Tag Archives: Teens

Unlimited access to online content raises concerns about increased risks to adolescents and teens

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Director of Clinical Services at Wedgwood Christian Services, Brina Tiemeyer, talks about how unlimited access to social media and online content poses risks to our youth.


By Deborah Reed

WKTV Managing Editor

deborah@wktv.org


Brina Tiemeyer, WCS Director of Clinical Services (Courtesy, WCS)

Concerns are being raised about the harmful ramifications of self-diagnosis and increases of mental illness due to adolescents and teens having unlimited access to online content.

Wedgwood Christian Services (WCS) Director of Clinical Services Brina Tiemeyer recently talked with WKTV Journal about children – especially teens – having devices and 24/7 access to the internet. This concern stems from the alarming uptick in depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicide resulting from social media.

“We may often think of the ability to connect on social media and access to endless content online as a huge benefit to awareness of a variety of mental health challenges,” said Tiemeyer.

“While there is certainly something to be said for increased accessibility to resources for those in communities where it is lacking, and the ability to find a wider circle of support of people dealing with similar challenges, the book and other research highlights that it can also come with some risks for children, teens and young adults, most notably self-diagnosis.”

While social media can be a place where teens can get advice and tips, it does not allow for fact-checking.

“A lot of the content on social media is from influencers or peers who maybe don’t hold the proper education or credentials or merit,” said Tiemeyer.

“The advice may work for that individual in their own lives, but when our teens are utilizing social media and the phone platforms so heavily, they are then going down that potentially harmful path of creating their own diagnosis, creating their own treatment plans. Which in return can decrease the mental health impacts on their lives.”

Fast-paced and oversimplified

Social media platforms such as TikTok, have short-form, fast-paced content that is oversimplified. Many influencers use that platform to post content regarding their personal mental health.

(Courtesy, pxhere.com)

“Kids are lonely. Social media can be so enticing because they’re searching for community, a place to feel understood,” said Tiemeyer.

Youth find validation when they see other people experiencing the same struggles. While that is a benefit, Tiemeyer said, the content does not address the complexity and variation of mental illness and how the same diagnosis can present very differently in two individuals.

“Adolescents and teens see these quick, short-form lists, and they use them as a checklist for their own challenges.”

Examples: Depression and ADHD

Depression can present differently between age groups, genders, life experiences, health factors and severity.

“When you go to the social media platform, it’s just a checklist of what depression is,” said Tiemeyer. “It doesn’t go into the content or details that look very different depending on your individualization of the presentation.”

(Courtesy, pxhere.com)

Another issue Tiemeyer often encounters are youth who feel they have checked all the boxes a social media video presents.

“A big one recently is ADHD,” said Tiemeyer. “They check all the boxes on ADHD, [but] ADHD can present as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. We’ll have teens come to an intake appointment, and they’re against taking the advice of the medical professional because they’ve had an excess of misinformation.”

Awareness and reduced stigma of mental health issues on social media is beneficial, empowering youth to seek care. However, those same youths often do not believe a medical professional if what they say goes against what they saw on social media.

“It has created a barrier within that therapeutic relationship prior to the relationship even starting,” said Tiemeyer. “Our therapists are trying to address the symptomatology of the individual sitting in front of them, but [youth] are coming in with this barrier of: But you need to treat me with what I’ve self-diagnosed myself with, what my favorite influencer on TikTok told me I had, versus what the medical expertise or professional is saying the true diagnosis is and what the treatment needs to be.”

Prevention through validation

How do we help our youth find the most beneficial path? Provide validation, Tiemeyer says.

“We’re all seeking validation,” said Tiemeyer. “That’s not necessarily bad or unhealthy, so providing validation that social media can be good, but then having those crucial conversations regarding the importance of lived experience and individuality, and how mental health can present differently based on different factors.”

Create space for conversation

(Courtesy, pxhere.com)

“We need to create a space for crucial conversations in real life,” said Tiemeyer. “Not hide behind our screens.

“If I have a dialogue back and forth, it’s going to be very different than if I’m having a one-sided conversation by watching a clip.”

We all need to feel believed, capable and safe, Tiemeyer continued. Avoiding invalidation and all-or-nothing thinking – such as telling others not to believe what they see on social media – is vital.

“We need to have this open mind, curiosity to understand, and willingness to learn so we can empower them to feel believed, capable and safe,” said Tiemeyer.

Appropriate oversight

“When we prep our adolescents to drive, there are stages to that,” said Tiemeyer, citing hours of practice, oversight and guidance. “Some may feel that’s way too intense to do [for] social media usage, but it shouldn’t be.

“We should empower the act of using social media because digital content is not going away. Empower it, but then provide them with the skills to utilize it in a safe manner.”


(Courtesy, pxhere.com)

Find help and guidance here:

WCS provides tip sheets for families on this topic. Mashable.com is also a reliable source of information on those hot topics of self-diagnosis and healthy online usage.

WCS also offers a six-week trauma-informed parenting class where one of the modules discusses appropriate social media usage.

Parent support partners connect families to active groups that provide training via role play to empower parents to have those conversations with their children.

Crossing that “line”

“If it gets to a point where you’re feeling suicidal or experiencing a crisis, it’s past the point of looking for that online community,” said Tiemeyer. “It’s time to talk to someone.”

(Courtesy, pxhere.com)

Reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or consider using 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat.

Call Wedgwood Christian Services’ intake line at 616-942-7294 to connect with a medical professional and begin that step of treatment.

“We know there is an increase in de-stigmatization around mental health treatment,” said Tiemeyer. “However, we also know that the second leading cause of death for children is suicide. There is a time where we need to intervene as the adults in that child’s life and get them the help they need.”

As a mother, Tiemeyer empathizes with parents who don’t want to hinder their relationship with their child by intervening.

“My response to that is: They have to be alive to have that relationship,” said Tiemeyer. “When it comes to the point of hopelessness and suicidality, we’re past the point of worrying about that relationship, and we’re at that point of: Let’s keep my child alive so I can keep growing that relationship.”

Meeting community needs

Click here for a full list of programs and services available through WCS.

For more information about teen phone and social media use, Tiemeyer recommends reading Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation.

Teens have the most valuable component to accumulating wealth

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Courtesy Michigan State University Extension

By Laurie Rivetto, Michigan State University Extension


How soon after securing their first job should a young person start investing? Immediately! Sound crazy? It’s not. 


Setting aside money for long-term goals is an uncommonly wise act for a teenager. In fact, teenagers have something every older saver and investor wants yet can’t get, and that is time. Michigan State University Extension has numerous resources that can help young people learn key personal finance skills including how to manage and invest money.


Perhaps when it comes to building wealth, time truly is much more valuable to increasing the investment than the actual amount invested or the interest rate earned. The sooner a teen begins to set aside money in a savings or investment account, the longer those funds will earn interest and therefore the more money that will accumulate.


A smart teenager will set aside a portion every time they receive money, including wages from a job, money received as a gift, an increase in allowance, etc.; even just $10 here or $20 there will add up. A wise young person will then invest the amount saved. Those investments and those earnings will compound over time; what starts out as a dribble of deposits and earnings will build over time to a substantial stream of money. The longer the funds are left in the account, the faster the funds will grow.


How does that happen? It is all thanks to the magic of compound interest. Even Albert Einstein was impressed by it, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it… [and] he who doesn’t… pays it.”


Compound interest can be explained by the following simplified scenario: Adrienne saves $20 a week in a savings account for a year. She then transfers $1,000 of those savings to an investment account that earns 6% interest per year. At the end of the first year, her account will earn 6% interest on the $1,000, so she will have $1,060.00. At the end of the second year, Adrienne will earn 6% on the $1,060.00; her account will be valued at $1,123.60. After five years, without any additional deposits, Adrienne’s initial investment of $1,000 will be worth $1,338.23. Adrienne earned $300 interest on her $1000 deposit; it was the compounding of the interest that earned her the additional $38.23.


If Adrienne is financially savvy and continues to save $20 each week over that same period, she will be able to deposit $1,000 into her account at the beginning of each subsequent year. At the end of five years, her $5,000 investment will be valued at $5,975.33. Adrienne earned $900 in interest on the $5,000 she deposited; the $75.33 was the result of compound interest. Adrienne has let compound interest work for her; she might well consider this free money.


The magic here is that Adrienne is earning interest on the money she actually deposited into the account plus the money that her account has earned for her. It may not seem like a lot of money initially, but with regular deposits and annual interest earnings, the fund will grow significantly.


Investing early in life delivers the most valuable component to investing—time. Teens interested in taking advantage of the time that is on their side can learn money management and investing skills through MSU Extension 4-H Youth Development Youth Investment Education Resources. A calculator from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission can help youth explore how compound interest can work in their lifetime.


Michigan State University Extension and Michigan 4-H Youth Development help to prepare young people for successful futures. As a result of career exploration and workforce preparation activities, thousands of Michigan youth are better equipped to make important decisions about their professional future, ready to contribute to the workforce and able to take fiscal responsibility in their personal lives. For more information or resources on career exploration, workforce preparation, financial education, or entrepreneurship, contact 4-HCareerPrep@msu.edu.


This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit http://www.msue.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit http://www.msue.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit http://expert.msue.msu.edu, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).


Teens and tech—a troublesome pair

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Researchers have been unpleasantly surprised at the extent of the modern teen’s attachment to technology. (Courtesy Spectrum Health Beat)

By Amy Norton, HealthDay


Too little sleep. Not enough exercise. Far too much “screen time.”


That is the unhealthy lifestyle of nearly all U.S. high school students, new research finds.


The study, of almost 60,000 teenagers nationwide, found that only 5 percent were meeting experts’ recommendations on three critical health habits—sleep, exercise and time spent gazing at digital media and television.


It’s no secret that many teenagers are attached to their cellphones, or stay up late, or spend a lot of time being sedentary. But even researchers were struck by how extensive those issues are among high school students.


“Five percent is a really low proportion,” said study leader Gregory Knell, a research fellow at University of Texas School of Public Health, in Dallas. “We were a bit surprised by that.”


In general, medical experts say teenagers should get eight to 10 hours of sleep at night and at least one hour of moderate to vigorous exercise every day. They should also limit their screen time—TV and digital media—to less than two hours per day.


The new findings show how few kids manage to meet all three recommendations, Knell said.


It’s easy to see how sleep, exercise and screen time are intertwined, he pointed out.


“Here’s one example: If kids are viewing a screen at night—staring at that blue light—that may affect their ability to sleep,” Knell said.


“And if you’re not getting enough sleep at night, you’re going to be more tired during the day,” he added, “and you’re not going to be as physically active.”


Ariella Silver is an assistant professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. She agreed there’s a lot of overlap in the three behaviors.


Silver, who was not involved in the study, also made this point: The two-hour limit on screen time may be tough for high school students, since their homework may demand a lot of computer time.


It’s not clear how much that may have played into the findings, Silver said.


Still, she sees screen time as possibly the “biggest factor” here. Silver agreed that it may hinder teenagers’ sleep. But another issue comes up when social media “replaces” face-to-face social interaction.


When kids do not go out with friends, they miss out on many experiences—including chances for physical activity, Silver said.


While no group of kids in the study was doing well, some were faring worse than others. Only 3 percent of girls met all three recommendations, versus 7 percent of boys.


Similarly, the rate was 2 percent to 4 percent among black, Hispanic and Asian American students, versus just over 6 percent of white kids, the findings showed.


The report was published online recently in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Silver offered some advice for parents:

  • Instead of telling kids to “get off the phone,” steer them toward alternatives, like extracurricular activities, community programs or family time. “Their screen time will go down by default,” she noted.
  • Be a good role model. Get off your phone and demonstrate healthy habits, including spending time being physically active with your kids.
  • Talk to teenagers about the importance of healthy habits. “Ask them, ‘How do you feel when you don’t get enough sleep?’” Silver suggested. “Ask, ‘How do you feel when you don’t get outside in the sun and get some exercise?’” It’s important, she said, that kids notice how their bodies feel when they do or don’t engage in healthy habits.
  • Set some clear rules around screen time, such as no devices in the two hours before bedtime. “Make sure your kids realize these devices are a privilege, and not a necessity to living,” Silver said.

The good news, Knell said, is that since sleep, exercise and screen time are interrelated, changing one habit could affect the others, too.


“There are certainly small changes you can make that may have a big impact,” he said.


Reprinted with permission from Spectrum Health Beat.