Lesson video

Hello there everybody, my name is Ms Shaw, really pleased you're joining me today, for this lesson in which we'll be focusing on maintaining a healthy relationship with social media.

So in this lesson, we're going to focus on managing the time that we spend on social media, and look at realistic expectations and understanding the content that we see and how to maintain a healthy balance between our social media presence and our friendships, and our real life friendships.

This lesson might cover sensitive topics and therefore we recommend checking with a trusted adult before starting, or during the lesson with a trusted adult nearby.

For this lesson, you are going to need an exercise book or some paper, and you're also going to need a pen to write down, and your brain 'cause we're going to be doing a lot of thinking.

Hopefully you've already completed your intro quiz.

Basically, we're going to be looking at understanding the content that we see on social media, we're going to be looking at how we can manage the time that we spend on social media, and maintaining a healthy balance with our online presence.

Finally, we'll look at the key learning points, and you'll complete your exit quiz.

So firstly, I'd like you to just recap some prior learning and to look at the statements given on the screen, now, two of the keywords have been covered in previous lessons, and I'd like you to choose those two correct ones.

Pause the video while you complete the activity and then resume when you're done.

And were you correct? Well, these two were the correct ones, so, paid advertisers, which were where a brand gives an influencer payment, for promoting them, and influencers who are experts with many online followers who can influence purchases made by social media users, the other two, which were online stress, which was basically anxiety, which is caused by excessive use or engagement with social media, and social media presence, which is how you post and how you engage with all of your online accounts, we're going to look at in more detail in today's lesson.

So the keywords for today's lesson, are cat fishing is the act of pretending to be someone who you are not when you are online, in order to lure someone into a relationship.

Followers who are other online users who choose to see all of your posts.

Trolling which is the act of intentionally upsetting somebody online.

And of fear of missing out or FOMO, which refers to anxiety caused by online posts that something exciting might be happening elsewhere.

In this first section, we're going to look into understanding the content that we see on social media.

Is everybody online who they appear to be.

I'd like you to pause for a second just to think about whether you think that statement is correct, everyone online is who they appear to be.

Hoping you chose false answer, it is false, now with over 4 billion users online, it's easy to meet new people, however, not everybody that we meet is going to be honest with us, and it's important to trust your gut and be careful with what you share.

As a reminder from lesson three, some top tips to look out for, were that if something or someone is too good to be true, then quite often it is, if they're being too nice or showing you too much attention or giving you too many compliments, they're unlikely to be being actually realistic and being a bit fake with you instead.

If they offer you a presents or make you loads of promises, if you do things in return for them, that's another red flag.

If they're putting pressure on you to do things that you're not comfortable with, then again, that's a warning sign, and if they're asking you to message in private or keep your chat secret from other people or from trusted adults, then again that's a major warning sign, and, if like we've said before, anyone is making you feel uncomfortable, then you should make sure that you speak to a trusted adult or report it, to CEOP or via online reporting services.

So in this section, we're going to look into the problems linked to spending too much time on social media, and how we can manage the time that we spend on it.

What do you think? To avoid stress and anxiety, it's important to switch off social media regularly and stay connected with real life, real people and real friends.

Do you think this is true or false? I'd like you to pause here just to think for a minute about whether you think this is a true or false statement.

Hoping you chose true, we shouldn't let social media become a substitute for our real life connections with family and friends and other people.

We're going to have a look at in more depth about why.

Did you know, that according to Childnet, the following facts all apply.

So fact one, 99% of young people are online for nearly 20 hours per week, fact two, 76% of young people games online for nearly 13 and 1/2 hours per week, fact three, 83% of all young people own a smartphone, and fact four, nearly nine out of 10 young people watch videos on social media, now that's an awful lot of social media usage or access to things that are online, and I want you to think about now, of what some of the issues, might be linked to spending too much time on social media, so have a look at some of the statements on this chart below and have a think about whether you think they are issues, linked to spending too much time on social media.

I'd like you to pause the activity here and then return when you're finished.

So did you get them all correct? Spending too much time on social media, can result in blurred vision, and leave you feeling anxious and stressed because of the screen time that you're spending, you're not focusing on other things, you might be getting headaches or neck ache, from the position that you're sitting in, you might become addicted to playing games or things that you are doing online and find it very difficult to break away and go and engage in other activities.

It might result in you having difficulty sleeping and becoming moody and being over tired, and it could also lead to obsessive thoughts.

Now none of this is really conducive to you feeling relaxed or having good self-esteem, so there are quite a few issues associated with you spending too much time on social media or engaging on online presence.

So in this next section, we're going to look into how we can maintain a healthy online presence.

In what ways does social media influence what we do? I'd like you to pause here for a second and just have a think, can you come up with any suggestions? Well, I'd like you to spend a few minutes thinking about which of these are ways that you can be influenced on social media? So pick them out, now, I'm hoping that some of these you've already thought about on the previous slide, I'd like to pause here, so pick out which ones, are ways you can be influenced on social media, and then return when you're finished.

So how did you get on? Well, there's an awful lot of platforms that we're exposed to on social media, petitions, influencers promoting brands, pop-up adverts that come up with playing online games, we're talking to other people and engaging with them, there might be cookies, we might be engaging in reading blogs, there might be activists sharing different posts, we could be engaged in different types of networks according to our hobbies or our interests, we might be listening to podcasts, we might be even listening to what our friends are saying and the suggestions that they're making.

So all of these are ways that we are influenced by what we're doing the time that we're spending online.

Now, going shopping in a supermarket, or spending time with families, is not likely to be influencing our online usage.

Now I'd like you to have a think about this following scenario.

At school John is the class clown and he likes to show off, however, his home life is a little strained, so he spends most of his time in his room on the internet.

He follows a lot of people and often get stressed or anxious that he's missing out on what his peers are doing, but he shows little interest in actually going out and joining them.

He gets little exercise and is often up late at night on social media, which affects the quality of his sleep, which in turn affects his schoolwork.

For this task, I would like you to think and suggest at least three strategies which John could use to manage his time on social media more effectively.

I'd like you to pause here to complete the activity and then resume when you finish.

And how did you get them? Did your answers match mine? Well, I said that he could review how and when a screen time is used, with tools and set screen time limits for usage.

He could also use other people's posts as inspiration rather than a comparison to compare against his own life.

He should make sure that he prioritises healthy sleep patterns.

Make sure that he prioritises his mental health, so he should be getting out a bit more often and exercising, and spending time with family and friends rather than just being online all the time.

He could maybe join a club, take regular exercise, complete some mindfulness activities when he's out and about.

He should really make an effort to spend more time with family and friends.

Now some points to consider here, are it's all about getting it right for your needs, so when it comes to screen time, one size does not fit all, it might be that some people don't want to spend much time at all online, it might be some people like to spend a bit longer but it's all about making sure that you maintain a healthy balance and making sure that you're keeping positive, keeping mentally healthy, physically healthy, so that you've got an overall better quality of life.

And what are some ways we can maintain a healthy relationship with social media? I'd like you to pause here and create a list.

So how did your list compare with mine? Well, we could make sure that we get regular exercise and breaks in between, to reduce the actual screen time, we should eat and drink regularly, so making sure that we're getting our body and our nutritional needs met, we should spend time with family and friends, and really make it a positive way of not comparing yourself with other users, so just looking at what they're doing and appreciating what they're doing but don't reflect it with your own life so much.

Try and find a healthy balance of online and offline activities and make sure that you engage in doing all the things that make you feel good or happy.

Now what I'd like you to do for this final activity, it's to create an "Agony Aunt" advice column, so act as an "Agony Aunt," offering support to other online users, so pretend that you've got someone who's written in and they've got an issue such as, "I love to spend time on social media, "but I often get stressed about missing out "and I'm feeling anxious, what should I do?" So then like you, once you've got that issue to write a response, offering advice and support, I'd like you to pause the task video here to complete your task, and then resume once you've finished.

So the key learning point from this lesson, all that there is a difference between real and online friends, there are many ways that we can be influenced on social media, we should learn ways to manage the time that we spend on social media, and if we're really concerned about it we should talk to a trusted adult because that always helps.

Now, I'd like you to complete your exit quiz to check your understanding of the content and of this lesson and of the overall unit.

Well done on completing the final lesson in this unit, I'll look forward to working with you again.

Bye for now.