Social Media – The Problem Is Us

I recently read an editorial piece written by Steve Rosenbaum of The Sustainable Media Center. The title of his piece caught my eye: “Snap, Shame, Repeat: Inside the New Adolescent Reality.” Rosenbaum writes these words: “Social media hasn’t just reshaped adolescence – it has reprogrammed it. And we are only now starting to realize how deep the damage goes.” He recounts reading a headline in The Guardian which he says stopped him in his tracks. The headline? “If there’s a problem with boys’ behavior, it’s because of us.” Rosenbaum goes on to say that the “us” are adults, the platforms, the regulators, the educators, the media architects, and the investors. These are the people and institutions which have built social media into the destructive force that it is. But I would add one more group to that list of problem-makers. It’s us, the parents. If we fail to see the dangers out there and then take steps to protect our kids, we have not lived up to our God-given parental responsibilities.