Teaching Children to Use Social Media Effectively

What can we do as adults to ensure children are using social media in a responsible and appropriate way in order to reap its real benefits? Read below to find out!

What are the benefits of social media?

Social media can have a whole host of benefits. (We recently wrote an article about the benefits of social media on mental health – be sure to check it out HERE) These include:

Staying connected to family and friends
Discovering a community of likeminded people
Enhancing creativity by sharing ideas
Learning about current events and social activism
Digital literacy and exposure to new forms of text

So, why should we teach children how to use social media effectively?

Social media allows for more e-learning opportunities and access to endless information, especially with the rise in AI. In today’s world, remote jobs, online classes and tech jobs are becoming more common, and so training students in these online skills is vital.

Most importantly, social media provides a seamless communication platform for people to publish their thoughts and convey messages. Therefore, we should equip students with the skillset needed to effectively communicate through social media rather than just adding to the noise.

How can we teach them?

EFFECTIVE WRITING

Firstly, teach students to use grammar accurately! When voicing thoughts, it’ll ensure they are heard and taken seriously. It really is the difference between “their”, “there” and “they’re”.

START ONLINE FORUM THREADS

As a class, learn how to use forum-style discussions by asking questions to the public.

These types of websites can be excellent when students have burning questions about the world around them and can expose them to different viewpoints and opinions.

TOUCH TYPING

Perhaps one of the most important skills in this day and age – touch typing! Where should the hands be placed on the keyboard and which finger should be used to type each letter? I’m sure we’ve all used the iPads in class and seen middle school students still using their index fingers to touch every letter. Let’s change this!

HASHTAGS

Why not teach students about the purpose and importance of hashtags in modern day social media – everything from tagging tweets to being bumped up the Google algorithm. Practice identifying key words or themes in different texts.

START A SCHOOL TWITTER

Much like that old, printed school newsletter, instead, set up an extracurricular club and ask students to run the socials by tweeting regular updates about school life (supervised, of course!). Teaching them how to convey a message in 280 characters or less can be surprisingly challenging!

INTERNET SECURITY CLASSES

This one can easily be split over many classes and can be included in the student’s standard ICT lessons. Explain the importance of using privacy settings on our accounts and not sharing our passwords with anybody else. Remind students that they should think twice before hitting the ENTER button, as everything is permanent on the internet and they should avoid posting certain information.