Instagram has put together a great resource for parents who would like to learn more about its ultra-popular app and also keep up with what their kids are up to with this social media tool.  Know How To Talk With Your Teen About Instagram: A Parent’s Guide is available both as a PDF and in a web-based form. 

The guide does a great job highlighting how parents can support their students in the following areas: 

• Managing Privacy
• Managing Interactions
• Managing Time

A second great resource is a new Common Sense Media Report titled Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences.

A few of the key findings from this report are as follows:

• Only a very few teens say that using social media has a negative effect on how they feel about themselves; many more say it has a positive effect.
• Social media has a heightened role— both positive and negative—in the lives of more vulnerable teens.
• Social media is an important avenue of creative expression for many teens.

As both a parent and an educator, I encourage others to take a little bit of time to read through these two resources.  The Common Sense Media report on teen social media use is extremely valuable because the feedback comes directly from teens. Instead of speculating on the habits and the impact of these habits on our students, we have valuable insights directly from the source. The graphic below is just one example.