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We spend our teen years figuring out where we belong. Pandemic isolation and an uptick in social media use has made this more difficult for today’s teenagers, according to Anna Meade Harris. Harris is the editor-in-chief of the Rooted Ministry blog, and author of a February 2022 Gospel Coalition article “Breaking Social Media’s Grip on Teens.” 

“I think what happens,” Harris says in this Inside Out podcast, “is that teenagers think that they know people through their social media posts, but the actual fact is that we can’t know people until we have spent time in their presence.”  

Adults in a teen’s life can help break the grip of social media and guide teens toward richer, in-person relationships.  

It starts with putting down our own phones and talking, face-to-face.  

“I think we start in our homes, prioritizing face-to-face, personal interaction, doing things together,” Harris says.  

And while we’re engaging in attentive, in-person relationships, we can assure them that disagreements are normal, even as we model for them how to manage conflict.   

“We can talk about apologies, we can walk through forgiveness, we can approach the hard topics in our homes openly,” she says.  

Harris talks about practical ways to do this in our 17-minute Inside Out podcast. We hope you’ll listen.  

Read the article that inspired the conversation here.

Learn about Anna Meade Harris and read more of her writing here. 

Harris will be part of a panel discussion on this topic for the 2022 Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference in June 2022.