolves over the course of years (not weeks).
Here they are, as of April 2021:
Teens’ favorite social platforms are: Snapchat (31%), Tiktok (30%), and Instagram (24%). Those three sites cover the favorites for 85% of teens. These are also the sites where teens are spending most of their social media time.
Of course, there may be cases where a new app or platform isn’t a teen’s favorite, or most used, but is still something they’re using and that you might be concerned about. Here are some suggestions for staying on top of this. You could use just one of these strategies, a few of them, or all, depending on your preference and your teen.
Ask. Once a month or so, ask your teen what apps they’re using the most. Ask whether there are any new ones they are trying out.
Have a rule. Make it clear that if your kid is going to download a new app, or create a log-in on a new platform, they need to ask you first.
Check out Common Sense Media’s App Reviews. There is a section for social networking sites, and it can be filtered by age appropriateness. Read the reviews to get a better sense of how the apps work and what risks and benefits may be present.
Sit down with your teen every few weeks and take a look at the apps they’ve downloaded or used. To see apps they’ve downloaded on iPhone: App Store→Account photo in the upper right→Purchased. On Android: Google Play Store→Menu→My Apps & Games. Ask them what they’re using each app for.
Family Pairing or Groups. On iPhone, set up “Family Pairing,” which allows you to pair your device to your child’s phone and enable “Ask to Buy.” This will send an automated notice to you each time your child wants to download a new app (free or paid). On Android, set up a “Family Group” and enable “Purchase Approvals.”
Try them out. Download your teens’ favorite apps onto your own phone, and give them a try. You can even have your teen give you a “demo” and teach you how to use them. Teens tend to like this, as it gives them an opportunity to revel in how incomprehensibly dumb their parents are.
Question #3: Should families require phone-free time?
Families are like their own little countries, each with their own cultures, customs, language3, and histories. For some, it may be perfectly normal to spend the last Wednesday of August throwing over-ripe tomatoes at one another. For others, chasing a 9-pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down a steep hill is customary. What works for one family does not necessarily work for all families.
So, as always, I’m hesitant to offer any shoulds or should nots for families across the board. I am not aware of any research on the efficacy of setting phone-free times in families (if anyone else is, please let me know!), so I think the best approach here is to do your own good, old-fashioned experiment.
Try setting a phone-free time in your family. Decide why you want to do it, and what kinds of activities you want to encourage instead. Test it out for a week or two, and see how it works. If you like it, keep going! If you don’t, tweak it, try something new, or simply abandon it altogether.
There are at least three broad categories you might use to structure your phone-free time:
By Location. Phone-free time will occur whenever family members are in a certain location (e.g., the family room, the bedroom, in the car, outdoors)
By Time of Day. Phone-free time will occur in the mornings before school, or evenings after 6pm, or during lunch-time.
By Activity. Phone-free time will occur whenever the family is engaged in a certain activity (e.g., dinner, hanging out on the couch, playing a game).
I’d also recommend a few things for maximizing the success of phone-free time.
First, everyone needs to follow it, all the time. This means you. If you know it’s going to impossible for you to put your phone down in the mornings because you’ll be getting pinged with emails and tempted to check them, do not make this a phone-free time. Your kids will likely be on high alert for deviations from the rule. A single I just need to check this one email from my colleague is no different, in their minds, from a single I just need to check this one text from my boyfriend. If it’s truly going to be “phone-free time,” the rule needs to be ironclad.
Second, get your teens’ input on phone-free times before setting them up. Many teens do report that they want to take breaks from their phone use, but they also feel significant pressure from friends, extracurricular groups, classmates, etc. to be available at certain times of day. Involve them in the planning process to make sure it’s feasible for everyone. If your teen states that absolutely no time of day or activity would work as a phone-free time, say something like: I know it’s really hard to figure this out, but it’s important to me that we do this as a family. If you had to pick one [time, activity, location] to be phone-free, what would it be? We can try it out for a week and if it’s not working, we can try something else.
Third, start small. As with any goal, it’s better to start small and achieve success, than to set your sights too high and get discouraged. You can always add more later. So, I would not recommend suddenly declaring the entire house a phone-free zone. Start with a single room, or a single activity, or time of day. Dinner-time tends to be a good place to start for many families. And sort out the details in advance. Where will everyone put their phones? Will they all be put on “silent,” or allowed to ring/vibrate? When will everyone know that phone-free time is over?
Question #4: How do I get more likes on my Instagram posts?
Sorry, can’t help you here.
Have a question? Reply directly to this email or find me on Twitter!
I have not quite lost track of the year, but I did lose track of the day, hence Techno Sapiens arriving in your inbox *~fashionably~* late this Monday morning.
Be aware, however, that it is possible for the guilt signal to misfire, and for us to feel guilty when, in fact, we’ve done nothing wrong. Guilt is justified only when we actually have done something that goes against our values. Those who, like me, were raised going to Catholic Sunday School may be familiar this important distinction. That’s why reflection is important. Listen to your guilt, but do not necessarily believe it.
When I was in college, I spent a few months living with a host family in a tiny town called Huanchaco, in Peru. I was woefully unprepared for the language barrier, speaking very little Spanish at the time. I had hoped that the full cultural immersion would cause the language to simply permeate my being, somehow naturally allowing me to become fluent. This did not happen. I still speak very little Spanish. I’m reminded of a dinner with my host family at the holidays, in which we all gathered around, eating roast chicken and potatoes, and my host mother asked—as far as I could tell—what my own family typically eats for the holidays. The family looked at me expectantly. I panicked. How do you say, it depends, but usually some kind of meat and nine varieties of Christmas cookies? I thought back to my Intro Spanish textbook. Ham is a thing people eat for Christmas, right? Jabón, I said. The family looked at each other, then stared back at me, simultaneously horrified and amused. A lively conversation ensued, of which I understood little. I later learned that jamón is the correct word for ham, and that I had, in fact, stated that my family enjoys a traditional holiday meal of soap. To each their own.
Very helpful! Thank you!