morgan and i'm here today with mrs koch and a teacher peter jones of high school to discuss the topic of how social media affects the lives of teenagers social media consumes a large part of the lives of this generation of teenagers as i school student i'm aware of the downsides of our excessive use of social media because sometimes it affects my school work relationships with other people and even my sleep schedule some might even consider social media an addiction however when people learn to set limits on their usage of their phone these negative attacks become less of a problem an example of a limit that could be set to reduce the effect of cell phones on mental health is deciding on the amount of time teenagers spend on their phone and when is a good time to use cell phones  social media students studies show that people can easily become addicted and won't have much self control when it comes to checking their own excessively many teenagers and even adults stay up late using their cell phones as entertainment before bed however right screens inhibit the brain's production of melatonin the chemical that regulates sleep which makes it hard to get rest even when the cell phone is turned off for the night experts recommend turning off cell phones forty minutes before going to bed at two it is a fact also students can become so addicted to their social media that they will use it for hours and hours upon which messes up their sleep schedule students usage of social media also becomes a problem when they don't separate work from the appropriate time to be on their phones social media is now considered one of the most and if it can sources of procrastination not only among teenagers but people of every age dr pierce steele explained in an article that students are biologically and socially predisposed to put off tomorrow what we should do today he also states that teenagers tend to be impulsive leaving them to get distracted from work easily without thinking of the later consequences one small distraction can end up wasting much more of their time because once you break your focus it takes fifteen minutes to get your brain back to concentrating on work this affects mental health because people end up taking many more hours than needed to complete schoolwork and chores which causes more stress finally students dependency on social media for communication affects their face to face interactions with other people the majority of teens don't turn off their phones or ignore notifications from social media when they are with their family or friends although it is meant to enhance the way people communicate social media actually makes people become anti social talking over the internet takes away the factor of emotion and nervousness that important in person conversations have so people prefer to talk about more serious topics or social media the lack of connection people have in person is becoming unhealthy so thank you so much for joining me today for the first question i want to ask you is as a high school teacher how have you seen these effects reflected in your students i think the need for kids to know what's going on on their phones is more pervasive but i don't necessarily in my specific classroom have too many issues every once in a while there's an issue as far as in the classroom yeah i don't necessarily know what's happening at home i can only surmise but overall i think that if you know i just say no put them away here and that's the simplest way to go about it i think that being able to control that impulse is pretty important because every time the phone buzzes or some you get a notification  students about the importance of turning off your cell phone so i have a thirteen year old and he got a phone when he was twelve i made a pact with some of my friends so we kind of held off on purchasing phones although he had i pads and whatnot i think that it just has to be a routine practice so for instance at ten o'clock in my house i have the wife i set to automatically shut down now he is younger than you so sometimes you have a game and then you get home and you have to do homework and some of you rely on that phone for researcher and you know to find information but overall i think that i think it would probably be easier if we said no you have to use the computer rather than the phone because you're not going to have text over the computer you're not going to necessarily have every social media platform up on your computer so you could be slightly more focused i think that i mean that's what we do in my house and i think that you would see your productivity increase little things such as setting limits we do an eighteen minute thing in my house to where for eighteen minutes what can you get done without any distraction and it normally normally works pretty well so why do you think that like it's more parents responsibility or could the kids or slows ability to i'm saying it's i think you need to work together i think that if a child or a teenager looks at it as a a hold on them like a punitive kind of thing that it won't work well but i think that for instance i did this with my son let's see for eighteen minutes what you can get done with no distractions whatsoever and he finished all of his homework that the teacher said oh probably will take about an hour so i think that those kinds of things just little steps at first you can say one taking your phone for two weeks because you didn't you're on a too much well that's not going to help anyone because it just makes you wanted a little bit more i think yeah so then how do you think that like students should motivate themselves to get off their phones without their parents overseas ok so that's a difficult one but yes i think there are so many so many social media platforms but i think that just it has to be done through a commitment and i know it's kind of ridiculous to say because your brain doesn't fully develop until you're twenty five understand necessarily impact that it could have but overall i think that if you're looking at the situation you're saying you know i'm not getting anything done i'll give you an a for instance ok when i look at e mail here i could look at it every period we you know we get e mails quite often but i take one period to just look at it look at the e mail finish and get it done it's it would be quite a bit about time management in conjunction with time management in conjunction with you know the want or desire to be on it but it also depends on what you're doing at the time are you focused on homework do you have work to do at home do you have you know what are you doing so that's the bigger question i thought i think a lot of students like realize these affects and how they're affecting their own life like procrastinating their work and stuff but why do you think that some people it's like that just that it still try to change it because how did so really hard to break so for instance if you have someone who bites his or her fingernails you can only say it so many times you need to stop biting your fingernails but i also think the other thing is eliminating what you're doing for instance do you need to be on instagram and snap chat maybe just one you know if you are an addict a self proclaimed addict maybe the way to go is to say well i have an issue because i'm constantly on it and i'm not formula i'm not forming relationships i'm not communicating with other people maybe i should deactivate one of my accounts i think for a while a while ago i read an article about what was considered the facebook effect i know you don't use it because you're young but the facebook effect i think applies to a lot of people it's we're looking and we're saying everything through rosy colored glasses and thinking everyone's life is better than ours which also ultimately i think affects mental health a little bit and so i mean as far as i'm concerned with with those kinds of things you just have to make a decision it's going to be have to be a hard hard decision but you have to make that so if a lot of people media as a negative thing like that there's a lot more benefits to that why do like the negative things kind of overpower everything else and more people talk about the negative because i think it's so social media aspect of it is there's some kind of euphoria that's involved so if you get a text from someone that's exciting just like it was when i used to get pieces of mail when as last time i got a piece of mail like in the mail i mean from like my grandparents right but that's still exciting so if you're getting some kind of instant feedback or you're getting like a meme from someone that that raises your euphoria a little bit you're excited because someone's communicating with you and it's not as scary as approaching but approaching people is really very important so i think that that has quite a bit to do with it but i also question kind of ok but so if it's really important to connect to people face to face how do you think that people can start changing their habits like not being able to connect to people so i think that our talk like as far as schools concerned or just and i just go in in general like i'm acting with people face to face it has to be a specific effort i think by lots of people but that's not the so they're going to happen because you have the phone and hand in so you have to make an effort i mean ultimately the onus comes on the person because they're not going to take the platforms away and your parents can always monitor it either yeah so second ago you said you use social media as an adult to connect to people you don't see as much so then why is social media not as addictive to adults and to students oh i don't necessarily agree with that you think it is i think on some really every day all the time we have political issues right and so people focus on what's happening in the world specifically what's happening with politics and you see that people are connecting on social media platforms that it's not always appropriate sometimes there's open conversation and it's a quality conversation but the sometimes a problem is it becomes namecalling and there's some nastiness that's perpetuated so i don't necessarily believe that kids have worse addictions than adults i think it's an individual basis for both i think that it's it's possible it just depends on the personality and the draw to the social media platform so for instance there are many teachers who have instagram accounts where they impart like lesson advice or they dell posts things that people can use that is done for good you know it just depends on what's platform what it's about i don't know how many people use not that i don't know it's just kind of different between generations but correct i think it does like affect just people of all ages i think so because it you know i remember somewhere years ago someone wrote an article that said to the mother at the playground get off your phone you know the kids are running around and they're having fun and your texting and there could be a retort to that someone could say why work from home this is what i do right so i guess you know you have to look at it from an on an individual basis but it is pervasive and i think it is it can be problematic  right so we're going to take a break and after we're  so welcome back we are going to continue our conversation about social media so i want to get into now is the lack of like connection between different generations like how maybe people my age like aren't as formal to like adults and stuff these days ok so interesting story again i have a thirteen year old and i have the kids too but he's a teenager they say so nevertheless we recently had a reception for him for making his confirmation and i had to sit him andrew you have to get up and go over and greet the people who are coming and he lets me go as we stand there with me i said no i'm not going to stand there with you i think that you should be able to do these things walk up and shake someone's hand or address them or have a conversation one of the areas where i see that level of disconnect is when kids ask for a recommendation letters for college i have to say them in the junior year please just on send an email or an obvious answer quest you have to go and ask the teacher well that's scary what should be that's scary if you're asking them for a recommendation right if you feel comfortable enough asking someone for a recommendation you should feel comfortable enough asking them face to face exactly if you've been in their class or you're obviously like you know them pretty well that it shouldn't be the kind of disconnect there but right now we also have i think and issue because we i'm older clearly and we were taught to do all those things we also had to answer the land on the phone and talk to someone not get a  text so communication was a little bit different was more interpersonal not necessarily so electronic yeah i mean i relate to what you said about your son like even at family events like with maybe relatives i don't know as well if i find it like nerve wracking to go talk to them when they're related to me so like that's probably not good now is why i don't really know why i just i guess i don't know them that well and i'm only comfortable talking to the people like that i talk to him a social media they're like my friends and so of so i don't know i guess is just so what if you were in a situation where i mean someone's going to be your boss at some point who will be older than you and you don't know so you have to address them or maybe you're interviewing for college and sometimes you have to interview for scholarships and whatnot so yeah i have to have a conversation with that with people well once i actually do get into a conversation i don't feel as nervous about it but i guess it's just like the idea of being formal because i feel like social media makes it's like such a informal environment that teenagers are on twenty four seven and then when you have to go and email someone and phone call someone that's like order the new and you know a more formal setting it's kind of nerve wracking to talk to them so on the flip side of that if you feel more confident doing those things you interview better if you feel more confident doing those things you come across as someone with more character so those are character building things that social media or texting can teach you and i know we've moved from like the letter to the e mail but the e mails still really important for instance when you interview for a position and you say you know you you e mail a thank you response or you hand write a card you still have to address them and so i'm not quite sure why i don't understand why kids are so scared so obviously this like lack of connection is unhealthy but do you think it's a mental health of factors that just something we need to work on that's like not that big of a deal i mean i think that it could be i think part of the problem is is that let's give a for instance when you are posting something whether it be a tweet whether it be a photo on instagram whatever you even a you tube video you have the ability to edit those things and so if you don't do not have the ability to edit in real time situations but the real time situations are often the most authentic and the most real and the most visceral from where you'll get a response and you build upon those things the other thing is if you fail and i hate to use the word fail but if you do not succeed you just have to learn from the situations we can't edit life yeah well how do you think that affects mental health and look at the pressure to be more perfect like editing things than you can't do the person do you think like yes i think it's i think it could be scary but i think also that we don't look at things that in a process so for instance you know if you were applying for some kind of internship or whatever you again if you cannot necessarily feel comfortable in your own skin it comes across to the person who trying to connect with you and that doesn't necessarily work so well so i think that anxiety probably increases and i think that our abilities to cope with those levels of anxiety are difficult i also think that for instance i don't know i'll give you an instagram example it's easy to take a filter then make a picture pretty bright and maybe you look like you're having a great time wherever but at the end of the day someone else is looking at that saying wow i wish i was living her life but i'm a male and they may not necessarily know that you're also you also have struggles and so we project to the world that things are always great fantastic phenomenal because we can edit it and that's not necessarily a healthy environment how do you see that in students and you maybe not in the classroom as much but like being around kids all day how do you see them like well i think that this need for perfection stems from a bunch of different areas and one of the areas that it stems from is social media so i used to run a blog and family blog and so i was in an event and i remember a very sad and i'm an adult so i remember very specifically someone who i have known since i was a child came up to me she was very trying to make us all look bad and i said what are you talking about she said well you're always posting about all the fun things that your family is doing and i said no i'm not trying to make you look bad i'm just enjoying my life and i thought this platform was a good place for other people to go to different places if you haven't been to the mattress factory with your kids you might want to go if you haven't taken your kid on a just ducky tour you might want to go i said i never this isn't about you and here's the other thing so people are looking at this saying i'm deficient in some area because i'm not doing this with my children  deficient in this area because i'm not doing this makeup to tori or i'm not contouring or whatever yeah so you think it affects like students self esteem how does it affect adults too oh like i just told you i mean she just she was she was like angry with me and i think that it's easy to look at these look at all of these platforms and say oh she's living our best life or his reliving his best life they're having a blast they're having fun but we also don't know what people are going through on a personal level you know maybe people are posting photos because they have self esteem issues or maybe they're just having fun it's individual istic and i think that that's been lost so the issue with like self esteem that teenagers might already have how do you think that social media increases it having having a lack of self esteem yes ok so i think it can be beneficial but i i'll say this again it can be that beneficial but i don't have much information about this but i know that i would think that negative keyboard courage i'll call it it's easier to have keyboard courage and to bad mouth someone or to post a disparaging photo of them without any real time consequences so if you would be angry at someone and you would post something in it you didn't really think about what you're posting before you did i mean that's a form of harassment or bowling which i know happens i don't know how much it happens because i'm not a kid but you know that obviously would have issues and then if a bunch of people jump on the bandwagon well that's you know that's the mob mentality of bullying so that could definitely have a negative effect kids could be school phobic kids could not want to go outside kids you know would shun other people and that would be a problem well i think as a high school student i know most people my age know that these are bad effects and that it's not the healthiest for us but why do you think that students don't really make an effort to change in those still say stuff like that because stepping outside of the norm is hard when you're a teenager stepping outside of the norm also brings attention to you so if you step outside of the norm and you say and we're trying there's an effort you know focusing on kindness and focusing on compassion those are things that are just they should be innate in you someone should be fostering those things but once you step outside of what everyone else is doing then you are also open to ridicule which is scary it's scary for kids well if you're posting on social media obviously you're getting attention for that like negatively so why getting any positive attention for being the one who's nice and doesn't like why the students want to avoid that if it's i don't think that necessarily one to one to avoid it i think sometimes it comes down to the courage to do it so there are probably kids and you know this to be true there are kids that who may be bystanders you know they they don't see what's happening and they are not necessarily strong enough to speak out against the masses but they also don't do anything to help the situation and those are the people that you want to you want to provide some support to you know if you think something's negative you have a voice to say that something's negative a voice on social media or a voice like person to person i think both so i think both the problem is there's a mob mentality of her social media and so if you say something people jump right on it because it's easy to type it it's much more difficult to say it face to face as someone yeah so when it comes to speaking audience that how do you think the students can make it a more positive effect than a negative effect when talking other students on social media i think the way in which you work things you know instead of a stream of consciousness  i'm going to just say everything i feel takes some time to think about what's important and if i were on the other end of this post whatever how would i feel i think that's important to you that is all we have time for today thank you so much for joining me to sum up what we've discussed today the downsides of social media can have negative effects on students and their mental health however there are many ways to set limits and control these problems th