Change Mindsets, Clean Up the Internet. Help Drive Change Online by Talking with Teens.

Pornography and racist rhetoric makes up the vast majority of inappropriate content viewed on teenagers phones through private social media chat groups, posts, and even apps like iFunny and SnapChat. Yet most parents don’t take as much offense to racist memes and insensitive racist language as they do nudity and porn they encounter on their teens devices.

BUT WE ALL SHOULD.

Considering how much time teenagers spend online, NOW is the time to go through your teens chat groups, see what they are viewing with their friends, continually monitor their content and help them clean up their online behavior, especially if it is breeding a desensitized mindset about racial inequality.

It’s not enough to just talk about it. Teens need active help in responding to racism online since chat groups and apps are highly addictive and “friend” circles are hard to break or speak up against. We must teach them how to speak up against inappropriate content and conversations and to disengage from sites, groups, or apps that show and promote racist content.

Just as viewing nudity and porn is harmful to the mind, normalizing demeaning behavior is toxic to our society. Being exposed to racist language, slurs, slang, and memes inundate teens with a false sense of what is “okay” and even what is “funny”. It’s not funny to create or engage with memes and jokes at anyone’s expense, especially not racial jokes. And yet kids continue to share and find humor in all of it. Either because they do not understand the harm it causes or because they have not been sternly educated and continually corrected.

It is our job as parents to not only lead by example, but to also actively talk about it with our children. Help clean up the internet and call out the inappropriate content rather than turning a blind eye.

This is not an issue to be ignored. This is a human rights issue that needs to be fundamentally changed, starting at home and around online behaviors.

To do better, we must be better. And that starts within our own four walls. At Screen Time Clinic we provide the structure for parents to continually monitor and talk about online content, creating healthy tech habits and building a respectful online presence.