Digital danger (Part 4): Windsor teen life about chasing social media likes, acceptance

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Petrina Franz thinks back at how she used to use social media and what it meant to her.  

Now a community justice student at St. Clair College in Windsor, she recalls how she spent a lot of time on Instagram. But when asked what she’d tell her 15-year-old self about social media today, she’s clear: “I would probably tell myself not to go on it.

“I feel like if I would have stayed off social media, I would have had more time to just enjoy my life as it was.”  

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Franz wasn’t subject to a scam or an online predator, but she did find herself tied to social media apps, particularly Instagram. Surveys show her attachment to social media is fairly common among teens. 

 Looking back, she thinks it wasn’t good for her mental health.  

“I feel like I spent every hour of every day on social media,” she said. “That probably wasn’t good, but I was pretty glued to it.”  

The desire to keep up and to fit in fuelled her life on social media. “I just desperately wanted to see what other people were doing. I desperately wanted to fit in. Instagram was the thing at the time. So I was like, ‘I’m going to have it because other people have it.’”  

Franz compared herself and her life to others.   

“I posted a lot because when you’re in high school, to keep up the status you have to be posting. It’s not actually a spoken thing, but it’s just something that people do and I tried to keep up with that.”  

She would look at photographs of people on vacation and think, “How come I’m not doing this? I’m the same age.”   

Despite her high level of use, Franz recognized that Instagram could be unhealthy if it wasn’t used properly. 

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“I felt like it was kind of toxic because I would just compare myself to everyone that I saw on that app,” she said. 

She also found herself in pursuit of the all-important likes.  

“I would post something and it wasn’t getting a certain amount of likes, say within an hour, and I only had like five likes I (would) feel like no one’s liking it. So I should delete it and start over?”  

And she found the pursuit of likes to be competitive. “I’d be like, this person is getting 100 likes and I’m sitting here … like what’s going on?”  

She has since set her privacy settings so that she doesn’t see the number of likes on posts. 

Franz also found she was being drawn into toxic conversations, especially on Twitter.  

“People were very argumentative on Twitter because they can hide. A lot of people don’t show their faces. It’s easier for them to start a fight with you.

“That affected my mood because it was a time where I felt like I was more alone. I had a couple of online friends but the online friends got pretty toxic.” 

Franz quit Twitter four years ago to avoid the toxicity and the objectionable content. She found that comments on social media are among the worst part of online posting. She spends her online time mainly on TikTok these days.  

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A 2023 Pew Research Centre survey showed that while YouTube is the runaway No. 1 social media app among 13- to 17-year-olds — with 93 per cent saying they use it — TikTok, SnapChat and Instagram are also popular with teens. Facebook, Discord, WhatsApp and Twitter were less popular with teenagers. 

Franz wonders why parents grant their young children unmonitored access to the internet. “Every single kid I know right now, they have iPads. I’ve seen parents give five-year-olds their own tablets,” she said. 

“Kids are very curious, so they can pretty much get into anything. I’ve seen a lot of parents give their kids free access to YouTube, which is the worst thing to do. You can find very-not-appropriate things on YouTube.” 

Despite YouTube’s popularity, TikTok is the worst app for young people, Franz claims. 

“You can find a lot of pornography on TikTok. They take it down, but people find ways to get it back there. There’s a lot of videos where, I would say people are sexualizing young kids, like 14-year-olds and younger, and babies. 

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“That stuff very much still does exist on the app.” 

Franz says her social media use is more moderate now. “I use it very casually.

“But I feel like now that I’m older, I actually have the strength to be like, ‘Okay, this is affecting my mental health right now.’”  

bamacleod@postmedia.com 

Digital Danger: In a week-long investigative series, the Windsor Star looks at social media and young people — how they are being affected and how dangerous the content can be. Reporter Brian MacLeod’s six-part series concludes with suggestions for parents to become a key part in making social media safer for their children.

Part 1: What parents need to know about the risks of social media

Part 2: A story of trust and betrayal on social media

Part 3: Social media triggering fights, robbing children of opportunities: teacher

TODAY: The life of a teen on social media is chasing likes; how AI is changing social media landscape

Part 5: Young people drawn to social media by need for approval

Part 6: Parents are key to making social media safe for their children

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