Photo Credit: Jacob Wackerhausen

Efforts to help adolescents and families navigate social media and the digital world should include multiple strategies, including counseling by pediatricians.

“Society has long had a complicated relationship with adolescents,” Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, and Jenny S. Radesky, MD, wrote in JAMA Pediatrics. “Adults want to protect them while their self-control and thinking skills are still developing while also providing enough autonomy and support that teenagers can independently launch themselves into adulthood. This tension plays out between caregivers and adolescents on a near-daily basis.”

This tension, the authors continued, is now being seen on a national level, with both state and federal policies arising from fears about the digital world. Some approaches, especially those that do not support adolescent autonomy, “may do more harm than good,” Dr. Moreno and Dr. Radesky explained.

In the viewpoint, the authors highlighted characteristics of legislation that could be beneficial, such as default privacy protections, platform-level policies that limit the impact of misinformation, and alignment with children’s health and developmental needs.

Speaking with Physician’s Weekly, Dr. Moreno noted “There was a response to a lot of the hubbub in this topic and work, the state-based laws that have been passed, the federal government’s role in working to integrate evidence into policy, and media coverage.”

The Pediatrician’s Role

Questions for the role of pediatricians in helping adolescents and families navigate social media and the broader digital environment “are really important,” Dr. Moreno says.

“I’m the co-medical director of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, and we have been working to develop tools and resources to provide clinicians with ways to help families navigate the digital space,” she continues.

The AAP’s Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health serves “as a centralized, trusted source for evidence-based education and technical assistance to support the mental health of children and adolescents as they navigate social media,” according to a statement from the center.

Available tools include conversation starters for parents “to navigate communicating with their kids about media habits,” Dr. Moreno says. “We also released a new framework called the 5 Cs. “

The 5 Cs of Social Media Use include Child, Content, Calm, Crowding Out, and Communication.

Dr. Moreno notes that the implications extend to all clinicians who care for children.

“The viewpoint was meant to describe ways that policy and legislation may be helpful or harmful from the perspective of children’s health and to emphasize that legislation alone won’t solve the issues we are concerned about in regard to children and digital media,” she says.