Guidelines for oversharing teenagers on social media – The Wall Street Journal
Parents of British teenage girl, Molly Russel who committed suicide at the age of 14 years " have no doubt that Instagram helped kill" their daughter. When they examined her social media use; they found that she was communicating with other teenagers who were suicidal and self-harming. Some of the users were actively goading other members to take drastic action. In some instances it has become an online version of crowds shouting at a suicidal person standing on a building to "Jump". The media coverage of the Molly Russell case prompted a public apology from US social media giant Facebook and a promise to do more to tackle these kind of posts. As Julie Jargon has highlighted in this article in the Wall Street Journal; there is a noted shift from Millennials posting their perfect lives and destination pictures to Generation Z who want to be more "real" on social media. With the quest to be real, open and vulnerable, there has been an increase in anxiety expressed on social media platforms. What teenagers may not be aware of is that the motive of influencers are first and foremost to get clicks and likes for profit and that there could be influencers with more sinister motives driving the need to be "real". Jargon offers guidelines on what parents can do to mitigate the risk for their teenagers. – Linda van Tilburg