The Parental Guide to Navigating Social Media

Nowadays, most youth culture revolves around your social media presence. For parents, navigating these areas can be a difficult task. To the outside eye, TikTok and Instagram can seem incredibly daunting. So, what’s the solution? Today, we’ll be outlining the key points of interest for parents who are just starting off on digital platforms. 

Tip #1: Avoiding the comments

While the “comments” section on Instagram is a generally prominent feature, it’s best for novice internet users to avoid the area. While the comments are supposed to act as an expression tool, that expression tends to form negatively. It’s much more challenging to experience the ramifications of an outlandish comment on the internet. In specificity, social media users frequently set up spoof accounts to express prejudiced ideas because their identity is hidden underneath the veil of an anonymous profile. For this reason, it’s best for new users to consciously avoid the toxicity that comes with an internet profile, and should make an effort to not engage in any online altercations. 

Tip #2: Understanding Millennial Humor

Comedy is a universal language. It always has been, and it always will be. However, millennial humor somehow manages to break the mold incomprehensibly. For someone who hasn’t been a user for a very long time, the posts simply don’t make sense. Most “memes” are challenging to understand and defy the general principles of humor. Realistically, it’s essential to realize that it’s not your fault and that most users don’t understand the jokes anyway. That’s what makes them funny.

Tip #3: Navigating the “Explore Page” and Your Feed

There are two significant ways to consume content on social media platforms. Your feed, and the explore page. The feed is straightforward to navigate. Within your general feed, you’ll find media that pertains to the accounts that you follow. If you follow the NBA, your feed may include basketball highlights videos that they post. Essentially, it’s controlled by the accounts that you follow, and is entirely in your control. 

In contrast to your feed, the explore page is optimized to your liking, but not directly determined by the accounts you follow. The explore page features top content from around the web and is sorted into categorical genres. Specifically, you’ll find the most popular videos (based on an algorithm) from many sections, all concentrated onto your screen. Essentially, it acts as a showcase of what Instagram believes that you’ll enjoy. This applies to TikTok as well. Your video feed is sorted into two sections, the for you page and the following section. Both of these mirrors their Instagram counterparts and are a common factor between the two platforms.

As the internet grows, it’s vital to catch onto this trend before it peaks. Hopefully, these social media platforms don’t seem too daunting to those who want to partake and can be adapted to with little effort.