by Community Health Promotion Services
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 for us that has been 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 4 Ms 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. It is also useful to continually learn 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 apps like TikTok to 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 are the people you love feeling 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 your phone during dinner or before bed? Ask them to show you platforms they are using and ask questions about the posts they see, for example, how this makes you feel, or do you know what filters are?
• Monitor: The monitoring of use will help you to see if there are any warning signs of problematic use. When they are not using technology, are they bored or angry, have low self-esteem, are they exhibiting worsening symptoms of mental health issues such as anxiety, or does it interfere with school, social interactions, or sleep?
There are pros and cons when using technology. We encourage the use of the 4 Ms as a tool to ensure the positives of technology are outweighing the negatives.
