Teacher urges parents to 'wake up' when it comes to kids' social media use
If parents fear their kids having social media accounts, it's with good reason.
One Utah teacher asked a group of 80 teens -- ages 14 and 15 -- to finish one sentence: "What my parents don't know about social media is..."
Teacher Skipper Coates wrote on her Facebook page that the responses she received from her students were, "SICKENING. Heartbreaking. Depressing."
Her post, which features photos of the kids' answers, has been shared more than 20,000 times.
"Parents of the world, WAKE. UP," the Pleasant Grove, Utah, teacher wrote in the viral post. "Your kids are living in a world that you are not invited to be part of. And they know how to keep you out. Your teenager DOES NOT NEED a smartphone."
Coates told "Good Morning America" the students' answers were "incredibly candid and honest."
The teacher for 10 years said "nothing shocked me," about her students' responses, adding "seeing them [the answers] in mass, and seeing how many kids were affected troubled me and I couldn't stay quiet."
All year long, Coates told "GMA" that she has been passing out similar "get-to-know-you" questions to the students. "With the recent school violence, the high Utah suicide rate, and the prevalence of school bullying I wanted to know more about what is happening behind the scenes. I also am a mother of three and have a pre-teen at home. He's been talking about how he needs a smartphone, but I see the damage they are doing," she explained.
"What concerns me the most is how quickly social media changes," Coates said.
"As adults who did not grow up with social media, we can't keep up with all the new apps, the new codes the kids use, and the speed of communication. My mission in sharing all of this is to get all adults to work together to help save our kids from life-changing habits that are forming at younger and younger ages."
