Technology is not going anywhere, in fact, it will continue to advance in the coming years. We use it everywhere, for school, work, and leisure. Strong connections and relationships are a protective factor that has shown to help buffer risk and boost resilience. The availability of computers, smartphones, video consoles and other electronic devices have given many the opportunity to always be connected. However, it is the time, the content and reason of use that we want to focus on.
To ensure healthy technology use among the young people in your life, there are four M’s that you can refer to:
- Manage
The information online can be easily accessed but you can manage this by setting limits and clear expectations of use among the technology being used along with continually learning about different platforms, especially those most popular in your life. For instance, using your phone during certain times of the day, what you can post, having limit checks or learning about privacy settings on TikTok can help ensure healthy use.
- Meaningful
To see the positive impacts of technology, you want to make sure that the use is active, educational, and social. Is social media being used to post and connect with peers or do they feel FOMO “fear of missing out” on an event that may be posted by their peers.
- Model
If you are setting rules and expectations, you want to also follow what you are asking the young people in your lives to do. Review your own use, are you on it during dinner or before bed? Ask them to show you platforms they are using and ask questions about the posts they are seeing, for example, how does this make you feel, or do you know what filters are?
- Monitor
The monitoring of use will help you to see if there are signs that may lead to problematic use. When they are not using technology, are they bored or angry, do they have low self-esteem, worsening symptoms of mental health issues (such as anxiety) or does technology use interfere with school, social interactions, or sleep?
There are both pros and cons when using technology. We encourage the use of the four M’s as a template to see where/if there needs to be focus to ensure the positives of technology is outweighing the negatives.
