By Taylor Decuir
Teens are desperate to stay connected to their friends during the COVID-19 pandemic. A study of 1,316 Canadian teens measured their loneliness, depression, fear of COVID-19, social media use, and exercise (Ellis et al., 2020). Forty-three percent of teens admitted to feeling anxious about the pandemic. Forty-eight percent of teens revealed they used using social media for more than five hours. Parents can help by talking to teens about balanced social media use and setting aside family time. It can be tempting to over-rely on social media to manage pandemic stress, but teens need their parents’ help with unplugging.
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Hey Taylor! I really enjoyed this blog because I agree that family is so important during this pandemic. There have been so many family members that I grew up seeing all the time that now I haven't seen in over a year. Finally getting to see some of them has been so much more joyful than any amount of social media I have used. Also, nearly half of adolescents using social media for over 5 hours is insane! I'm so glad you focused on the importance of family and great post!
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ReplyDeleteHey Taylor! I can agree with you on the fact that parents can help their teens by talking to them about balancing their social media time and the time spent with their families. I can defiantly see how since the Covid-19 lockdowns came into play, social media is much more of a temptation but it is an important thing to remember that spending time with family is very healthy and good for our mental health.
- Presley Cicero
Hey Taylor! I really liked your post! My sister and I at the beginning of quarantine would always be on our phone until we noticed we kept getting headaches so what we did was put a screen time limit on our phones. She knew the password to my screen time limit and I knew her password. We had to go outside and play and do other things as soon as our screen time reached it’s limit.
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