“When do you think kids should have access to social media?” a parent recently asked during a workshop. Before she could help herself, another parent nearby responded quietly, “When they are twenty-five.” Another parent chimed in more confidently, “Never.” This sparked knowing laughter from the entire crowd.

It turns out that both of these parents’ teens were on social media, so their remarks weren’t meant to reflect their actual parenting decisions. Our impulse is often to keep kids off these platforms for as long as possible. Yet in the context of real life we tend to open the gates much sooner. 

Last week, the Surgeon General of the United States reinforced that impulse to hold back the tide. He shared his opinion that despite platform age guidelines, he thinks 13 is too young to use social media. He reasons that in early adolescence, 

“Kids are developing their identity, their sense of self. it’s a time where it is really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and relationships. The skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children.” 

He goes on to explain that we are putting young people into an unfair contest of will against designers whose primary goal is to maximize time spent on their apps. For any of us who have tried to cut back on our own social media usage, we know that powerful persuasive design features make this a challenging task even for fully developed adult brains. 

How should we respond?

Now that the Surgeon General has shared his opinion, we should proceed thoughtfully with his commentary. If we skip the context and nuance the Surgeon General does provide, these kinds of warnings for tweens can lead parents down two fairly destructive paths:

→ Catastrophize. “See! I knew social media was the cause of all harm.”

→ Control. “My job now is to control and confiscate for as long as humanly possible.” 

These strategies, like the platforms we are trying to protect them from, aren’t evidence-based and don’t meet our kids’ developmental needs. Early adolescence is a time of exploration, social learning, and growing independence. More control and rigid protection is at odds with this stage of development. Tweens absolutely benefit from firm and consistent boundaries. But that can’t be the only tool in our toolkit. So where do we go from here? 

While we do see that young people can benefit in key ways from digital activities, it is most often in spite of how they are designed, not because of it.

Amplified risks and rewards: The teen brain online

The reality is that early adolescence is a time of both vulnerability and opportunity. This is because young people have one foot in childhood and one foot in adolescence. This shift brings with it all kinds of new developmental changes, including:

• Increased exploration and risk taking.
• Increased sensitivity to stress and support. 
• Increased sensitivity to the opinions of peers. 
• Increased sensitivity to rewards. 

It doesn’t take much to connect the dots and see that some of the specific design attributes of social media intersect with these developmental changes in ways that can both help and hurt wellbeing. This may also differ from adolescent to adolescent. Online risks often mirror offline vulnerabilities. 

For example, we know that young people who are struggling emotionally are more sensitive to negative experiences online. And these same teens benefit more from online social support than their peers. 

Similarly, evidence shows that tween girls might be uniquely vulnerable to social comparison and the influence of online content on body image. And we know that connecting with peers online can be a meaningful way for them to extend and deepen the friendships that are protective for their mental health. 

Tweens shouldn’t have to choose only between highly controlled “little kid” versions of apps, subverting spaces that don’t center their wellbeing, or unplugging altogether. And caregivers shouldn’t be left alone to decide whether the benefits outweigh the growing risks on the most popular platforms.  

Designed for adults and dollars? Or teens and their development?

This is why we need to take the fullness of the Surgeon General’s opinion into account as we consider the path forward. He is asking us to look carefully at both the developmental needs of early adolescence and the design of the platforms they flock to. 

While we do see that young people can benefit in key ways from digital activities, it is most often in spite of how they are designed, not because of it. The business priorities of the platforms (clicks, time, and profits) are too often at odds with the needs of tweens and teens (equitable and safe spaces to learn, connect, explore, and grow). As authors of the report The Unseen Teen note, “Business models that incentivize exponential growth, product stickiness, and “average user” metrics also make it difficult to center adolescent wellbeing.”

Even in the digital mental health field itself, development has focused on one-size-fits-all solutions for adults and dominant groups. Very few digital mental health solutions center youth or underserved populations beyond changing surface features to make them seem more “youth friendly.”

This means that the current media landscape places nearly all of the burden on families and teens to find or create spaces of safety, growth, and belonging despite what they have access to. To be clear, many brilliant young people are leading the way. The Connected Learning Lab has highlighted the ways that youth are creating “spaces of refuge”  that prioritize mutual support and care in dominant social media platforms. But these efforts are the exception, not the norm.

If the digital landscape was akin to driving, it’s clear that we prioritize teaching young people how to operate the vehicle over improving the road conditions. 

What would youth-centered social media look like?

The reality is that tweens shouldn’t have to choose only between highly controlled “little kid” versions of apps, subverting spaces that don’t center their wellbeing, or unplugging altogether.

And caregivers shouldn’t be left alone to decide whether the benefits outweigh the growing risks on the most popular platforms.  

This places too heavy a burden on individual families. Plus it is likely to accelerate inequities. Instead, it’s time to reimagine and redesign online spaces themselves and build systems that support young people as they explore them. If this feels foggy, never fear. The National Scientific Council on Adolescence just issued a brand new report titled, Engaging, Safe, and Evidence Based: What Science Tells Us About How to Promote Positive Development and Decrease Risk in Online Spaces for Early Adolescents. 

The report makes it clear that developmentally appropriate online spaces would feature different business models, safeguards, and accessibility features than what tweens have access to now. Some highlights include:

• Digital technology should be explicitly designed to enhance positive early adolescent development and ensure that benefits outweigh the risks. 
• Designs should be developmentally appropriate and center diverse youth in the design, testing, and implementation of platforms. This does not mean creating “kid versions” of adult apps or simply beefing up parental controls.
• Digital technology should have design and use requirements that priority safety and privacy. For example, U.S. youth should experience the “right to be forgotten” similar to their EU counterparts and targeted advertising should not be allowed under a certain age.
• Digital technology used by tweens should be driven by and fuel research on an ongoing basis. 
• Digital technology should be accessible. Youth are not a monolithic group. All young people should have access to the technologies they need to fully and equitably participate in learning. 

Let’s keep teaching tweens and teens to drive and build better roads.

If the digital landscape was akin to driving, it’s clear that we prioritize teaching young people how to operate the vehicle over improving the road conditions. 

To be clear, driving practice is essential. The tween brain is primed for exploring and learning from mistakes in the context of caring relationships. It would be a missed opportunity to not step into this window of opportunity when young people are more open to coaching, mentorship, and collaborative rule-making.  This certainly may involve holding off on driving down certain roads that we know are extra risky or strengthening communication and safeguards when they do. It will definitely involve moving from control to connection. 

But let’s not ignore the shape of the roads themselves. And let’s not ignore young people’s strengths, expertise, and experiences as we go about creating new ones. Indeed, they belong at the center.