social media Archives - Kathleen Hassan

Raising Teen Girls in a Social Media World

Social media is everywhere and a huge part of how teens communicate. By the time you finish reading this article, how likely are you to have received a text from your teen? A 2012 Common Sense Media study found that 75 percent of teens have a profile on a social networking site like Facebook; 68 percent text every day and 23 percent use at least two types of social media every day. Those are some pretty significant statistics. But just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it’s good. The same study found that: 57 percent of girls sometimes feel left out after seeing photos of others online 45 percent of girls are concerned about other people posting photos of them 28 percent of girls have edited photos of themselves before posting them Like Dickens’ famous line from A Tale of Two Cities, technology has created both both the best of times [...]

Camera Shy: Don’t Look At Me vs. Selfies: Like Me

Let's face it. We live in a mixed up world of extremes. We want to stand out and fit in. We want to be part of the crowd and yet we isolate and feel all alone. We want to be loved and yet we hate ourselves. We yell, "Don't look at me" and we post selfies all over social media and encourage the world to "like" us, subscribe and share. All of this can reek havoc on self-esteem and can cause all kinds of issues that stem from getting validation externally instead of finding power and worth from within. Self-esteem is basically how we perceive ourselves. It is based on our self-worth, competency or how well we achieve. In part, we get a sense of how successful, talented and proficient we are by comparing ourselves to others. In today’s digital world, the playground on which we make that comparison is [...]