While consensus on the issue appears well out of reach, some experts agree that it is not just important but imperative that parents keep up with social networking trends.
Marianne Medlin of Catholic News Agency is another to stress the importance of parental involvement - but not just where cyber bullying prevention is concerned. In a Dec. 7 column highlighting the effects of “hyper social networking,” Medlin zooms in on a debate that was sparked by a Nov. 9 Business Week report which stated “that teens who “hyper texted” (over 120 messages sent per school day) and “hyper social networked” (over three hours spent on networking sites per school day) showed an increase risk of dangerous health behaviors such as smoking, drinking and sexual activity.”
According to researchers at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, hyper-networking was also associated with an increased likelihood of stress, depression, suicide, poor sleep, poor academics, television watching and parental permissiveness.
Medlin interviews Teresa Tomeo, a former journalist and syndicated talk show, who says that many parents are so caught up in their own addictive media habits that they lack the discipline to challenge their kids to use media responsibly.
“Parents need to be more involved…They need to educate themselves, set and stick to guidelines and not be afraid to be parents or to set limits and restrictions on the amount and types of media usage.”
Adding a much needed spiritual perspective on the issue is Fr. Michael Warren of Denver who expresses concern about the spiritual and the interpersonal risks of these new technologies. As examples of the more ominous affects of faceless communication, he cited intense isolation and the inability to form real, selfless relationships with others.
“In real face to face encounters you stand before me as a real person in your own right, invested with value that does not originate in me,” he told CAN. “But in the cyber world I am the determiner of all value and therefore am free from the demands of the face to face encounter.”
He explained that through online communication, "the only value you have in my eyes are the values I permit you to have in my own small world."
Fr. Warren also pointed to the concern of “having this mentality spill over into one's spiritual life.”
“As a person becomes habituated to living this way, it is not likely that God will be spared this indignity,” he said. “Like everything else in my cyber world, God will have the value I allow him to have, and I can 'defriend' Him just as easily as I do everyone else."
Despite the dangers of social networking, Fr. Warren is one of many who agree that these tools also present an equal opportunity for good -- so long as they are used in proper and moderate fashion.
Tomeo herself agrees noting that “the Church in Her wisdom recognizes the advantage of online communication for faith outreach”– as evidenced by both Pope Benedict XVI and the U.S. bishop's encouragement that technology be considered as a means of evangelization.
At the end of the day, where teens and social media are concerned, most can agree that parental involvement is the key in ensuring healthy habits surrounding the ever-evolving means of communication. Fr. Warren summarizes it best when he says:
“The domestic church is a place where children should develop the essential virtues of social communication face to face…Parents should also help their children to know what the true ends of friendship and communication are…These discoveries help the young know that they cannot define themselves but are to understand themselves as part of a larger world over which they do not have command.”
Michèle Nuzzo-Naglieri
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