Kids coming of age with social media offer sage advice for their younger peers

Kids constantly hear about the downsides of social media of the adults in their livesoften in the form of dire warnings and commands.

But adults themselves didn’t grow up with social media. They weren’t given a phone when they were kids, just to keep them quiet in a restaurant. They didn’t join TikTok and did silly dances before they even learned to read. They didn’t have their schools shut down in a global pandemicyour connections with friends and colleagues relegated to phone and computer screens.

Children who grow up with social media are advancing into a whole new world. And now that they’re getting older, they have some advice for their younger colleagues. Here’s what young people say they wish they knew when they went online.

• You don’t need to compare everything: “It’s so easy to look at your friends’ stories and feel this sense of FOMO, of missing out and comparing yourself, like, ‘Oh, my friend just bought a new car,'” said Bao Le, 18, a freshman at Vanderbilt University “It’s an overwhelming feeling of comparison,” he added. “But the things people post on social media are just the highlights, like the 1% of their lives they want to show to other people.”
• Be yourself. Don’t obsess over products, brands: “My main advice would be not to take it too seriously,” said Doreen Malata, 22, a senior at the University of Maryland. “Be yourself,” she added. “Younger kids want to be who they idolize. And when TikTok or social media stars are 20, 18, 16, they’re going to want to be like them. You’re getting younger kids who are now obsessed with products and brands , and it’s getting very difficult to be young. And it shouldn’t be very difficult to be young.
• Set time limits: “It seems like it would be really easy to just turn off your phone and stop scrolling. But it’s not,” said Sienna Keene, 17, a high school senior in Orinda, California. “If there was one piece of advice I could give my younger self, it would be to tell my parents to set time limits for me — although I never said that when I was starting out on social media. let my child have TikTok, I would try to resist as long as I could.
• Take a “social media detox”: “When you first get these apps, you realize — like, BOOM, there’s so much content,” said Ava Havidic, 18, a high school student in Broward County, Florida. “Styles, fashion models. It really has a big impact on you when you first understand it, that feeling of, ‘How do they do it? How do they look like that? How do they get clothes like that? When you’re new to social media, these trends can overtake you. I started using Screen Time (tracking) on ​​my phone and limiting the time I spend on social media. I have been doing phone detoxes. On the weekends, I do a social media detox for 10 hours or most of the day. I’m going out with my family, riding my bike. I only have notifications for my messages and desktops. I don’t have any notifications turned on for social media apps.”
• Engage with the real world: “I often hear the term ‘social media user,’ but I felt like I was being used by social media,” said Lea Nepomuceno, 18, a freshman at George Washington University. “I had this routine of mindlessly scrolling through TikTok, just scrolling and scrolling and comparing myself to other people. Ultimately, it really affected my body image, my perception of what was considered beautiful or accepted by society. of social media was feeling tired or I was feeling sad,” she said.
  “You can use social media to amplify your passions, but to do that you need to do a lot of work outside of social media, to discover who you are as a person, what’s important to you, and what contributions you can make to the world.”
• Do not waste your time: “I would just say don’t use it,” said Mikael Makonnen, 18, a freshman at American University. It’s kind of a waste of time. You’re just talking about useless, random pop culture stuff. It just sucks up your time. You’re not really gaining anything from this, just short-term satisfaction. It’s kind of pointless. I know this is kind of weird, but I think there should be some kind of age limit because I don’t think kids should be on the internet.”
• Be aware that it is not real: “A lot of people make their lives artificial so they can be perceived a certain way,” said Nour Mahmoud, 21, a first-year student at Virginia Commonwealth University. “And I think going into social media, I would like to know that it’s a tool to learn. There’s so much information and you can learn so much about different things… I would like people to have that perspective rather than the whole idea of that other people see you and need to be seen a certain way.”
• It’s okay to block someone. Protect yourself and your body image: “You can’t browse TikTok or browse Instagram without seeing supermodels who have edited their photos and are promoting unrealistic beauty standards. I don’t want to see these girls who pretend to be fitness influencers but are just promoting an eating disorder as ‘body checking’ on my feed,” said Madeleine Maestre, 18, a freshman at Santa Clara University. “That’s one thing I I wish I knew when I started: that it’s okay to not want to look at it or consume it. It’s okay to protect yourself and your own body image. Another thing I would like to know is that not everyone on social media is your friend. When you’re young and impressionable and people are reaching out to you, know that not everyone is as friendly as you think.

Interviews by Almaz Abedje, Jocelyn Gecker and Barbara Ortutay.