Tara Cousineau, PhD

Clinical Psychologist, Kindness Warrior

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Ode to the Flip Phone

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Teen girls on cell phone (rft123)

I wish we all used flip phones, she lamented. Here was my 17-year-old client, a lovely girl I’ve been working with for three years. She said this as a seasoned expert, having been in the trenches of modern digital social life.

She’ll be one of the few in this generation who actually started on a flip phone, a device, if you recall, where the major feature was good old fashion text messaging (SMS). If there was Internet capability on her starter phone I’m certain it wasn’t worth the slow connection to be of any use. When my client was 13-years-old the iPhone was too expensive for her (or any) family to buy. It wasn’t until about 2010 that the iPhone really took off—and mostly with savvy business professionals. Then there was the brilliant move by Apple with the sell off of the iPhone 4 for $1 with the introduction of the 4S model. It changed the world of tweens. That’s how my younger daughter got her iPhone at last X-mas—2 years earlier than her older sister. I totally regret it. I say this as a mom. And I say this with irony as I spend half my work life creating a wellness app to teach kids self-care, self-kindness, and compassion. (I’m determined mobile phones can be used for the greater good.)

It’s the stories that I hear from my clients and friends that collectively cry out, “Help!” The stories are mostly from girls and moms; they bring the weariness and battle wounds of the smartphone front-lines to my attention. My young client who pines for her old flip also closed her Facebook account. I didn’t have a chance to ask why but I’m sure it’s because of the drama and distraction of the teen world of ranking, rating and endless profile pruning. She’s a levelheaded young woman. She is mature enough to know what’s important to her and how to spend her time (like applying to college). But the little ones—the wee tweens—have no chance to graduate from mere flip phones to handheld computers—that’s what smartphones are. Today’s smartphones no longer serve as the safety devices that parents once purchased for their kids. They are all-purpose entertainment devices. Now 11 and 12-year olds are handling smartphones that give them access to an enormous amount of information, unwittingly intrude on their privacy, and begin to shape the ways in which they form identify and self esteem.

Let ‘Em Prove it

My older daughter is turning 16 this week. She’s obsessed with getting her driver’s permit while I’m in no hurry whatsoever to drive her to the DMV. She studies for the test via her iPhone, of course. (Yes, there is an app for states’ driver tests.) I have come around to thinking teens also need a license to use a smartphone and that they need to have their brains’ executive function in fairly decent working shape to use one. Yet, the teen brain really isn’t out of the weeds of the massive remodeling it undergoes until later in adolescence (and even in the early 20s).

Here’s my wishful thinking:  Middle schoolers should be banned from smartphones altogether. Their emotional, cognitive, and social lives are just too fragile to take the assault of being mocked, blocked or unfriended. Tweens also get obsessed with their chat groups and have the urgent need to be connected every second of the day for fear of missing out. When they do discover they missed out—from all the photos of friends having a great time at someone’s house or the mall—they cry themselves to sleep at night. They are also impulsive and will whip off inappropriate language or photos with no sense of the potential consequences. Of course, this age group also quickly learns how to use their social networks as a way to torment others, and there are now enough stories in the papers to suggest that we have a serious social problem on our hands. Now let’s say a 16-year-old is mature enough to handle a smartphone. These teens should take a test on responsible use of a smartphone, proper etiquette, respectful correspondence, and understanding what cyber-bullying, sexting and text abuse actually is. Maybe they need to do a self-test to see if they meet some criteria or risk for being abusive or inappropriate—and tips on what to do or how to get help if they need it. Some may even need a support group.

OK, it’s unrealistic.

But let me go on. One mom recently contacted me because her 12-year-old son was devastated that his childhood friend blocked him on Instagram. This is a common experience. There are parents who ask me about which apps they should allow their child to have on their smartphone: Snapchat or Instagram?  Clearly, they have no idea what the apps do and what social needs each app seems to serve.

My question is:  Why are you buying a smartphone for your 6th grader? The answer is always:

“Well, all his friends have one.”

“She’s been begging us. She’s feeling left out.”

Yes, parents are now feeling peer pressure by the tidal wave of tweens, too! There are no easy answers. Except one:  Stay connected to your tweens and teens. In person connected, that is.

This means parents must stay connected to the kids’ friendship groups. Know the parents of your child’s friends (especially as their friendship groups begin to change) and make time to talk with them. Let your kids know that should there ever be a problem, like some drama in their friendship groups (online or offline), that you are there for them and will help them solve it no matter what role they played in it. The biggest barrier for teens is often shame and fear of disappointing parents when they do something wrong or become involved in a troubling situation. Teens want love and approval from parents not disapproval and judgment. When news stories come out about teen tragedies use them as teachable moments. Have a conversation. God knows there are plenty of stories.

“I love you no matter what. When you find yourself in a bad situation I want you tell me so I can help you.”

And yes, you can set a limit on when a child can have a smartphone. And once your kid has the privilege and responsibility of having a smartphone, you can set up rules and revisit them as he grows up. When it comes to all the apps, you don’t know have to know everything ahead of time (kids will share apps like you used to trade baseball cards or fashion magazines); you just have to be curious and want to learn how each works and why it’s so cool or not so cool. You can also do your research or talk to older teens. Let your kids tell you about they’ve got going on with the social networks. You can decide what seems appropriate and what doesn’t. Empower them to teach you what you don’t know and then go and learn it yourself.

Kids can raise you, too.

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Confessions of a Digital Mom: Emoji Sweet Nothin’s

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Hey Moms. Are you trying to play catch up with your daughters?  I am. We have two dynamic duos under our roof.  I’ve never experienced anything like the sheer fluency my girls have with their smartphones and apps. They pick up the latest things with such ease, it’s crazy. Snapchat, Vine. I’m convinced my 13 year old will be an animator or movie director. She’s producing shorts  (like 6 second short movies) in no time.

My older one has already posted over 6000 tweets on god knows what girlie girl nonsense… oh and by the way tweeted that she hated me one day when I made her go on a youth retreat that had been planned all year.

Anyway. SOML.

I’ve come to the stark realization, that our girls are engaged – and spending so much time – in their digital playgrounds, that the lines are getting blurred between the real and the virtual world. And that parents, including me, tend to go merrily along thinking are our girls are smart, kind, and respectful, that they should know better about how to behave in all social arenas.

If you think back just 20 or 30 years to our own teenage years we were passing notes in hallways, saving them in shoe boxes, or making paper collages from cutouts of Teen Beat and Seventeen magazine… and plastering them on our bedroom walls. This took a lot of time and reflection. We had no money to develop photos and rarely owned a camera for that matter.

Also, there were only one or two phones in a house, and our parents had rules about the phone since it was a shared among many.

But mostly we spent a lot of time playing, hanging out, and talking with each other – like in person. Today’s teens spend up to 40 hours a week using technology, looking at screens, which is of course, the equivalent to a full time job.

Times have changed, haven’t they?

Here’s the first reality that is ever so evident (and you don’t need a PHD to know this): Girls’ social networks have become a primary way for girls to relate to each other. They are immensely connected to this new way of communicating. It’s mesmerizing.

Another Selfie
A Sisterly Selfie

In fact, of all the demographic groups teen girls are the most prolific texters, with numbers of text upwards of 4000 per month and over 100 a day. If I added up my 15 year old’s tweets, texts and posts per month, it’s like around 10K. Maybe not. I should really take the time to count. But I can’t. It’s a guestimate. I bet she’d qualify for a 10K club of digital divas. I could be a proud mama, right?

Actually, if she wasn’t also a decent student and super busy on several athletic teams, I might be concerned about her social media excess and my parenting. Plus, she’s doing her own laundry now. Bonus for me. (I resigned as laundress when she entered high school. It’s a good strategy.)

But here’s my take on what happens with tween girls and technology:

Texting, social networks and chat apps amplify girls’ biological drive to share, compare, and care.

Those behaviors that we mothers did as girls are now digitized: sharing secrets, taking photos, collecting images of favorite things like celebrities, fashion, cute guys, funny or inspiring quotes … it’s all online and doesn’t cost much money, although it consumes way more time and attention in girls’ lives.

And that’s the sad truth of the matter.

In fact, girls relating in this way find it so beguiling that technology is the perfect trigger for compulsive behavior. They crave it. The get anxious when they aren’t connected to their devices.

In fact, many of you moms are doing this, too. Admit it.

But tweens and teens don’t filter what they do in these digital realms – they don’t take the time to reflect before they post; they don’t yet have the cognitive skills to do this with ease. They don’t have the brakes to slow down.

Their brains just aren’t there yet.

As far as I can tell the books and resources on online safety and digital culture don’t adequately take into account how girls an boys are biologically wired for certain behaviors in adolescence. You know, the behaviors to ensure survival and passing on of genes, like sex?

It’s a perfect storm. Maturational changes, biological drives to procreate, desperate need to be with friends, competing for social status, and sensation seeking – all being played out on the modern digital stage. Social technologies feed right into certain neurological mechanisms that reinforce behavior and learning patterns.

Girls in particular are primed to behave in a number of ways based on the female biological blueprint that plays out in interesting ways in digital playgrounds. Here’s my take on three primary ways modern girls connect:

BEAUTY: Girls’ begin to focus on their appearance and engage in ways to be more attractive for mating. This, by the way would occur regardless of our overly sexualized media. Media magnifies girls’ attention to appearance but biologically girls are driven to make themselves appealing.  So posting photos and pruning their digital profiles is the current method for posturing. They don’t even realize it. (See post on my daughter’s first high heels.)

This drive to be wanted and accepted is also why tweens rigidly conform to the current fashion trends – it’s out of sheer fear.  God forbid a girl stands out from the crowd as being too different. Where my girls go to public school, I call it the middle school Abercrombie Uniform. Thankfully, girls grow out of it in high school and tend to adopt more fashion diversity as they develop their identities. Nevertheless, they spend hours posting outfits and dresses in prep for the school socials or proms – getting endless tips and feedback from friends. Then there is posting once the event has actually occurred. At that point the number of “likes” becomes the ultimate personal affirmation.

FRIENDSHIPS: Girls’ drive to bond and socialize intensifies in adolescence. So there is, what seems to parents, a ridiculous need to be with girlfriends. Cliques begin to form, which again, has a basis in human survival. Whereas boys and men tend to be primed to fight or flee in face of danger, girls and women do what some social scientists call “tend and befriend.” They gather in groups as a way to have strength in numbers and naturally nurture each other in the face of stress.

OMG, girls are chatty, too, and have more developed language skills than boys do in early adolescence. This is also related to the oxytocin spike that occurs in the middle of the menstrual cycle – the bonding hormone. Don’t you ever wonder why your daughter might be ignoring you, not listening, grunting her way through a minimalist conversation and then all of the sudden she’s talking up a storm and you wonder what the heck happened? Maybe you feel she stills love you after all and cares what you have to say?  Alas, credit can be given in part  to her hormonal cycle. (BTW: It’s worth it to track both your and her menstrual cycle. This helps to predict the good and the bad days and when to ask her to clean her room. Let Dad in on the secret so he may be better prepared to deal with the female drama.)

The sheer volume of girls texting also begins to make sense. They spew out everything to thier freinds. It’s the uncut version. Girls announce every thought and feeling on their social networks.

The bottom line is that girls are built to socialize. Texting is simply the new channel.

STRESS: Girls, for some reason also begin to have higher levels of stress hormone cortisol. They are more sensitive to social cues.  They are very good at emotional recognition – and therefore they tend to “read” into many situations. They look for meaning even when it may not be there. This vigilance may have been necessary in hunt and gather days when protecting the young was a primary drive. But today?  They are expending energy trying to interpret the meaning of texts from their BFFs.

Of course, the opportunity for misinterpretation with social media and texting is HUGE without the face-to-face interpersonal cues. Girls expend a ton of energy reading between the lines and can easily get it wrong. This was just played out recently in my younger daughter’s little social circle and it was something one friend said in the lunch line about another friend – an anorexia jibe (which can be perceived as a compliment or a critique depending on the context). Of course, the comment got misconstrued and then texted among friends, causing unnecessary rifts and shifting alliances. There was anger, shame, tears, and confusion.  That the smallest slight can be amplified and go viral in an instant set girls more on edge and they “track” it more. We’ve heard about some tragic consequences when these things get out of hand when the “viral” humiliation – the sharing of a photo, slur and personal attacks – is too much and too painful for some teens to handle. Most teens have fragile hearts and fragile brains. They are still forming their identities, skills, and ability to cope. It’s a stressful time in life.

Which girls might be more at risk socially?

It is really hard to know or predict how girls will navigate their social circles and who might be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects or experiences with social media activity. Why? Because being a teen comes with a lot of volatility given all the changes in body, brain and social life.

So let’s look at some research on this.

Roy Pea and Clifford Nass, communication researchers at Stanford (2010) surveyed over 3,400 girls, ages 8 to 12, all subscribers to Discovery Girls magazine, about their electronic diversions and their social and emotional lives. The results were unsettling.

The girls took the survey online, which asked about the time they spent watching video (television, YouTube, movies) listening to music, reading, doing homework, emailing, posting to Facebook, texting, instant messaging, talking on the phone and video chatting. Basically, what every girl does outside of school hours. They also asked how often the girls were doing two or more of these activities at the same time.

The girls’ answers showed that multitasking is a major drag. The results indicated that girls who spent many hours watching videos and using online communication reported negative personal experiences:

  • feeling less social success,
  • not feeling normal,
  • having more friends whom parents perceived as bad influences,
  • and sleeping less (no surprise there).

Of course, a definite cause-and-effect can’t be proved with a survey but the results are cautionary.

But the survey also asked the girls a different, and very important, question: How much time do you spend participating in face-to-face conversations with other people?

The researchers found the opposite effects:  Higher levels of face-to-face communication were associated with greater social success, greater feelings of normalcy, more sleep and fewer friends whom parents judged to be bad influences.  Ok, like this is key, right?  Here’s the message that modern families need to get: Our kids learn the complicated task of interpreting emotions by watching the faces of other people and interacting with them. You want emotional intelligent empathic kids, right?  Monitor their media diets! Especially in adolescence, a highly sensitive period of brain development.

Good Night Emoji © TCousineau 2013
Good Night, Little Emoji

I confess that I love texting with my daughters. Just at a time when they are pulling away, a short text seems like a token of love. Sending an Emoji infused text when I’m out of town – a smiley face blowing a kiss – or my favorite, a crescent moon – approximates a sentiment of caring. It’s virtual parenting. These digital doodads also fill a gap when, god forbid, you actually try to give your a teen a goodnight kiss in person. Emojis are like an emotional mom-aide. This techno-luv is all well and good but can’t ever truly compensate for the real thing. So in my home, we are trying to make a concerted effort in balancing things out when it comes to media. In the end, the work is less about stopping the floodgates of technology and more about spending time together in meaningful ways. It’s good for the heart and it’s good for the brain. We have to do this now because when they grow up, we really want them to be able to look someone in the eye, shake a hand, speak with purpose and be emotionally connected.

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For more on girls and social media, check out my teleclass: Keeping Your Daughter Safe: What You Need To Know About What Girls are Doing Online.

 

Good Reads:

The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine

Grown Up Digital: How the New Generation is Changing your World. By Don Tapscott

 

 

What Your Kids See on Facebook Whether They Are Looking For It or Not

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As a mom of teenage girls I find myself more often than not sounding the alarms. I’m not a hysterical sort of person, either. Nor am I a bra-flinging feminist, although I like the image. Yet, it’s becoming ever more apparent as I’m raising girls that what our children are exposed to in their social media playgrounds is of grave concern.

I’m talking ads and images that glorify violence against women, ads that condone rape, and ads that make jokes about beating up women and girls. They are everywhere. (If you need examples visit Women, Action & The Media.)

Tween Hair Line 2 © J Cousineau

Now I want you to visualize something. Consider that one in four girls in US will be victims of sexual assault before the they graduate from college. One in four. This is a verified statistic. Globally, it’s up to one in seven in some countries (World Health Organization, 2012). Yes, 70%.

If it helps to bring this home, imagine this: If there are twelve girls on your daughter’s soccer team, or dance class, or choral group, FOUR of these lovely, darling young women will be victims of sexual violence. Or imagine four giggling tweens snuggled on your couch watching a movie and eating popcorn. Yes, one of them. Or, as in the photo above of my younger daughter and her chums, one or two of these sweet peas will be a victim. Most likely by a male and by someone they know. It’s hard to imagine.

I’m not an alarmist. No. I’m sharing some facts.

So that’s reality for our daughters and their girlfriends. And there’s the reality for those of you with sons, too. Do you know what our girls and boys are exposed to in the media? It’s grim. Consider that the average age of exposure to hardcore porn is 11. Is your heart beating faster now?

Take a deep breath.

Let’s be calm and pragmatic. When teens are in the vulnerable developmental phase of adolescence exposure to violent images can be insidious. While there’s not enough research yet on the impact of negative social media on the behavior of teenagers, it’s important to know what’s going in developmentally. Teens’ fragile brains are exploding with neural connections in a glorious process of fine-tuning that will lead them to become responsible and productive grown ups; their brains are marinating in sex hormones compelling them engage in various antics – grooming, showing off, taking “selfies” and posting their photos everywhere – in order to be the most attractive specimen in their little tribe. They are competing, comparing and sharing. They can’t help it. It’s in their biological blueprint. Of course, these coming of age behaviors are compounded by the teen brain’s frequent happiness surges, aka a “dopamine rush” – a real physiological high – from the fevered stimulation they get from being in the presence of their BFFs, or connecting instantly with hundreds (or even a thousand+) of their online “friends”, or texting on their coveted cell phones. (Parents, you are just too boring for them now.)

It’s a perfect storm. Maturational changes, biological drives, desperate need to be with friends, competing for social status, and sensation seeking – all being played out on the modern stage.

Moms, Dads, are you sitting in the audience of this adolescent theatre? Are you paying attention? Are you covering your eyes?  Or, like me, are you trying play catch-up? Do you think you’re kinda cool and pretty much on top of things?

You aren’t.

You never will be. Just like your parents were pretty clueless, so are we. We might be even more clueless because we come to the new digital age as grown-ups; our kids are born into it. We’re the immigrants; they are the natives.

But there is hope.

We can exert some influence. A lot, in fact. We can talk about what’s going on (See post about a conversation with my older daughter.) We can learn skills to have ongoing dialog and know what we are talking about. We can advocate for change. We have that power. Parents are the greatest influence in teenagers lives. Let’s get to them first before they are exposed to violent images, seek them out, or become numb to them.

Here’s what woke me up recently (again). This past week a letter to Facebook was posted on the Huffington posted by Soraya Chemaly, Jaclyn Freidman and Laura Bates, and co-signed by many respectable organizations.* The open letter demanded that Facebook take swift action address three things:

  1. Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content.
  2. Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech.
  3. Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women.

“To this end, we are calling on Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads on Facebook appear next to content that targets women for violence, to ask these companies to withdraw from advertising on Facebook until you take the above actions to ban gender-based hate speech on your site.”

Parents, “users” mean you. If your teen is on Facebook and you are not that is the first call to action. Sign-up. The second is to insist that you are part of your teen’s network, review privacy settings, and spot-check their postings and news feeds. Ideally, you will create a home social media policy for family members to follow. The third thing is to begin having conversations about the media, about your teen’s social networks, and about responsible use. (“Rinse and repeat” is the way to go with teenagers.)

You can also be a role model and show your teens that you care about what they are exposed to and care about how they present themselves in their digital footprints. The  current reality of the disparaging, violent sexual content in the media against girls and women – and what to do about it – are mindful conversations to be had with both girls and boys over and over again. You can also make your voice heard by demanding that Facebook and its advertisers (companies with products and services you use, like Amex, for instance) take “swift action to eradicate violent images” or remove their ads from the egregious FB pages. Or join me in an upcoming heart-to-heart teleclass geared to moms with teen girls.

Keepin Your Daughter Safe- Teleclass with Tara Cousineau PhD - image
Teleclass June 10, 8pm, with Dr. Tara

For parents who think one answer is to not allow your teen not be on Facebook, or any other social network, um, that won’t work well and not for long. Delaying their use of social networks can work up until about age 14 or freshman year high school. (The minimum age for Facebook is 13 years of age, anyway). Extreme parental control won’t solve any problems because social networks, like Instagram among middle and high schoolers, are the social currency of the day. They are here to stay. It’s part of teen life, college life, the workplace, cause marketing, and commerce. Plus, there are so many upsides to social media for connection, creativity and advocacy. Sooner or later your kids will grow into these networks and need to use them. Avoid a power struggle and collaborate instead.

Kindness toward others, respect, and responsible use of social networks is what is at stake, just like responsible driving of a car is once a teen has earned a driver’s license. But in the case of social networks, parents need to set up the terms in a thoughtful and constructive way. It’s never too late. Start now.

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*UPDATE May 29, 2013:  The open letter to Facebook was amazingly effective and Facebook is now changing it policies about violent content about women. Advocacy works! See story.

Tips & Resources for Parents: