When Lena Kalandjian was 13 years old, she remembers struggling to recreate\u00a0makeup looks<\/a>\u00a0she\u2019d see in beauty tutorials on\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>. No matter how much money she spent on expensive products or time she spent practicing her techniques, her made-up face never seemed to measure up to those of the creators she was emulating. It made her feel stressed out and discouraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019d spend all my Christmas and birthday money on these products that were supposed to make you look flawless,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd they\u2019d never look as good on me as they looked online.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kalandjian, now an 18-year-old senior at North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek, Fla., says it took her years to realize that the finished looks she was seeing on social media were often the result of a combination of lighting, editing, and filters. \u201cIn real life, your skin is always going to have texture and imperfections,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can do about that no matter how good of a makeup artist you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, Kalandjian says, she started to understand the outsize impact that social media can have on young people\u2019s mental health and the formation of their self-identity. That realization came from an unlikely source, an English class where students watched the Netflix documentary\u00a0The Social Dilemma<\/em>, which sheds light on the ways social media platforms manipulate and influence their users. Even more importantly, she realized that any problems she had with social media weren\u2019t hers alone. Instead, they were part of the platforms\u2019 design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn my younger teenage years, it felt like if you were addicted to social media, it was your responsibility to recognize that and log off when you were spending a lot of time online. It made me feel guilty about being on my phone all the time,\u201d she says, adding that worrying about social media used to keep her awake at night. \u201cBut after seeing how the platforms are designed to maximize your usage, it was like, well, they never told us they were making it impossible for us to get off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has rejected claims that it puts profits before the safety of its users. \u201cAs a company, we have every commercial and moral incentive to give the maximum number of people as much of a positive experience as possible on our apps,\u201d a\u00a0spokesperson said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since learning about why online content was wreaking havoc on her self esteem, Kalandjian has made it her mission to help other young people avoid the same fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her school is just eight miles down the road from where 17 students were killed in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, a tragedy that vaulted concerns regarding student safety to the forefront of community attention. Kalandjian connected with Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) Promise Club<\/a>, an offshoot of gun violence prevention nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise<\/a> that\u2019s the umbrella for a national network of student-led groups dedicated to keeping young people safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the country, thousands of SAVE Promise Club members are working on safety for young people, a mission that\u2019s increasingly intertwined with guarding them against the dark side of social media. And the issue is only growing more pressing. Last fall, whistleblower Frances Haugen alleged that Meta downplayed its own research on the harmful effects of its platforms on teens\u2014effects that included eating disorders, depression, suicidal thoughts and more. Her testimony sparked months of news reports and Congressional hearings on social media\u2019s impact on young people\u2019s mental health and safety. Then, in early May, a 16-year-old girl filed a lawsuit against Snapchat<\/a> alleging the company has failed to protect young users from sexual exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TIME spoke with three students, including Kalandjian, who have risen to helm SAVE Promise Club\u2019s 13-person national youth advisory board<\/a> and asked them how they\u2019re feeling about how teens can help keep their peers safe online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Noor Soomro, who lives in one of the most culturally diverse school districts in the U.S, the turning point was Haugen\u2019s revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Soomro, a 17-year-old senior at Lawrence E. Elkins High School in Missouri City, Texas, learned that Meta was aware of the toll its platforms take on young users\u2019 mental health, she says it felt like a betrayal. She submitted testimony with the help of Sandy Hook Promise for the Senate\u2019s October hearing on \u201cProtecting Kids Online.\u201d In it, Soomro detailed how it\u2019s difficult to understand why social media companies would knowingly put young people in harm\u2019s way. \u201cStudents already bear the burden of looking out for each other and taking care of one another,\u201d she wrote, highlighting how young people often rely on one another for support when faced with difficult situations both online and off. \u201cSocial media companies and responsible adults should help us stay safe, not actively endanger us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the months since, Soomro, who\u2019s also part of a teen leadership program at her mosque, has started running peer-to-peer workshops that offer tips on maintaining a healthy balance between online and real life. \u201cWe talk about how stepping away and setting boundaries for yourself are really good starting points,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She says she\u2019s seen a noticeable boost in school morale\u2014she\u2019s not only witnessed students putting away their phones to have more face-to-face conversations, but has also had people share how taking a social media break has improved their lives. \u201cStudents are more willing to connect with each other and aren\u2019t relying as much on social media as their main form of entertainment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That anecdotal evidence is backed up by professionals in the field. Shoshana Fagen, a clinical psychologist at Franciscan Children\u2019s<\/a> in Brighton, Mass., says that young patients she\u2019s worked with have identified a similar correlation between time spent on social media and heightened feelings of emotional distress. \u201cThey\u2019ve found that by taking a social media vacation or limiting the amount of time they\u2019re spending on certain platforms, they\u2019re able to have a better sense of self-worth,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aashi Mittal, a 17-year-old senior at Del Norte High School in San Diego, said her parents were wary of her using social media at too young of an age. So she waited until freshman year of high school to make her accounts\u2014and soon found that the pressure to appear \u201cperfect\u201d online can be overwhelming. \u201cWe see this constant portrayal of life on social media where everyone\u2019s always happy and going out with their friends and doing fun things,\u201d she says. \u201cIt can lead to a very negative self-perception.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once she started using Snapchat and Instagram, she had to learn how to manage the feelings of inadequacy that would sometimes wash over her when she\u2019d see posts from friends or influencers that made their lives seem perfect. That\u2019s when she truly understood her parents\u2019 hesitation. \u201cA big part of self-care is creating a healthy online environment for yourself and taking breaks from social media when you need to,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instagram has, in recent years, become a particular hotbed of photos depicting unrealistic and often unattainable body standards for young women. In 2019, the New Yorker <\/em>published a story titled \u201cThe Age of Instagram Face\u201d<\/a> that explored how editing apps like Facetune and, more and more frequently, cosmetic plastic surgery procedures were giving rise to a \u201csingle, cyborgian face\u201d among \u201cprofessionally beautiful women\u201d on the photo-sharing platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To contend with the harmful effects of online social comparison, Mittal, who founded her school\u2019s SAVE Promise Club, has organized a number of mental health awareness programs with a focus on self-care through the lens of social media. Ironically, some of these programs are run through the same platforms exacerbating some of these issues. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a catch-22,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of the information has to do with taking care of yourself by getting offline. But then I\u2019m sharing it online.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not as easy as saying teens should just disconnect entirely. Not only has social media been\u00a0compared to tobacco for how addictive it is<\/a>, it\u2019s also become an inextricable aspect of young people\u2019s lives\u2014especially since the start of the pandemic. While a 2018 report from the\u00a0American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry<\/a>\u00a0showed that teens were online for an average of nine hours a day,\u00a0Common Sense Media<\/a>\u00a0reports that, in the last two years alone, the amount of non-school-related time 8-18 year olds spend on screens has increased by 17%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s this vicious cycle where if you don\u2019t have social media, you feel like you should get on it. But once you\u2019re on it, you feel like maybe you should get off it,\u201d Mittal says. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to stop because the more people that are on it, the harder it is to not be and still feel like you belong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Kalandjian\u2019s school, Michelle Henne, a SAVE Promise Club advisor, history teacher, and cheerleading coach, says it\u2019s obvious that social media dominates students\u2019 lives. \u201cThey\u2019re online from the minute they get up in the morning until after they\u2019re supposed to be asleep,\u201d she says. \u201cIf they don\u2019t have their phones, they feel like they\u2019ve lost all communication with the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But part of the problem also lies in the fact that social media isn\u2019t all bad. Fagen says that connecting with friends online gives young people an essential support system at a time when \u201cpeer interaction is vital to their social, emotional, and even ethical development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the system working against them, the positive aspects of social media give Kalandjian hope that it can still be a \u201cforce for good\u201d for young people. \u201cSocial media is going to be in our lives whether we like it or not,\u201d she says. \u201cSo it\u2019s important to know how to use it responsibly instead of listening to people who say, \u2018Well maybe your life would be a lot easier if you didn\u2019t use it at all.\u2019 That\u2019s not the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since previous generations haven\u2019t grown up with social media in the same way, members of older age groups sometimes don\u2019t grasp the intrinsic role it plays in young people\u2019s opinions of themselves and others. \u201cYou see elementary school kids already glued to iPads watching YouTube,\u201d says Chris Nguyen, a SAVE Promise Club advisor and science teacher at Soomro\u2019s school. \u201cThey have social media from such a young age and get more and more attached to it as they get older.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mittal says that parents and other adults need to be conscious of why things that happen online sometimes feel like the be-all and end-all of teens\u2019 lives: \u201cAdults don\u2019t always understand why problems that seem small and insignificant, like getting a certain comment or not getting enough likes on a post, make us feel so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an attempt to rein in Big Tech\u2019s power, lawmakers are moving to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)<\/a>, a bipartisan bill that would create a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent harms to minors by providing them and their parents with options to protect their personal data, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But with no guarantee that the Senate will vote to make KOSA law\u2014and concerns swirling around whether the legislation would infringe on youth privacy<\/a>\u2014young people like Kalandjian, Mittal, and Soomro recognize that, regardless of what happens in Congress, their work needs to carry on. Frances Haugen herself is advocating for a broader youth-led social movement to build pressure from young adults for social media companies to reform their ways. She recently told the National Education Association<\/a> that students should be leaders in demanding more accountability from tech giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the teens who spoke with TIME, graduation is on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soomro is currently training juniors in her school\u2019s SAVE Promise Club on how to run social media workshops once she graduates. \u201cDoing this research and educating others has made me more aware of the time and energy I\u2019m putting into social media and motivated me to help others set their own boundaries,\u201d she says. \u201cHopefully, that can be my legacy and something that the school will continue to do.\u201d In the fall, she heads to the University of Texas at Austin to study political communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Mittal wants to continue to empower young people to have a healthier relationship with social media, she knows that what she\u2019s already achieved is particularly impactful. \u201cIt\u2019s really powerful to be in this age group myself and be able to speak about these things,\u201d she says. \u201cAll the work that I\u2019m doing right now is special because I\u2019m living through it.\u201d After moving cross country, she\u2019ll start on the pre-med track at Williams College in Massachusetts this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Kalandjian\u2019s part, she wants to weave this type of activism into her education and career from here on out. In addition to a recent TEDx Talk<\/a> on online social comparison, she has also presented a social media webinar in collaboration with the National Center for School Safety at the University of Michigan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There, she spoke to the audience of educators and mental health professionals about their blindspots when it comes to teens and social media. \u201cWe need to all be on the same page about how we can do better together,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next year, Kalandjian will be attending Vanderbilt University to major in human organizational development. She says that she wants to channel her experience into building better institutions wherever her path takes her. \u201cThis is definitely something that\u2019s going to stick with me for the rest of my life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People exchange Instagram QR codes in New York on Aug. 8, 2021. The service has been eclipsed by Snapchat and TikTok among teenagers. – Jasmine Clarke\u2014The New York Times\/Redux BY\u00a0MEGAN MCCLUSKEY\u00a0 | MAY 25, 2022 8:00 AM EDT When Lena Kalandjian was 13 years old, she remembers struggling to recreate\u00a0makeup looks\u00a0she\u2019d see in beauty tutorials …<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[76],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5115,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113\/revisions\/5115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/api.time.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/teens-social-media-2.jpg?quality=85&w=2400\")
Making their voices heard<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Why not just log off?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What\u2019s next<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Original Article Here<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"