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A few weeks ago amidst the Thanksgiving day holiday, my 13-year-old daughter was asked the classic question in a mixed-faith household: What do you want for Christmasukkah? (Christmas + Hanukkah) Her answer wasn’t a new game, a device, or even clothing. She wanted one thing: an Instagram account.
In many homes today, this moment lands with a complicated thud. It represents a new milestone. Not quite adulthood, but undeniably a step into a broader digital world. For years, our kids have socialized on platforms like Roblox, where the ecosystem is more contained. But the transition to “grown-up” social media comes with new risks, new pressures, and new questions that many families are still learning how to navigate.
Around the same time my daughter made her request, Australia took a consequential step: a world-first ban on social media for children under 16. The reactions there -- from children locked out of accounts to parents relieved, conflicted, or scrambling to keep up -- further sharpened my own wondering: What does responsible parenting look like in a digital era that changes faster than any one family can adapt?
This essay is not a policy argument or manifesto. It’s just a reflection, grounded in the mental-health science that continues to emerge, and in the lived experience of raising a young person who feels the pull of social media as intensely as millions of others do.
On the surface, social media is simply where people are. It’s modern town square, coffee shop, playground, and knitting circle all rolled together. It’s also where many of us, myself included, maintain professional communities, friendships, and platforms for sharing ideas. I’m writing this here, after all, on a social platform.
For kids, this duality is even sharper. They see the vibrant, funny, creative world of Instagram or TikTok...while feeling the FOMO of being “left out” when peers are already there. They also see influencers who look like aspirational versions of themselves. And they crave autonomy, belonging, and exploration.
But parents see something else, too: the darker corners. Predatory behavior. Extremism. Manipulative algorithms. The “compare and despair” cycle that can diminish self-esteem. And the simple truth that teens’ brains are still developing impulse control, emotional regulation, and the ability to contextualize what they see online.
Instagram does offer a teen mode, yes, and efforts to filter out harmful content have improved over the years. Yet parents everywhere pose the same question: Is the technology evolving fast enough to keep pace with what our kids need? Or are we participating in a massive, uncontrolled experiment on adolescent mental health?
Two recent studies I read on Medscape caught my attention as we weighed my daughter’s request. There are a lot more, but these were the ones that stood out:
A large U.S. survey of over 42,000 adults revealed a clear pattern: the more frequently people used social media, the higher their irritability scores. This held true even after accounting for depression and anxiety, meaning the association wasn’t simply an artifact of underlying mood symptoms.
The "dose-response curve" was striking. Using social media “more than once a day,” based upon self-report, was linked to elevated irritability. Using it “most of the day” showed nearly four-times the increase.
While this study focused on adults, the implications for developing brains are meaningful. Irritability is not just a mood; it’s a marker of stress load, emotional dysregulation, and, in some cases, risk for more serious outcomes. When irritability co-occurs with depression, research suggests worsened functioning and increased risk of suicidal thoughts.
If this is the effect on adults, people with fully developed prefrontal cortices, it’s hard not to wonder what happens when kids scroll for hours on end.
A different study examined what happens when heavy social media users take a one-week break. Participants who abstained showed significant reductions in depression and anxiety, and increases in overall wellbeing, compared with those who continued scrolling.
The takeaway was refreshingly straightforward: even brief disengagement helps people feel better.
Interestingly, the researchers noted inconsistencies across other studies. Some individuals feel worse when they abstain -- an indicator that social media may function as a coping mechanism, or even a substitute for offline belonging.
This nuance is relevant. The mental-health impact of social media isn’t one-size-fits-all. For some, it’s a stressor; for others, a lifeline; for many, a bit of both.
Policy debates often default to binaries: regulate or don’t regulate, allow or don’t allow. Parenting, however, resides in the grey zone.
With my daughter, the question is not just whether Instagram is safe or unsafe. It’s about readiness, resilience, support structures, and how she will use it.
Some considerations that guide our thinking:
None of these questions have clear answers. But they start to provide a more realistic framework than simply uttering yes or no.
What comforts me most is knowing we’re not the only family wrestling with this. Parents everywhere are contending with similar questions and situations.
What have you learned? What worked? What didn’t? How did you know your child was ready -- or not ready? How do you balance connection with protection?
These shared reflections matter in my view because no parent should navigate this evolving landscape alone. Our kids may be digital natives, but we are the ones responsible for building the digital environment they grow up in.
We have not made a final decision yet about Instagram. But we are moving slowly and intentionally, informed by the science, grounded in honest conversation, and aware that -- just like social media itself -- our approach will need ongoing adjustment.
Ultimately, my hope is that we can help our daughter develop not just digital literacy, but digital wellbeing -- the ability to utilize technology in ways that enrich her, not diminish her; that connect her, not consume her; that support her mental health, not silently erode it.
And in this journey, I’m grateful for the collective wisdom of other parents, other professionals, and everyone willing to reflect openly about what’s at stake for the next generation.
