Tightrope

It feels like I should make an announcement in the style of the start of a support group meeting.  "My name is Denise and I have only just joined Instagram". 

With the Blog and Facebook, I figured I had enough social media going on, so had thus far managed to avoid the lure of Instagram.  I'm trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on a screen not increase it.  All good, valid reasons to not venture any further into the myriad of social media options available.  

Alright, I will admit that laziness also played a factor.  I just couldn't be faffed with having to take loads of pictures and put filters on them and then think up witty hashtags whilst simultaneously fighting the urge to punctuate them properly.  It all seemed a bit like hard work when most of the time I spend my days doing things that are not even remotely Instagrammable.  Here's a photo of me doing the laundry.  Here I am trying to figure out what to have for dinner.  Not exactly influencer gold is it?    

The reason I joined Instagram was because I had the fear.  Not the fear of missing out. It was the fear of being an utterly clueless parent to two teenagers that did it.  I watched two programmes recently that scared the bejesus out of me.  The first one was called Spying on my Family.  It was about a family who gave each other open access to all their phones, devices and social media accounts.  The Dad of the family was appalled when he saw what his 14 and 11 year old sons were following on Instagram.  Scantily clad women featured heavily.  There were admissions that nudes had been asked for and received.  This guy wasn't your average clueless parent either, he was an ex-cop.  If he had no idea what his kids were doing online what the hell hope did I have.

The next programme I watched was called The Hunting.  It was an Australian drama about the ramifications of a nude teen photo scandal.  For me, this was the more terrifying of the two.  The sending and receiving of naked pictures was just accepted as being commonplace, an everyday occurrence, no big deal.  Seriously?  WTF?  Luckily I had recorded both programmes as I had to keep pausing them so I could vent and shout at the screen.  "Don't do it" I yelled at the teenage girl sending a naked photo to the boy she liked, "the internet is forever".  The cavalier sharing of the photo, then the cold calculation of distributing it to her peers and beyond.  The horror of it all.

There are some days when I bemoan getting older but I am truly grateful that I was a teenager well before social media was around.  It is hard enough for teenagers dealing with zig-zagging emotions, hormones and a body that seems to be working against them.  Now they are expected to be able to think about the potential future ramifications of their actions every time they take a picture or post something online.  When your brain is still developing and all your friends are doing it, how the hell are you supposed to say no?    
My kids are 11 and 9 so I only have a year or two to get up to speed.  To try to be able to adequately parent them through the shit storm of their teenage years and get them out the other side without having a digital footprint that will haunt them forever.  So I am starting with Instagram and even though the app they will end up using has probably not even been created yet, when it is, I will gamely join that too.  Because I don't want to be that parent who has no idea what their kid is up to.  I don't want to have to pick up the pieces when social media eats them alive.  I'm going to learn as much as I can so that when the time comes, I can teach them to walk the tightrope between being involved online and being safe.  Wish me luck.