Social media and students’ health examined by educators

NEW CANAAN — Social media may be playing a role in children’s mental health, according to a recent presentation to the Board of Education.

About 40 percent more high school students nationally reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2019 compared to 2009, Student Supports Coordinator Susan Bliss recently told the school board.

She called the news “sobering,” but outlined the district’s efforts to encourage emotional intelligence in students to help.

Bliss said that while the causes for the rise in stress and anxiety outside of the pandemic is “debated all the time” by professionals, one repeated theory is the everincreasing popularity of social media.

Bliss said she has learned from speaking with children that young people are having fewer “face-to-face” conflicts because of social media.

“They only have them online,” she said, adding this can affect how social skills develop or don’t.

Social media users also perceive other people’s lives “based on what's online rather than having a conversation, and it can make people not feel so great about themselves,” she said.

Board member Hugo Alves raised his own concerns about social media’s impact. “I have young kids and I'm just terrified to give them phones,” he said. “We bought them iPads, and it was a complete nightmare, and we've taken them away.”

The district has a “very robust” digital citizenship program which includes focus groups to help educators stay up-to-date with different social media platform changes ranging from Snapchat to TikTok, Bliss said.

An important question to ask, she said, is whether students feel “better or worse after the use of social media.”

The district teaches students to think critically, Bliss said. “We've learned through the research too, it doesn't help to just say, ‘no.’ We have to help them to really reflect.”

Digital citizenship is taught on the elementary level by numerous members of the school community, from classroom teachers to teachers in their technology labs, said Assistant Superintendent Jill Correnty.

Administration is considering increasing the digital citizenship education at the high school, Bliss said.

Psychologists and social workers also play a role in students’ mental health throughout the state — where there is a current “supply demand,” officials said.

Bliss suggested the grant money enabling schools to hire more psychologists or social workers could be a factor for the shortage. She also hypothesizes that many like to work remotely and are choosing jobs that don’t demand them to be in-person.

Superintendent Bryan Luizzi said educators at the state level are discussing “expanding the pipeline” and “looking at building the programs of the state, local schools and others, to try to attract more people into the profession.”

The district also gives individual parent support through its roster of social workers and psychologists who spend one-on-one time on the phone with parents, Bliss said.

Bliss also said she has had talks with New Canaan CARES — a local non-profit organization founded to advance the health and wellbeing of youth and families — about the ”programs that they offer to parents.”

“We want so much to partner with parents and families,” Bliss said.