Program to help young girls with social media copingDate: 1/27/2022 WESTERN MASS. – Navigating the challenges of the world today is a difficult task for anyone, but especially for middle school girls with social media accounts.
Thanks to Shurtleff Children’s Services Inc., the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts this spring will bring the free “All About MEdia” program to girls in grades 5-8 in the city of Westfield and the towns of Southwick, Blandford, Chester, Granville, Huntington, Montgomery, Russell, Agawam and West Springfield. Girls do not need to be currently registered Girl Scouts to participate.
Dana Carnegie, communications manager for the local Girl Scouts, said All About MEdia was developed in 2019 at the request of a central Massachusetts funder, the Fred Harris Daniels Foundation, after research released from The Investing In Girls Alliance’s 2019 Status Update on Middle School Girls in Greater Worcester showed middle school girls were increasing their time online for non-school activities, as well as increasing reports of cyberbullying, depressive feelings and lack of sleep.
“The ultimate goal for the program was to help girls build a safe, healthy and realistic understanding of social media. After meeting our outcomes for the pilot years (2020-2021) in central Massachusetts, coupled with the positive feedback we received from participants and their caregivers, we decided to seek funding to offer this program in other areas of our council,” Carnegie said.
Middle school girls were targeted for the program because “middle school is one of the toughest, but formative times for girls; coupled with the fact that we are living in a digital age and many girls are either already online or close to receiving their first phones or devices,” Carnegie said. “This program will help girls have an understanding of healthy relationships, build empathy, develop conflict resolution and coping skills, know that what they see on social media is a curated life of the poster, and practice safe, healthy behaviors that aren’t affecting their emotional well-being.”
While the middle school years have traditionally been difficult as children face new emotions, hormones and the transition to adult life, social media has created more hurdles for this age group.
“Social media allows the challenges to be constant and harder for girls to step away, thus causing depressive symptoms and even lack of sleep,” said Carnegie, adding that the images on social media add to these feelings. “While girls understand there are filters and Photoshop, they still fail to identify what is an altered image or a curated life on social media.”
The Millennium Cohort Study found that 40 percent of girls (compared to 11 percent of boys), who spend 3-5 hours a day on social media have reported suffering from depressive symptoms, and 60 percent of those girls reported unhappiness with their appearance being one of the driving factors of depressive thoughts. The majority of girls surveyed responded that they are most likely to log into their accounts just before bed, and on average, get less than six hours of sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends at least eight to nine hours of sleep for girls in this age group. Bullying has also been taken to a new level, with 24-hour access via social media.
Carnegie said the 2019 Status Update on Middle School Girls reports that 27 percent of local girls have been bullied online; the national average is 21 percent, as reported by the National Center for Education Statistics. Independent journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health reported that mental health harms related to frequent social media use in girls might be due to a combination of exposure to cyberbullying or displacement of sleep or physical activity. The Millennium Cohort Study also found that girls that showed signs of depression were also victims of cyberbullying. A study from the Pew Research Center found girls were more likely to be targets of online rumor-spreading and receiving of unsolicited explicit images.
“Social media is only one of the many areas that can affect our girls – and it’s always changing,” Carnegie said. “The kids aren’t on the platforms we adults are, so the mystery can be scary. But the reality is, that’s how kids communicate these days, so instead of fighting it or trying to use scare tactics, we need to equip the girls with the tools to safely and positively exist online.”
Carnegie said having adults participate in the program will better help the girls.
“We feel really strongly about engaging caregivers in this program – from knowing what platforms their girls are on (and how to use them), why they’re always using them, to modeling healthy, positive behavior on their own accounts,” she said. “The social media compact is one element of this program and is a way for caregivers to engage in a conversation with their girls about social media. Together they work on setting rules that they both agree upon, like no phones at the dinner table. A compact can be changed overtime, but it lays the groundwork for discussion and expectations of both parties.”
Girls will explore online advertising, cyber-bullying, and healthy relationships as they learn to be leaders for peace and safety on social media. With activities such as role-playing, profile exploration and design, games and reflection, girls will discover new skills to be safe on social media, connect with others to stop cyber-bullying, and take action together to make change on social media. Girl Scouts will complete their MEdia Journey and Netiquette badges and receive both as part of this program.
Parents will join the kickoff meeting to learn how to navigate the platforms their girl loves, get a better understanding of why she is always on her phone, and work on making a social media compact.
Carnegie said the Girl Scouts will run the program this spring, though the specific dates have not yet been determined. For more information on the eight-week series, contact Carnegie at dcarnegie@gscwm.org or call 584-2602, ext. 7122.
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