Dr. Rebekah Fenton, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist, spoke with The OBSERVER about how today’s digital landscape is shaping young people. From the pressures and possibilities of social media to the urgent need for stronger media literacy, she also sheds light on specific challenges Black youth often face as they navigate online spaces.

Teenagers are heavily reliant on social media for communication with friends and recreational use, Fenton says. She adds that it is important, though, that they are exposed to positive messaging and know how to interpret and filter negative things they see. 

She believes many parents feel intimidated by social media because they may not use it the same way their teens do. As a result, Fenton says, parents often allow their children to use it without meaningful conversation or engagement.

But just as families might watch a movie together, she believes sitting beside a child and seeing what they see online can be an important bonding experience and help parents better understand their children’s digital world.

What’s the difference between passive scrolling and active scrolling online and why should parents be aware?

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recently really promoted this idea that we don’t really have screen guidelines as far as how much time teens should be spending online. Instead, the organization said we should really think more about how they’re using their time.

The reality is that there are some teens who actually are using social media as an entrepreneurial platform. I’ve had patients of mine who have made businesses or who run their barbershop business on social media. Their pictures are promoting their business and engaging with customers, as opposed to [feeding into] what we often refer to as “doomscrolling.” Doomscrolling is the idea that many of us are just passively spending hours scrolling through content. And while a couple videos may help us smile or debrief or de-stress, there are certainly more productive things that we could be doing if that’s all we’re doing in the evenings.

And so that’s what it’s really about: how are they using social media and making sure that it’s ideally enriching.

Why do you think it’s also important for parents to see how their children respond to digital content?

There have been some studies that have at least found associations between social media use and mental health outcomes, whether that be anxiety or depression. It’s kind of unclear if social media is making kids feel this way, or if kids who are already feeling that way also are using social media more often. Maybe it’s a coping skill through those mental health challenges.

Given that relationship between mental health and social media, it’s so important to be able to kind of take the temperature of how your kid is doing and seeing the ways that they are using media just to make sure that it is safe.

For example, I think sometimes when teens are feeling certain ways [and] feel like they can’t talk to other people, then social media is often a place that they’ll go for more information. If families aren’t involved in what their children are viewing, they may not see the content that they’re getting, and that may actually, unfortunately, make their mental health symptoms worse. So the sooner we pick up those mental health conditions the better because then that allows teens to be able to get into support, whether that be medications or therapy, or a combination of both.

Social media is, unfortunately, also the solution that they immediately find to be able to help them through those types of challenges. And I think some of those solutions can be just finding people who understand that. Unfortunately, some tips on social media can also be harmful.

How does this affect Black children versus other demographics?

There was a Pew Research study that looked at how various teens are using social media. They did find that across racial groups, Black youth were spending more time online than other groups and I think that can reflect two things. One is that there may be fewer opportunities that they have to spend offline. These are important messages for making sure they’re involved in extracurricular activities for just being able to exercise and engage with peers. I think inevitably, more time spent online often means less time doing those types of things. It is also important to make sure that every child has access to their parents. When they do, parents are able to encourage their children to participate in more extracurricular activities.

Second, I think it also just makes them more vulnerable with time. For example, I only spend 30 minutes with my patients, and yet they can be scrolling for hours. So they’re often coming to visits with me with all of these preconceived notions about the harms of birth control or false information about transmitted infections. The more time online may just mean more access to misinformation.

Sometimes we think that as long as we keep hearing something over and over again, it must be true when it may not actually be. So, I think it may make them more vulnerable to false beliefs.

There’s also documented research around how Black youth, more than any other group, are more likely to either witness or experience some level of racism online. It almost seems like bullying in cyberspaces is more emboldened and maybe it’s because people there’s limited accountability that’s not face to face, so people feel like they can say or do things that are much harsher than they may ever consider doing in-person. So unfortunately, Black youth are either the victims of that or see that, and they internalize those beliefs about themselves.

How do you think parents should help their children with media literacy, especially when many of them are struggling with it?

It’s really more about helping their kids understand that everybody on social media has an agenda, just like any form of media has an agenda. Some of those agendas are positive and some of those are more manipulative. You need to always think about things like what is the message here, and is that one that I want to be influenced by.

Even just taking that moment to evaluate that message allows a young person to be less influenced by it versus, again, when we’re kind of passively scrolling and taking everything that we’re hearing suddenly we’re repeating things that may or may not be accurate.

Consider spending time with your child exploring their interests online and identifying credible, evidence-based resources they can rely on in that space. For example, one of my patients, unfortunately, presented eating disorder concerns. When I asked her where did she get all this information on why she was concerned she may have eating disorder symptoms, she told me [it was] from TikTok. When she came back a few weeks later after we discovered the eating disorder concerns, she made an effort to help herself do better. When I asked her where she learned these tips from, she says TikTok. The reality is, teens do have more power than they think and can curate their feed in some way.

So, parents can also play an important role in not just helping their children identify the negative messages, but also thinking about what positive content can we make sure that you’re viewing so it’s promoting accurate and healthy information.