There has always been some form of social media that multiple teenagers use as the “cool” way to communicate with their peers. 

From Myspace to Facebook, Twitter to Instagram, Instant messaging to Facetime; these applications have all been of popular use by teenagers at some point. 

In fact, some of these applications are still popular to use…

Just not by the younger crowd.

Yes, I’m talking about adults on social media.

For those of you who are parents, you know that when your son/daughter(s) are on their phones or devices, they are most likely spending the majority of their time using some form of these social applications. 

What thoughts rush into your head when you see your kids on these social applications?

For instance, do you worry if they are using the social media appropriately?

Do you contemplate creating an account to one of these apps to ensure your children are being responsible?

Perhaps, are you in awe of your children and how tech savvy they are?

If you relate to any or all of these questions, you are not alone.

My mother and many of my peers’ parents had the same thoughts.

However, with these thoughts most likely came the action of creating an account to a social media app anyways because you are curious as it how it works or there is a high level of anxiety about the safety of children.

This leads to a domino effect.

Once an adult joins social media, their friends will more often than not do it as well. This is either because they also like the idea of watching over their kids or they want to be apart of the crowd who uses the “hip” new app. Or they just want to use a new form of communication.

Once a handful of adults joins this “hip” social media app, a teenager’s alert centers will already be going off.

To be frank, teenagers feel less excited to use this form of social media because their parents are on it. It somehow made the application less “cool.” 

Once this happens, the teenager has a few choices. 

First, they ignore their parents on the application and reject their follow requests. This is most likely someone who is either acting inappropriate or really just doesn’t want their parents on their feed.

Second, the teen will discontinue use of the app. They feel that the adults are taking over the app and want to find something new.

Lastly, the teen will continue to use the app, but over time they eventually stop its use either because there are too many adults or it is just not cool to use anymore. 

The third scenario is usually what happens. 

After the app loses its popular status, typically a majority of adults will be on that app, while teenagers find something else to use.

For example, the social media applications mentioned before shows this shift in what is trendy until the domino effect begins.

MySpace turned into Facebook. 

Facebook turned into Twitter.

Twitter to Instagram.

Instagram to Snapchat. 

And so on…

Challenge: Next time you see someone on their phone, think about this domino effect of social media use. 

After all, You might even find the application to be fascinating and want to try it out for yourself.