The Social Media Conversation

Nov 7

Episode Guests:

Amanda Bradshaw, Ph.D.
Marquita Smith Ed.D.

In the eleventh episode of the Mayo Lab Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Meagan Rosenthal and Alexis Lee welcomed Dr. Amanda Bradshaw, assistant professor of integrated marketing communications at the University of Mississippi, and Dr. Marquita Smith, associate dean for graduate programs and research in the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi, to discuss their ongoing research on the role of social media in family dynamics, specifically focusing on the perspectives of mothers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The conversation that followed delved into the heart of the research conducted by Dr. Bradshaw and Dr. Smith, which aimed to understand how mothers navigated social media use within their households and how it affected both their mental health and that of their children. Contrary to their initial expectations, the findings painted a complex picture.

Dr. Smith noted that among the parent participants, some enforced strict screen time limits, while others adapted to the increased need for digital media due to remote schooling. Some parents in the research engaged in a constant negotiation of boundaries with their children concerning social media use.

“I know one mom said it was so compelling the way she described it. She wanted her daughters to wait as long as possible before forming their identity around which is the best selfie to post. So not filtering your identity through what’s the best for this platform or what is the best for others, but being true to yourself.”

— Dr. Amanda Bradshaw

“Each age and stage, it seemed like there was very much a discussion,” Dr. Bradshaw explained. “Now we have the phone, here’s how we’re going to use it.”

Both Dr. Smith and Dr. Bradshaw emphasized that social media played a role in providing support for parents during the pandemic. These platforms allowed parents to connect with others, share experiences, and seek advice. However, they acknowledged that the highlight reel aspect of social media led to comparisons and feelings of inadequacy.

The guests taught the importance of modeling values and striking a balance in social media usage, highlighting how adaptability in fostering open conversations with children can help.

“...There's not a one-size-fits-all approach to this conversation,” said Alexis Lee. “And what works this month might not work next month or might not work next year. There’s so much adaptation and there's so much conversation that I'm hearing that needs to be continued to be had in families, or if you're not having it, bring it in a way of and talk to your weak ties and get into community, things that are going to be so supportive and know that what you do today isn't what you have to do forever for you and for your students.”

To hear more from Episode 11 of Season 2, scroll down to listen to the episode or read the transcript.

Watch the podcast on YouTube:

Meagen Rosenthal:
I'm Meagan Rosenthal.
Alexis Lee:
And I'm Alexis Lee, and this is the Mayo Lab Podcast. Hello everyone. Welcome back to season two of the Mail Lab Podcast, and welcome to Dr. Bradshaw and Dr. Smith today. Thank you for joining us.
Amanda Bradshaw:
We're glad to be here.
Alexis Lee:
I'm so excited we're tackling the topic I think that is long awaited in the stigma world of social media. We all have it right now, good, bad, ugly, indifferent. And if you don't realize you have it, you definitely do. So I'm really excited to talk to you both because you guys are doing some active research in the field, which is so exciting. But before we dive into that, would you each just take a minute and tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you got into this work?
Amanda Bradshaw:
Sure. So my name is Amanda Bradshaw. I am an assistant professor of integrated marketing Communications here at the University of Mississippi in the school of Journalism and New Media. And I got my PhD from the University of Florida where I started to study the nexus between maternal health decision making and social network interactions. And so just kind of seeing how that ties together. And I really became interested in this work during the Covid-19 pandemic when we were all six feet apart, kind of physically isolated, but virtually connected. And I wanted to see, especially with adolescents and mothers with social media use with that kind of dyad what that would be like.
Alexis Lee:
So interesting.
Marquita Smith:
And I'm Marquita Smith. I'm our associate dean for grad programs and research in the school of Journalism and New Media. And my background is really in looking at public health communication more in the global context, but I also am interested in just thinking about the pandemic and how people coped during that time. I actually moved to the University of Mississippi in 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. And so I can tell you how doing things virtually was my lifeline to transitioning to a new community. And so when Dr. Bradshaw told me that this is what she was working on, I said, "That sounds really exciting. I'd like to participate." And she said, "Yeah, you can help us out."
Meagen Rosenthal:
Awesome.
Marquita Smith:
So we're excited to be working on the project for sure.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Very cool. Very cool. Well, we did get, the joys of being hosts, we did get a sneak peek of some of the data that you've collected so far. But before we get into the data, could you just walk us through a little bit about what the goal of the project is and what y'all have been doing so far?
Amanda Bradshaw:
Yes. So the goal of the project, we're starting with mothers. So we're interviewing mothers who have adolescent children, which is defined as the ages of 10 to 19 during Covid-19 lockdowns. And we asked them about their own social media usage during that time as well as their children's social media usage. So any kind of mental health issues that they experienced during that time, how they coped, how they may be set limits around that use. And so the goal of the project was just to explore from the mother's perspective what was going on. And then a future project might explore from the adolescent children's perspective if that perspective matches.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Interesting, interesting. Well, and the thing I love about this project is that you all are focusing on the perspective of the parent, the mother in this case. So much of the literature and the data that you've seen to date has been really focused on the impact it's had on children or the perspective of young people who are using social media. And I can't even think off the top of my head if there's been one that's actually talked to young people about their social media use, but just the implications or the impact of social media on the young people. So how did you come up with the idea of focusing on the mothers and their perspective on social media use as a lens to take to this conversation?
Amanda Bradshaw:
That's a great question. So we know that mothers are their primary health decision makers in the home. And what they do guides so much of what happens, as far as child-rearing. A lot of mothers are still the primary parents or they take on the primary responsibility for the parenting role. And the research shows during Covid-19, that was certainly true. They were working from home. They were balancing the stress, the mental load of their own careers. Often with parenting at home, now helping children do homework in a more time intensive way, trying to balance everything. We know that people had more screen time, both parents and children. And so just trying to see that interaction and how everyone coped with that, we thought that would be an interesting lens to take.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Yeah, yeah, no, that is very, very cool.
Alexis Lee:
And I'm interested, before we get into all of it, what did y'all suspect? What was your hypothesis getting into it? What did you think you were going to find?
Amanda Bradshaw:
Oh, I thought it would all be bad. What did you think?
Marquita Smith:
I thought so too. I just knew that I was fearful that people have so much shame because people allowed their kids to lose themselves in screens and social media, and I felt like there will be a lot of guilt parenting happening there.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Yeah, yeah. That's very cool. Okay, so juxtaposition. Let's talk through some of the findings that you had of reality versus what we thought.
Amanda Bradshaw:
So it was very much a mixed bag, And the third person effect was very prevalent. So even when parents would talk about social media usage, especially in cases where there weren't limits or the children used a whole lot more screens than they were used to, just because they were all surviving and trying to get work and school done, they very much saw it as applying to other people's children, not mine. So most of the parents felt like they had appropriate limits in their households. The mothers felt like their children were doing okay. But then many times they had anecdotes about other people's children. Little Johnny over there, my neighbor's kid, is watching 20 hours a day and is really addicted to video games. It's really a problem, and using social media in these unhealthy ways. But there was very much a distancing. And so I think when they were looking at their own household, it was these effects I'm not seeing as prevalently here, perhaps because I'm doing a good job or there are limits in place, or my child might be younger, so maybe not on all of the platforms.
Also, the mothers of boys and of older children as well seemed to distance a little bit. So they said, "I don't think my children would tell me if they were having problems as much," which was really interesting. And so the absence of a conversation in some cases indicated positivity that nothing bad was happening.
Marquita Smith:
Yeah. I had a lot of silver lining parents as well that said, "Well, my son is an introvert. And so he was living his best life. He had an opportunity to be at home. It was his jam. He found his groove and he was able to connect with other introverts, and then they had little groups, social groups. And so he became more social when he was taken out of the school environment." So I was surprised to find that there were more silver linings than I could have anticipated in some of my conversations, even if they denoted some struggle with the adjustment and the transition to not being in a school every day, they still saw positives in isolation, and so that was intriguing.
Meagen Rosenthal:
As a fellow introvert, I was totally... You had to be careful about who you said that in front of, but lockdown was totally my jam. I was like, "Yes." But I was on Zoom eight hours a day, literally eight hours a day, but it felt so much less burdensome because I was at home during that time. So I totally feel and appreciate that. That is so interesting. I mean, there's so many things there to start to unpack. Alexis, where do you want to start? I know your brain is [inaudible 00:07:40].
Alexis Lee:
I think it's so interesting that we don't talk about a lot these silver linings of kids that may in students that are struggling or don't feel like they fit in, quote unquote, where they are geographically, that there's this whole world online where they can feel at home. And I think we talked a little bit about, and people that are struggling, a lot of people can find online support groups. And not even support groups for students specifically, just places where they feel seen, heard, celebrated. People enjoy what they enjoy. We don't really talk about that a lot, and I think there's so much...
I mean, parents are obviously seeing it. They're seeing their kids and they become more alive. And I think there's a line there, and I don't think any of us have figured out of how much screen time's too much. But also if they're feeling more connected, we want them to thrive. And so I just think, I don't know, I just think that's a topic. I don't know how we dig into that right now because there's probably not a lot of research around it, but I just think that's such an interesting finding of there's spaces and places where this can be encouraged and good. So yeah, this is just Pandora's box.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. Well, because I think that so much of the conversation we've had around this topic in the media has been like, it's all bad. It's all bad and all causes terrible things to happen. But I think as a consumer of that, if I take my researcher hat off for a second as a consumer of that, okay, what do you do with that, because it's everywhere. We email is social media, LinkedIn is social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all of the different things, and all of us have them. I can count on two fingers the number of people I know who are not on any social media platform.
And so how do you find a way out of that? And I think that's what we're hearing from the parents that you all talk to is that they're trying to find a way to mentally work through the balance between needing to be on social media and online and have screen time with their kids for themselves, for their kids, for school, for all of those different things and that they're working through. What does that balance really look like from my family's perspective? They might have a problem, little Johnny's mom might have a problem, but my family we're good. So could you walk us through and thinking through what were, because I'm very curious about the boundaries people set up for their own families. Did you all get into what those boundaries look like for their houses? Because I'd be curious to know what they said they did.
Amanda Bradshaw:
We did look at the boundaries that they set up, and so it really varied. They described it as a negotiation, which I really liked. And the parents actually said, a lot of these parents are Generation X or even some older millennials, and those generations either didn't have phones growing up or got them late in high school or beyond in college. And so for them it was very easy going into parenting to say, my kid will not get a phone, or they will not have social media until high school or until they're driving or something like that. But they quickly found the children were so left out of. For example, competition dance team, everyone's interacting in the group chat in this way, or the kids wouldn't have access to certain knowledge about extracurriculars or things going on in the community or at school that really there was a need to have some sort of communication, especially during the Covid-19 timeframe.
So they describe things like, "Well, they could have messenger kids on my phone. So they can communicate with grandparents or with friends or with certain people at school on my device where I can check it. I have the password. It's very limited to when I let them have my phone. Or if they do have their own phone, it might be a gab device." So it's a very specific device. You cannot download additional apps, so you're very limited to what's on there. Social media may or may not be on some of these devices. If they did have social media, it was often, you must use it in the common areas of the home. You can only use it between these hours, maybe only on the weekends or not on a school night, you must stay out in the open, you must put your phone in this charging bin for us to have dinner together as a family. You must check in with me. I can check your phone at any time. I'm paying for it so I have the right to check and see who you're communicating with.
There was certainly a fear of predators that a lot of people brought up. And so they wanted to have access. One mom, her child wanted Instagram and she wasn't ready for her to have it. So she said, "You cannot post a picture of your face." You can have a pet account, so they created an account for their dog. And it got a lot of followers, so it kind of scratched that itch of being present on Instagram can connect with friends, but not showing the child's face.
Alexis Lee:
Interesting.
Amanda Bradshaw:
But now it's a negotiation. Now the child's a little bit older, do we let her start taking pictures of her face and presenting that to the world? So what does that look like? So each age and stage, it seemed like there was very much a discussion. Now we have the phone, here's how we're going to use it. Here are the parameters, here's the type of device or the type of platform you can be on and in what capacity.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Interesting.
Marquita Smith:
In many of my cases, most of the young people were looking at YouTube. And so it was personalities on YouTube, entertainers on YouTube. And so not so much in terms of engaging in Instagram or those kinds of social media. Depending on the age of the young people, they were finding personalities that they liked on YouTube. And sometimes it was old shows and kind of looking at it as movie viewing, but it was also just kind of becoming fans of different things on YouTube. And so I was a bit surprised at how much that became a staple in people's homes and how parents felt less intimidated by that kind of engagement versus people being on Twitter or X or other kinds of social media. And so younger people were finding favorite shows on YouTube and some throwback shows. Their kids were finding shows that they grew up watching on YouTube and just kind of binge watching those throughout the time. So I think YouTube really took a bump in terms of viewership during the pandemic as well. And sometimes we don't think of it as being a social site, but it very much is.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Absolutely.
Amanda Bradshaw:
It did because they would describe, it was almost this active versus passive use. So they're just consuming hours of content. Or even if they created their own, there was one child, the family that we spoke to said they loved cooking videos and creating videos...
Meagen Rosenthal:
Oh, that's fun.
Amanda Bradshaw:
... and creating content, but you kind of created at home and then you post it. So it's almost like a one and done, and you're not interacting too much over that content. So people might comment and you get validation in your identity as a chef, or you're watching the famous chef and you're watching what they're doing, but it's not so much of this back and forth as something like Instagram direct might promote.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Interesting. This is so fascinating.
Alexis Lee:
I love this. You talked a little bit about the fear, some of the fears that parents or mothers were having, and you talked about predators. What other fears did they express or did they express other fears?
Amanda Bradshaw:
Bullying was a big one. So predators, bullying, social comparison, and the idea that their self-identity... I know one mom said it was so compelling the way she described it. She wanted her daughters to wait as long as possible before forming their identity around which is the best selfie to post. So not filtering your identity through what's the best for this platform or what is the best for others, but being true to yourself. And that was a sentiment that was really echoed in the way the mothers would talk about even their own experiences on social media, comparing themselves to other parents or feeling less than. They were afraid their children would experience social comparison on these platforms or think of themselves as less than or experience those negative mental health effects that have been studied before.
Alexis Lee:
And I'll add to that just a little bit. I found it interesting that I had one parent that said in-group, out-group. And so even the WhatsApp channels and the groups that her son was forming with others that they would gang up and block people out. So you would be out of the group, and then you had to work your way back in the group. And so she even said that she felt like that was a form of bullying and that her kid was on both sides of it. He was blocked out and he was blocking others out. Eventually, they would get back together. But just that social comparison and then just the in-group, out-group was a real thing that, depending on the week, that was prevalent. And having to try to talk through that, how this is person out today and what happened when you were out, and having those kinds of conversations was really a bit complex.
Meagen Rosenthal:
That's fascinating. Well, the think about it. I mean, I reflect back on my own childhood, there was totally moments where you were in the crowd or you weren't in the crowd and what was that? But then we didn't have the magnification of it in social media and it kind of feels like the stakes are higher now. I mean, kids are going to do mean kids things, because that's what kids do. But the opportunity to have that conversation with the oversight in that home and to know when your kid was in and or out, I think that's a really interesting opportunity that my parents certainly didn't have because there was no way ever in a million gajillion years I was telling my parents anything about being bullied or participating in being a bully when I was in school. That's just not something that we did. And they had no insight into that interesting opportunity.
Alexis Lee:
Do you guys have any insight on the conversations they would facilitate or how they would facilitate those conversations with the students and the children in their home?
Amanda Bradshaw:
Yes. So one of our participants was a child psychologist. So she had lots and lots of insights, and she sees children every day that are suffering with this kind of thing. And so with her own daughter, she wanted to talk about it very openly from the time the child was smaller. So here are some of the effects of social media. This mother in particular does not use a lot of social media herself because she sees what it can create in her own practice and also in herself. So the way she described during Covid-19, she did have to keep working even though it was on virtual, it was on Zoom, and she experienced a lot of jealousy. The parents that were during lockdown with their children doing fun things, and they were off work and they were all doing happy activities, and she was having to be locked in a room, still trying to Zoom with her clients.
So she said she pretty much got off social media for a while and gave herself a break. But she was very open with her daughter about, hey, social media can create jealousy, it can create feelings of inadequacy, it can create self-esteem issues or identity issues. And so from an early age, these are not the healthiest platforms to be on 24/7. And so we're going to work together to decide when is the right time for you to be on these, what that involvement looks like, setting boundaries.
So she kept saying that children like boundaries, they respond to consistent limits, especially when you make an engaged two-way kind of dialogue about the issue. So she says she's always been willing to answer her daughter's questions. Her daughter has Messenger Kids. She says as the daughter gets older, she'll get other devices and other platforms of course, but she certainly would never encourage a 24/7 social media use where the kids have unrestricted access in their bedrooms at night by themselves because of what she does see in her practice. So the conversation that she spoke about with her child and what some of the other parents were saying is just this active open dialogue. Really talking about the issues and what they're also experiencing as parents and as moms seems to work well, so the child knows they're not alone. And if they are experiencing something like social comparison or feeling inadequate, they know the parent is equipped to help them navigate that.
Marquita Smith:
And we asked a direct question for that, like what kind of difficult conversations were you having during the pandemic? And in some cases those things were tough race conversations. It was a lot that happened during the pandemic, and particularly with the George Floyd, and parents were having to have those conversations and looking at, in some cases, Black Lives Matter, those movements on social media. And if they had students who were in high school or going to high school, there was lots of conversations about even the coverage of what to do in the pandemic. Is Covid a real thing? Is it not a real thing? And so those were some of the tough... The politics became a conversation in a home that two parents at least told me that they directly had to have conversations with their kids because they didn't trust the science because of this. They get all their news on social media, and so they didn't know what was what. And so those conversations, having to navigate those conversations was tough.
Speaker 5:
You are listening to the Mayo Lab Podcast. For more information and resources, visit the mayolab.com. Now, back to the episode.
Meagen Rosenthal:
I would be curious to know, because I love that all of the parents that you spoke to seem to really have, and this might have been your prompting, but they're having these conversations in an ongoing kind of way. And Dr. Smith, I'd be really curious to know, how did they broach those topics with the issues, the Black Lives Matter movement, what was going on with George Floyd and all of the other people that kind of came to a head at that moment and since then of course, how did they broach that conversation? Did the parents feel like, or at least the mothers that you spoke to, did they feel prepared to have that discussion? I know that's an awkward conversation for me to think about having with a young person, so how did they work through that?
Marquita Smith:
It's really interesting because one parent is a national PR director, so she's engaged on social media every day as a profession, and she had the least boundaries for her children because she felt that they had been socialized to be on social media responsibly. But her son was the one who was engaging in more activism online.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Oh interesting, yeah.
Marquita Smith:
And so because of that made the conversation a lot easier to at least enter a dialogue about what was happening. But it was tough because it's hard to explain what you can't explain. And so he was very emotional, very upset about some of the things that were being posted, and just the state of the nation. And so explaining to a 10th grader that there's still hope in humanity was where she found herself engaging in the conversation. But out of all of the parents that I spoke with, this one was so much more socially conscious, and some of that is just through her direct involvement and kind of how she engaged.
But she did talk about how she wasn't prepared for the heaviness of the conversation. And then this is when mental health experts came into play. So we did ask them if they had been seeing somebody previously before the pandemic and if their kids were in any kind of counseling. And so that was additional support for her because the conversations were really heavy and she needed extra support to help him to understand that the world was still here. And so it was not an easy dialogue to have, but I was impressed that young people were asking questions and concerned about what was happening in the world.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Absolutely. And for heavy as that is, it brings me hope at least a way that young people are engaged in those kinds of conversations in a way that certainly wasn't normal when I was younger, at least not at the scale and magnitude that it is right now, but that they also need help figuring the sunrise will rise tomorrow and we'll be okay.
Marquita Smith:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Alexis Lee:
I think too, it's interesting that what you guys are saying, a lot of the conversations are around social media aren't directly about social media, but more about values. What do you value? What do you stand for, and how do you know that before you enter into social media? And I just think that's so encouraging and also challenging for parents in a way to have that conversation with their children at home. And so I'm interested too, to see if you guys know about the mothers and their value about social media, what they valued. If they used it more, did that seem to reflect on the children the same way? If they had more social media use, did the children have more social media use? I don't know if that's something you asked or noticed at all, but I'm interested in that.
Amanda Bradshaw:
That's a great question. So we do want to point out, we had a pretty diverse sample. I don't know have the exact numbers in front of me, but we have a good bit of Caucasian moms. We had several black moms, and we also have some women from Korea, so Korean-Americans as well. And so each of them maybe had a different experience, which I think is really interesting and it's a lot to unpack. But I think across the board, they pretty much were trying to model for their children if they felt strict screen time limits were important for them personally, they would implement it in the home. If they didn't see a value in screen time limits, and not all of them did, they didn't consciously go into limited, especially with school being on an iPad. I mean, my four-year-old takes literacy tests on an iPad. It's just so ingrained with school being at home, they were going to be on screens a lot more. And so some of them didn't have a strict screen time limit for themselves or their child.
And they would kind of reflect on that during the interview like, "Maybe I should, but I don't know that I need to. It's kind of fine. We just navigate it." But they sort of were more cognizant of it as we talked like, "Here are some strategies we use." Or they did talk about one of the big silver linings was being outside a lot more as a family. So even the ones that did have to work at home and continued working, they did spend more intentional family time together. Some of the kids came home from college. College is closed. And so now the older siblings are home, the siblings are spending time together. They describe putting beach towels outside and seeing the neighbors six feet apart. So they would put them and they could still see their little neighborhood pod.
And so a lot of them were away from screens in that way. It's like they used screens for school. And then some families put screens away and just had all this time together outside. Some families continued the screen time in the evenings, and it really just depended. I'll be curious what Dr. Smith thinks from her interviewees.
Marquita Smith:
I think one of the things that was striking to me is that most of my people were primary breadwinners. And so it looked very different for them because they were on the screen a lot, and most of them are in pretty high profile positions. And so the stress was a lot for them because they were all 24/7. Now you're on, how do I figure out how to help my kid understand this math problem? We didn't work the problem this way and now they want them to do it this way. And then just kind of being professionals and perfectionist, it was really messing with people. It's like, I can't work this problem. This is how we used to do it. And so it became a new challenge and a new something for them to figure out.
And so they did have the common theme of yes, we're being able to spend more family time. But even that family time became stressful because they were already working 50, 60 hour work weeks, and now I'm on homework duty with multiple kids all day every day. So the demands and the level of stress and anxiety about it all was very different, at least from the people I talked to. It's like nobody took any time off. And I had one person that got laid off, and so that was also stressful. And so thinking about, yes, I can now make my kids the priority, but also thinking about I'm the chief earner in the house. And so it was some different conversations for the women that I spoke to, the moms. And interesting enough, these moms were all a part of a mother kind of Facebook group.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Interesting.
Marquita Smith:
And so they had to rely on outside sources to support them and trying to figure out how to be a working mom and how to parent from home during the pandemic. So I found that to be really interesting is that they did seek support in a social media context, but it was a little bit different.
Amanda Bradshaw:
That social media support system. I mean, it came up time and time again, forming a community, learning what other people are doing, not in a comparative way negatively, but positively. Because that homework stressor, I don't have an older child, but the ones that did have older children where the children were independent, they were used to going to school, they had a routine, they did it themselves more or less, and now the parents are having to be actively involved and create checklists for homework. And here's what we're doing now, helping them manage their time, because a lot of the schools did not have very clear plans in place yet. It was so new, especially early in 2020, there was not a lot of digital media literacy training. There wasn't much. It was just kind of, here you go, run with it.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Yeah, good luck. Here's 30 minutes of instruction, and now you have the whole day kind of free. And so those parents had to be more involved to help their children. We have to structure our projects. We have to structure our workday, our school day. Show me what you did. I'm now your accountability person, helping them learn those math problems, like you're mentioning. And so I was surprised by how many moms said that was the most stressful part. On top of their full-time job, on top of being a career woman, a mom, they're now having to manage these older children, high school aged children, even college aged children, helping them navigate online learning with no instruction, no manual, little guidance. And the older kids seemed to struggle a lot with their mental health. Some of the younger kids, I think it was maybe easier. They had different little pods. The way that elementary schools were set up, there were more group interaction opportunities. It was a little bit less pressure. But for some of the older children, the moms described that they really struggled, and so they also struggled to help them adapt.
Marquita Smith:
I was going to say, I'm curious for you, but one of the things that just rose to the top of the conversation is that moms were concerned about their academic performance of their students and really upset about if grades fell or just are they going to be prepared to go to college? Will they be competitive? What is happening to their academic performance during this time? And so it was a lot of pressure on moms to try to help people keep their grade point averages up and to be competitive and to make sure, are you reading the classics that you're supposed to read? So parents were very concerned about educational achievement, but didn't know how to keep people on track in the new space and within the platform. So that was something that resonated with me as I had more and more conversations is that they really were concerned about academic achievement.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Interesting. I'm stressed out just thinking about having to have a job and do your job stuff. And the idea of when we went online, you're infinitely more accessible because I can't disappear from my office and nobody can find me for 20 minutes. You know what I mean? If I'm not physically in a place, people can't find me, but they just send you a Zoom link or send you a text or there's an emergency we need to get online. And then having to deal with also the newness of getting your kids online. And especially, when you were talking, Dr. Bradshaw, about the more difficult time that older students have, it speaks to even young people get set in their ways. So you have a routine and you have a process and you have a thing that you do every day to kind of help you set up for success. And then that got taken away, and then you had to recalibrate. And so working through with that, with your older children.
And then of course managing, we had a pandemic. We had the first pandemic in a hundred years, and nobody knew what we were doing or what was going on. And so the newness of that information every day, it was like, wash your groceries, don't wash your groceries, don't go outside, breathe here, do this, and all of these different kinds of things. And that information was changing so rapidly over that time. And again, because it's not anybody's fault, it was what it was. We just didn't know. I feel stressed just thinking, listening to the recollection of what these women had to do and go through. And we asked yet, how did they feel at the end of all of this? Were the moms okay?
Amanda Bradshaw:
They are. They're okay.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Good. Okay.
Amanda Bradshaw:
I think for the most part, they are glad. It's like the year we never want to live again. So they have some cherished memories of some time with their children. The children did make it through. We started to add in a question toward the end, how did your children's grades do? Ultimately, did they dip? And a few children's grades did dip, but they've now recovered for the most part. So they were maybe an A or B student. They had a few Cs, now they're back to an A and B student. Some of the grades stayed stagnant. They pretty much were able to achieve. And social media I think was a support for the moms in that way because it was the way they could check in and say, "How am I doing? Am I alone in this?" They could ask questions of other moms.
Often the weaker ties connections, so acquaintances, these closed Facebook groups were resources for them. So not necessarily their close friends and family who were sometimes sources of comparison. It's like, "How is my sister doing managing her career and staying at home with her children?" And sometimes they had conflict over how are we going to handle Covid-19 in our extended family? How are we going to keep mom and dad safe if we have elderly relatives? Some of their participants felt that they on a little bit of an island in their extended family. Maybe they were more cautious than their relatives were. And so they felt like, we don't want to go out and expose anyone, but now we can't be around you because you as my sibling, are more comfortable going out. And you and your children are going to these places that we're not going.
And so they felt more isolated with their strong ties, connections, those close friends and families. And so it reminded me of Granovetter's Strength of Weak Ties theory from 1973, where those weak ties can play a role. So those Facebook acquaintances, those moms groups, maybe they would go in there and vent and get some of that pressure out, and people would affirm and validate them that they're not crazy for feeling that way or they're having the same struggles too. And so I thought that was a very interesting, that connection role that social media played despite being so isolated and it played a role that the strong ties could not necessarily fulfill for them.
Meagen Rosenthal:
That is so interesting. Gosh, I love human beings. They're so cool. Right?
Marquita Smith:
It was cool and fascinating, right?
Meagen Rosenthal:
Yes, yeah.
Marquita Smith:
So I think one of the conversations that resonated with me as well was my mom said that for Thanksgiving, her kids didn't want to go because her brother and his family, they didn't want to mask. And so her kids took a hard line on it. And so they were like, "We're not going there. We don't know where they've been." And so it was interesting what was dictating tradition and starting new traditions and that it was young people that were like, "Yeah, no, they've got a no mask policy over there." And we thought it was at an adult level, but young people were concerned and talking about it and setting norms for the house, the house rules. So it's interesting.
Meagen Rosenthal:
The public health person in me kind of loves that. I'm like, yeah, go kids.
Marquita Smith:
Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. So she was like, "We uninvited ourselves to Thanksgiving," and then trying to figure out how to smooth that over. Moms were in that role too, right?
Meagen Rosenthal:
That's crazy. No, that's so interesting.
Alexis Lee:
What I love is too, and I think you both have said it and we haven't explicitly said it of like, there's not a one size fit all approach to this conversation. And what works this month might not work next month or might not work next year. There's so much adaptation and there's so much conversation that I'm hearing that needs to be continued to be had in families, or if you're not having it, bring it in a way of and talk to your weak ties and get into community, things that are going to be so supportive and know that what you do today isn't what you have to do forever for you and for your students.
Like you said, Meagan, and what you guys were saying, the older students get so in routine, and it is so good for us, but also how do you change seasons of life well? And it's such an opportunity to do that around social media, around a Covid-19, and hopefully we never have one again. But being able to prepare for those conversations or those turns that maybe you don't expect and know that the world isn't ending, the sun will come up, but you don't have to have the answers for the rest of forever in your household, which I think is so sweet and such a good reminder for parents to have.
Meagen Rosenthal:
This is a very refreshing reflection on the use of social media because you see a lot in the media with the reports that have come out over the last six, 12 months, what have you, that we're hearing more and more like ban it. There's a lawsuit that was filed last week against a number of the social media giants and everything has to go. But if everything went, all of the really good stuff that you all shared from the moms and families that you talked to, we wouldn't have those things anymore.
And so this kind of all or nothing mentality is really not the best pathway forward. And the reality is, which I appreciate also about what you're saying, it's not true. It's not how people are using it. Most people, it sounds like that you spoke to weren't on it 24 7. They weren't using it to access. They were using it within a balanced form that worked for them and their family and their situations. And yes, there are some folks that have struggles with it, but that's not necessarily the whole picture. And I think that gets lost sometimes in what we see in the wider world and conversation about social media. And as media experts yourselves and communication experts yourself, how do you balance off what you heard from families versus what you see in the media and see in those other conversations?
Amanda Bradshaw:
That's a tough one. I mean, we actually asked them at the end of the interviews, we asked them, "What would your life be like without social media? Would you want that to be a thing?" And some of them said, "We would feel sad actually," because they have moved around maybe several times. They have friends in different seasons of life, friends from high school, friends from college, friends from grad school that they would miss connecting with. And they want that for their children too. A lot of them use social media as a diary almost. They have pictures of their babies when they were little and they have all these connections on there. And so I think it is not that dichotomy of it's all good or it's all evil. It is finding the balance that works for you and your family. And so I think a lot of the time in the media, the way media frames social media is from one angle or the other.
And so I think the conversations that need to be happening are in the middle. So it's either an agenda of the social media giant, trying to pass Instagram Kids is something we actually brought up with our participants. We said, "What do you think about Instagram kids?" And we asked them directly, and some of them said, "I'm not sure that would be a good thing. Even though we support social media, we want our kids to have some sort of a presence. We also understand there are negative effects. There are scary things. There are things on there we don't want them to encounter, and we don't want them to grow up too fast. And so even though we don't want to eradicate it, we know there's a time and a place. We also want them to have this childhood, and they have this chance to develop their identity and not be constantly comparing." And so Instagram Kids was not something they widely supported despite using social media and despite being okay with social media.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Interesting.
Amanda Bradshaw:
I thought that was interesting.
Marquita Smith:
I had a similar conversations where people were like, "They'll grow out of it anyway, so why start them on a nugget of Instagram and then they move to the next level?" So that was some concern for sure. But personally, I'm not very active. I'm on everything, mostly lurking and still connecting to others, but I'm not an active user unless I'm using it as an instruction, to give instruction. And so I find it to be interesting that what we hear, the narrative is that it's bad for you, it's killing our kids, all of the things. But now, because of the pandemic, much of the education that children are getting, young people are getting is coming in some kind of digital format. So digital textbooks, they didn't go all the way back. So they took some of the best practices from learning virtually. And those things are still in place and really driving early education. If you've got a 4-year-old that's taking competency test on iPads, that's happening all the way through high school.
And so there's going to be some engagement in terms of the tech. And I think whether it's social media or engaging in more advanced tech, it's here to stay. And I think for parents who want their young people to be well prepared and well adjusted, now they have to engage in that conversation from spaces that they didn't have to before. And so I do think that's a healthy outcome, in terms of people have set up, we're on the same phone plan, so I can see your usage. I know how long you're spending on your screen time on your phone, because I get a report and I can see it. And so I see parents being more sophisticated about the conversations and engaging to make sure that they're aware of usage. Whereas before, probably not.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Yeah, probably not. No, that's interesting. That is very interesting. This has been a super fascinating conversation, and we could probably spend hours more talking about it. But to be good stewards of everyone's time, I would like to give you guys an opportunity to tell us something that you thought we might talk about, but we have not yet talked about. Because I know we covered a lot of ground, so if there's nothing I won't be offended.
Alexis Lee:
Or a nugget of research or something that you would like to share.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Amanda Bradshaw:
I think I would like to just share, we talked to 25 moms, a very diverse sample from all different backgrounds, kids of all different ages in that kind age range. Not one of them said, we have it all together. We have it figured out. I think it's important to remember the highlight reel aspect and that social comparison, social identity formation is real. So when you share this perfectly curated image on Instagram, and other moms see it and they feel jealous and they think, "I don't have it all together. Am I not taking my child to Disney World. He hasn't been, and this mom's going." That comparison happens to all of us.
So every single person we talked to had some sort of anecdote or some sort of story where they maybe felt inadequate or they engaged in upward or downward comparison via social media, but none of them had it all together. So we're all just comparing to one another's highlight reels, and none of us have it all together. And so social media can just be used to connect. If we take that pressure away and that lens of keeping up with the Joneses via social media, I think that that would be a healthier approach. I know it's easier said than done, but it seems like this research has taught me that none of us have the full answer, so it's just an ongoing conversation. I
Marquita Smith:
I think the most curious conversation I had was about moms who got Covid from their kids because they sent them to school. And in one case, I think in Alabama, depending on your last name in the alphabet, you would go on a certain day. So it took them a long time to close school. They were just alternating days and letting students go whenever it was their turn to go. And so a lot of people's kids contracted Covid and then of course brought it home. And so parents who hadn't gone out of the house, it was brought into their homes. And then not wanting to blame their kids, so it was like, "How did you get it?" So when your kids say, "How did you get it?" She's like," at the mailbox. And just the grace that they wanted to... They did not want to tell their children, "I got it from you."
Meagen Rosenthal:
You brought it over.
Marquita Smith:
Right? And so they blamed pets and blamed the mailbox and all kinds of things, which was really kind of something that moms would do.
Meagen Rosenthal:
I was going to say, that's total mom response to that situation.
Marquita Smith:
No mom wants to say, "I'm almost near death and it's your fault," right? And so that didn't happen. But to hear moms gracefully navigate that, I know I got it from him because I hadn't been anywhere. But I looked at them, I couldn't say it. And so just hearing them say that the dog gave it to them and that kind of thing was really a typical mom thing to do.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Moms are great. We're lucky. I'm lucky I'm here with my mom. She's a good lady. Thank you. Thank you so much for this really amazing conversation and starting a different conversation about social media then we've seen and heard in lots of other places. When we, Dr. Bradshaw and I first communicated about the potential of collaborating for this episode of the podcast, and she shared some of the data, I was like, "Yes, this is the discussion we need to have." Because Alexis and I had been to a few other events, we're like, social media is awful, and everybody's off of it and we're not... And look, if that works for your family, that's awesome. But that leaves behind all of the people who are using it now and what does that look like? And talking about this idea of social comparison, so then you're not on social media, and suddenly that's the new thing to be aspiring to.
And if you're on social media or like, oh, you're a bad mom, or you're a bad parent, or what have you. So thank you for letting us have a different conversation about this topic because I think it is really important. And to me at least, is probably a little bit more reflective of what the average person in the world is actually doing right now around social media. So thank you for being here and making the time to have this chat with us. For those of you who are not in Mississippi, we just hit winter today, so it's a little bit chilly so everybody had to get bundled up to come here. So thank you for leaving your nice, warm offices and homes to be here with us today, and we look forward to seeing you all next time on the Mayo Lab podcast.
Amanda Bradshaw:
It's a pleasure. Thank you.
Meagen Rosenthal:
Thank y'all.
Credits:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Mayo Lab Podcast. The Mayo Lab Podcast is produced by Dr. Natasha Dieter, Dr. Megan Rosenthal, Alexis Lee, Slade Lewis, and Hannah Finch. This podcast was recorded at Broadcast Studio in Oxford, Mississippi. The show was mixed and mastered by Clay Jones, and our original music was composed by Slade Lewis. The Mayo Lab podcast is brought to you by the William McGee Institute for Student Wellbeing. For more information on the Mayo Lab Podcast, head over to the mayolab.com and follow us on social media @themayolab. If you enjoyed listening to the Mail Lab podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you're listening to this podcast. This podcast represents the opinions of Dr. Megan Rosenthal, Alexis Lee, and their guests on the show. This podcast is not intended to be a substitute for the medical advice of a licensed counselor or physician. The listener should consult with their mental health professional in any matters relating to his or her health, or the health of a child.