Five things I wish I knew before I got a social media account  

I was so excited when I turned 16 and my mum told me I could have an Instagram account.  

I had received a mobile phone two years prior so that I could call her or my dad if I got lost walking home from school. It meant that while I could only communicate to my friends via text, email and the occasional phone call, they were all communicating to each other via Snapchat Streaks, Instagram DMs and Musical.ly videos.  

I felt like I was missing out because I didn’t have access to social media at the same time my peers did; this is likely how many young Australians are feeling as they face the reality of losing access to these channels of communication following the social media ban. But looking back, my late entry into the online world helped me to better understand the benefits and the harms of social media, and I hope it’s the same for kids today. 

Here are five things I wish I knew when I was 16 to better face those difficulties and make the most of the opportunities that social media provides. 

1. Managing screen time 

I wish I understood how to tackle the addictive tactics used to waste my time on screens.   

Social media platforms are designed to keep people on their devices. Auto-scroll and autoplay features allow us to mindlessly consume content without lifting a finger. Constant notifications for every like, share and friend request play into our need for validation, and research indicates that social media use is associated with a decreased attention span. 

All of these features activate the brain's reward system. Every time you find something interesting while scrolling, it triggers a small dopamine release, similar to eating your favourite foods or winning a game. The more this reward system is activated, the more the brain shortens the neural pathways between scrolling and these reward signals. This makes people feel more impulsive, less able to regulate emotions, and less likely to walk away from their device. 

While it is easy to say that you can just switch off from social media to reset these pathways, it can be difficult for young people as most plans for catching up with friends are made on social media. So how can you make social media less appealing for your brain? 

Some things I’ve found that help to reduce my screen time include filtering my screen to black and white during certain times, using apps that ‘brick’ my phone or an inbuilt screen time feature, or pausing my notifications for certain mundane tasks.  

Having offscreen hobbies is also a great way to combat excessive screen time. Regularly doing hobbies with other people, such as a team sport or book club, are great ways to keep off your phone and form connections with friends and like-minded people.

2. Working out what is real and what is fake 

I remember when I first went on social media, I saw a Snapchat story that a friend had reposted about a fundraiser for a local animal shelter to help vaccinate feral cat populations. Without checking the source first, I instantly shared it because I thought that it looked real. Looking back, the story was obviously fake – there was no address, no website link to the shelter beyond the fundraising link, and a poor-quality Photoshopped image captioned with many spelling errors.  

While in hindsight, it was pretty easy to spot this fake fundraiser, this issue of working out what is real has only become more prominent with the rise of both AI-generated posts and algorithms sorting posts on a feed based on engagement rather than whether it’s true or not. This means that posts that are intentionally false or induce a certain emotion (e.g. rage bait) are more likely to show up on your feed rather than high-quality, factual content. According to UNICEF Australia’s A Generation Online report, less than half (43 per cent) of children and young people believe it’s important to verify information before sharing it and only 34 per cent feel confident in identifying misinformation online. 

This is why I wish that I knew how to be more media literate when I started using social media. The Southern New Hampshire University defines media literacy as “the ability to take in media messages and understand their influence on your thoughts, feelings and behaviours”. Media literacy involves asking critical questions about the biases of both your own and the author’s opinions, as well as the credibility and reliability of the information being presented. I only started learning about this in my advanced English class in Year 11, through analysing newspaper articles, which aren’t very applicable to the technology used today.  

3. What to do when you encounter harmful content 

I wish I knew how to report harmful content and to seek help after encountering it.  

While social media is generally intended to promote connection and learning, there are vast amounts of harmful content shared both publicly and privately that is intended to offend or hurt audiences. After witnessing my first piece of harmful content online, it took me over two weeks to report it, as I didn’t know how to and feared any unintended consequences of speaking up.  

To report a post, you should first do so within the social media platform itself. While the process for each platform is different, they all have a support or help centre website with step-by-step tutorials on how to report different types of content. If you have reported the content and nothing seems to have been done, you can then make a report to the eSafety Commissioner. 

It’s also important to know who to talk to when you encounter harmful content. This can be a parent, a carer, a trusted teacher, counsellor, community leader, or a friend. No matter who the person is, make sure that you trust them wholeheartedly and that they don’t dismiss your concerns. While some people get desensitised to seeing harmful content repeatedly on social media, it is still valid to feel anxious, sad or any other negative emotion after encountering it.  

 4. The importance of finding your online community  

I wish I understood the benefits of finding a community online. As a young carer in school with not a lot of in-person friends going through the same experiences, it was such a relief to finally find memes, creators and real stories that I could relate to.  

Social connection is extremely important to living a fulfilling life and can improve both mental and physical health by reducing loneliness. Some studies show that social media use is associated with increased feelings of loneliness among young people, as they might see their friends less in person, for example. But for people who may have different life experiences from most of their peers, struggle with in-person interactions, have unique interests, or live away from close family or friends, social media can also increase rates of social connection and decrease rates of loneliness. 

While there are two sides to this coin, I have personally benefited from finding online communities based on my interests such as dance, reading and calisthenics. That being said, I mostly felt this benefit and greater social connection through social media apps that are primarily used for direct messaging rather than for the consumption of public, short-form content.  

5. How to find opportunities and volunteer roles online 

When I was 16, I wish I knew how to better discover and take advantage of opportunities advertised online. There are so many cool jobs, volunteer positions, social justice organisations, scholarships and community groups that are advertised online. I personally wouldn't have worked my first job or become a UNICEF Australia Young Ambassador if it wasn’t for the Instagram ads I saw.  

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While these cool opportunities are out there, you can’t access them without knowing how to find them or verify them, despite how suitable or interested you may be.  

I personally keep an eye out for opportunities by following interest or career relevant groups or associations on all social platforms. Generally, alongside posting on their website or a job board when an opportunity comes up, organisations often advertise on their social media –especially when it comes to youth roles.  

To verify these opportunities, don’t click on any links from the post itself, but manually search for the organisation’s website to learn more about what it stands for and if they are legitimate. Algorithms recommend you content based on engagement, so if you engage with upskilling videos, pages that are relevant to your interests, or organisations that you want to work with in the future, then you are more likely to have those opportunities appear on your feed directly.  

Supporting young people online beyond the social media ban 

While it’s been a few years since I was 16, the practical things that I wish I learned before using social media for the first time still apply to young people today. A lot of what I learned after I got my first social media account was taught to me through overcoming negative experiences online. 

With the social media ban for under-16s having just come into effect in Australia, 69% of UNICEF Australia U-Reporters don’t think that the ban will stop younger users from accessing the banned sites. This highlights the importance of having educational support for young people or anyone accessing social media and implementing better guard rails against things like harmful content or addictive app design alongside the ban. 

It is more important than ever that we help young people effectively make the transition to social media so that other 16-year-olds don’t have to learn the hard way when it comes to interacting with the digital world.  

Find out more about the social media ban and UNICEF Australia’s stance on it here.