Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, committee members.
Today, I'm privileged to provide testimony representing opinions and recommendations from the clinical staff at the Shalem Mental Health Network. Shalem is a non-profit agency and a member of Family Service Ontario, based in Hamilton. We provide counselling and psychotherapy services to individuals, couples, those in relationships and families. We receive our clientele by self-referral, and we offer virtual and in-person services. In Hamilton, Shalem is known for its affordability and accessibility, allowing folks of any background or means to access excellent therapy services for a fee that fits their income level, thanks to community foundations and donors.
I am a certified music therapist and registered psychotherapist at Shalem. Our clinical staff are all registered psychotherapists, social workers or placement interns, so I've asked members of my team to contribute their opinions and reflections to prepare a collaborative statement today.
There's a general sense from our team that the impact of social media on children, teens and their families is substantial. We've seen the benefits of social media with our clients, such as decreasing stigma by exposing kids and families to stories of mental health, and the benefits of free access to psycho-educational and mental health resources. However, there are numerous questions we're left with as clinicians. While there is growing evidence of clinical approaches and guidelines for families, the boots-on-the-ground framework still needs to catch up.
We see families trying to make sense of whether their child's social media use is problematic and what to do about it for the sake of their development. Kids need to learn how to slow down, how to reflect and how to regulate themselves, but when kids are bombarded with content without much control to moderate the exposure, we see them trying to cope, but missing out on opportunities to practise regulation skills.
Partial information or misinformation is challenging for families. We observe families struggling to make sense of the barrage of online information from sites and sources that purport to make use of empirical science but whose methodologies miss the mark. We commonly see clients diagnosing themselves with conditions or mental illnesses that then impact their expectations for therapy and treatment, as well as for themselves and their circles of support. We also see families doing their best to care for their children, but perhaps offering advice that's misguided and based on information they gleaned from a social media source.
We see gaps between parents and kids and gaps in parent awareness. We see parents not knowing what their kids' online activities are or not understanding the impact of unmonitored use. Conversely, we see parents who are aware of the risks, maybe even hyperaware, but have very few guidelines for how best to protect their children in the granular decisions made each and every day.
Parents generally seem sensitive to the social costs of non-use. Parents also may be struggling to limit their own social media use. We hear about families concerned about the amount of time spent together such that parents may sometimes choose to use social media as the way to bond with their kids. One clinician noted that they've seen families use social media to soothe neurodivergent kids and teens.
In terms of recommendations, we have the following to say.
Social media conversations among families have some similarities with other arenas that parents use to model safety, sound judgment and growing independence to their kids. However, there are unique phenomena with problematic social media use that require our attention. For example, the definitions of visibility and privacy have been rewritten. Social belonging is completely different, too, in how we make friends, belong in a community and repair conflicts.
Content sticks and it's hard to erase, and for some, the audience is not forgiving. A tweet or an Instagram post is hypervisible, collapses the context of what's happening, blurs boundaries and requires constant management to broker the perceptions of the story being told. Families need to learn how to have open conversations about these things and how to guide their children appropriately.
We need more clear guidelines for the continuum between use and non-use. Longitudinal studies would be ideal to compare the long-term impacts for young people over time.
There could be real costs, and those have been spoken to today, of a young person's activities, especially in cases of abuse, cyber-bullying, body image issues, depression, etc. However, social media platforms are also what adults use for employment opportunities and professional networking; therefore, non-use for teens may impact future employment if total non-use is what we're advising. Helping parents, teachers and therapists who are guiding these kids to moderate use, or use any disconnective practices, would be most welcome.
We need all the players to take responsibility for protecting our young people. Social media is one of many factors that are disrupting sleep, shortening attention spans, limiting in-person social skills, worsening anxiety, causing dependent habits and perpetuating bullying behaviours, body image concerns and negative social comparisons.
We need prevention and education from multiple sources. Families need help. Parents need support. Research needs to be translated into bite-sized pieces for the average Canadian parent to use today.
Thank you.