Parent Guides to Social Media: 5 Conversation Starters: Teen FOMO / Influencers / Instagram / TikTok / YouTube

By Axis

It’s common for parents to feel lost in their teen’s world. They can sift through the social media slang, texting shorthand, and viral quotes, and still feel disconnected and confused. Axis Parent’s Guide to Social Media is a generational translator of a teen’s world, featuring easy-to-understand explanations, relevant descriptions, and life applications.

Enjoy answers to questions including:

• Why do teens like it?
• How did this become popular?
• What are the potential dangers?
• How do I talk to my teens about it?

This is your go-to guide for understanding your teen’s world and sparking a deep, ongoing faith conversation that matters.

Guides include:

• A Parent’s Guide to Teen FOMO
• A Parent’s Guide to Influencers
• A Parent’s Guide to Instagram
• A Parent’s Guide to TikTok
• A Parent’s Guide to YouTube

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: Feb 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781496474087

Book preview

Parent Guides to Social Media

Visit Tyndale online at tyndale.com.

Visit Axis online at axis.org.

Tyndale and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Ministries.

Parent Guides to Social Media

A Parent’s Guide to Teen FOMO copyright © 2022 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to Influencers copyright © 2022 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to Instagram copyright © 2022 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to TikTok copyright © 2022 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to YouTube copyright © 2022 by Axis. All rights reserved.

Designed by Lindsey Bergsma

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations in A Parent’s Guide to Teen FOMO are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations in A Parent’s Guide to Teen FOMO marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations in A Parent’s Guide to Influencers and A Parent’s Guide to Instagram are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Parent Guides to Social Media first published in 2023 under ISBNs 978-1-4964-7407-0 (Kindle); 978-1-4964-7409-4 (Apple); 978-1-4964-7408-7 (ePub)

Build: 2023-01-26 13:43:45 EPUB 3.0

Contents

A Parent’s Guide to Teen FOMO

A Letter from Axis

The only thing we have to fear is FOMO itself.

Where did the term FOMO come from?

Why is it so powerful?

How is it affecting us?

How does social media relate to FOMO?

What triggers it?

How does it affect us long-term?

Why does Gen Z experience it so intensely?

How do I help my kids view FOMO through the lens of Scripture?

How can I help my kids not to be controlled by FOMO?

Conclusion

Recap

Discussion Questions

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to Influencers

A Letter from Axis

When they talk, we listen.

What’s an influencer?

What’s the difference between a celebrity and an influencer?

What does the blue check mark mean?

Where did influencers come from?

Why are companies willing to give them money?

Why does my kid want to be one?

Is being an influencer as fun and easy as it seems to be?

How do I talk to my teen about this without seeming condemning or ignorant?

Does Scripture say anything about this?

Should we only follow Christian influencers?

If my teen only has a couple thousand followers (or fewer), there’s no way they’ve been contacted by sponsors, right?

What do I do if people start contacting my teen to do sponsored posts?

Conclusion

Recap

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to Instagram

A Letter from Axis

Instant gratification or a never-ending search for validation?

What is Instagram?

How popular is it?

How does it work?

Can you explain its important features?

What are hashtags?

What’s Instagram Direct?

What are Stories?

Why would someone want to post to their Story instead of to their profile?

Is Instagram art?

What’s a Finsta?

Why do teens care so much about how many followers and likes they get?

How do the liking and commenting features affect my teen?

How does the app impact my teen’s mental health?

How do I talk to my teens about comparison and body image?

Can a user access inappropriate content on the app?

How do I talk to my teens about the app and its place in their lives?

Conclusion

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to TikTok

A Letter from Axis

For Gen Z, TikTok is the app to beat

What is TikTok, and how popular is it?

How does it work?

What happens when I download TikTok?

What happens when I create an account?

How do I create a video?

What’s in the Home feed?

How do I search for specific accounts or videos?

Where are direct messages?

What should I know about profiles?

What’s a duet?

Can users livestream?

Why is my kid asking to spend money on it?

Are there parental controls?

Why do kids love it?

What are its dangers?

What’s TikTok’s position on mature content?

What can I do to protect my kids?

Discussion Questions before getting TikTok

Discussion Questions after getting TikTok

One last thing . . .

Takeaways

Recap

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to YouTube

A Letter from Axis

It’s not just for watching silly videos now and then. Gen Z can’t live without YouTube.

What is YouTube?

What can you watch on YouTube?

How does it work?

What’s YouTube Premium?

What’s YouTube TV?

What’s YouTube Kids?

Why do kids (and young adults) like YouTube?

What are the dangers of YouTube?

What should I do?

Conclusion

Additional Resources

Parent Guides to Social Media

I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. . . . Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life.

C. S. LEWIS,

THE INNER RING

A LETTER FROM AXIS

Dear Reader,

We’re Axis, and since 2007, we’ve been creating resources to help connect parents, teens, and Jesus in a disconnected world. We’re a group of gospel-minded researchers, speakers, and content creators, and we’re excited to bring you the best of what we’ve learned about making meaningful connections with the teens in your life.

This parent’s guide is designed to help start a conversation. Our goal is to give you enough knowledge that you’re able to ask your teen informed questions about their world. For each guide, we spend weeks reading, researching, and interviewing parents and teens in order to distill everything you need to know about the topic at hand. We encourage you to read the whole thing and then to use the questions we include to get the conversation going with your teen—and then to follow the conversation wherever it leads.

As Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen point out in their book Difficult Conversations, "Changes in attitudes and behavior rarely come about because of arguments, facts, and attempts to persuade. How often do you change your values and beliefs—or whom you love or what you want in life—based on something someone tells you? And how likely are you to do so when the person who is trying to change you doesn’t seem fully aware of the reasons you see things differently in the first place?"[1] For whatever reason, when we believe that others are trying to understand our point of view, our defenses usually go down, and we’re more willing to listen to their point of view. The rising generation is no exception.

So we encourage you to ask questions, to listen, and then to share your heart with your teen. As we often say at Axis, discipleship happens where conversation happens.

Sincerely,

Your friends at Axis

[1] Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 137.

THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FOMO ITSELF.

IMAGINE YOURSELF as a teenager again. Try to remember some of the experiences, thoughts, and feelings you had. Do any of the following scenarios ring a bell?

You heard all about the excitement that went down at a party that you weren’t invited to.

Your friends planned a fun trip, but you couldn’t go.

You opted not to go to a movie with friends and ended up sitting at home wondering what you were missing.

It seemed that everyone in school was whispering about something, but you had no idea what it was.

Your summer vacation was boring and uneventful, so much so that you sat around envisioning all the exciting things everyone else from school was doing.

The desire not to be left out is universal: no one wants to miss out on something interesting or important. This desire, which is especially strong during adolescence, stems from a God-given yearning to participate in significant experiences and be in meaningful community. So while it’s a natural human tendency to fear being excluded, it’s unhealthy when we let this fear control our lives.

Rather than getting easier, it’s only gotten harder to resist feeling left out in today’s world. The smartphone and social media have (perhaps intentionally) exploited this fear, making it even easier to see each and every little thing that happens without us. It’s become such a powerful phenomenon that it’s been given its own term: FOMO, the fear of missing out.

FOMO is the worry that something interesting or exciting will happen without us, causing us to miss not just the experience but also the camaraderie that inevitably blossoms out of sharing it with others.

FOMO is the worry that something interesting or exciting will happen without us, causing us to miss not just the experience but also the camaraderie that inevitably blossoms out of sharing it with others. Unfortunately, FOMO is a broken way of dealing with our God-given desires to live purposeful lives and be in community. God did not intend for us to live in a constant state of fear! Reclaiming our own boundaries and helping our kids