Equipping pediatricians to help families navigate digital environments

Photo credit: Jacob Wackerhausen

Efforts to help adolescents and families navigate social media and the digital world should include multiple strategies, including counseling by pediatricians.

“Society has long had a complicated relationship with adolescents,” wrote Megan A. Moreno, MD, MSEd, MPH, and Jenny S. Radesky, MD. JAMA Pediatrics. “Adults want to protect them while their self-control and thinking skills are still developing, while also providing enough autonomy and support for teens to launch independently into adulthood. This tension manifests itself almost daily between carers and teenagers.”

This tension, the authors continued, is now being seen nationally, with both state and federal policies stemming from fears about the digital world. Some approaches, especially those that do not support adolescent autonomy, “can do more harm than good,” explained Dr. Moreno and Dr. Radesky.

From the standpoint, the authors highlighted features of the legislation that could be beneficial, such as implicit privacy protections, platform-level policies that limit the impact of misinformation, and alignment with children’s health and developmental needs.

Talking to Doctor’s Weeklynoted Dr. Moreno “There has been a lot of buzz in response to this topic and work, the state laws that have been passed, the federal government’s role in working to integrate evidence into policy and media coverage.”

The role of the pediatrician

Questions about the role of pediatricians in helping teens and families navigate social media and the broader digital environment “are really important,” says Dr. Moreno.

“I am the co-medical director of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Center of Excellence for Social Media and Youth Mental Health and have worked to develop tools and resources to provide clinicians with ways to help families navigate the digital space” , she continued.

The AAP’s Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health serves “as a centralized and trusted source for evidence-based education and technical assistance to support the mental health of children and adolescents as they navigate social media,” according to a press release of the AAP. center.

Available tools include conversation starters for parents “to navigate communication with their children about their media habits,” says Dr. Moreno. “We also launched a new framework called the 5 Cs. “

The 5 Cs of social media use include child, content, calm, exclusion, and communication.

Dr. Moreno notes that the implications extend to all clinicians who care for children.

“The viewpoint was meant to describe ways in which policy and legislation can be helpful or harmful from a children’s health perspective, and to emphasize that legislation alone will not solve the issues that concern us around children and digital media,” she says. .