Social media addiction

[user1492026948]

My 16 yr old daughter is coming up for exams in 4 weeks time. She is a bright girl but is not revising and does nothing but talk to her friends on her mobile and social media. I have set her a target to give me her phone at 10pm each night and her wifi is limited and she has gone mad. Is this unreasonable? She is my 4th child but times have changed so much in 10 years and I am struggling to know what to do for the best.

Oh I've been there! With hindsight I don't think I played it very well, and if I went back in time I would offer incentives rather than moan. I would encourage her to break it down into small chunks, and offer incentives for each "chunk" done. Depending on your budget, it could be a bar of chocolate, having her nails done, cooking her favourite dinner etc.

Same here. I've tried punishment and reward - nothing works. Take devices away and she refuses to study to punish me! I'm over it now to be honest. I don't expect her to do well and have accepted I can't make her revise. I think she will get a big wake up call when the exams come round. On the plus side, she's independent, resourceful, socially secure and confident - does people's make up for money. I have a feeling her friends will get to uni and she won't which will probably devastate her but I'm realising this is her mistake to make. So much of what she is doing now is not what I would have wished for her but its her life I suppose.

I was watching the second episode of Child of our time last night and part of it was about social media and screen time etc. There was a professor from a university speaking who said that when people moan about teens using phones instead of studying they are actually wrong. Teens are using phones/social media instead of drinking at the bus stop. Teenage pregnancies, drug and alcohol use has gone down year on year for 15 years. A teen will study however much they want- phones aren't preventing studying, they are preventing them getting drunk or pregnant!
I had never considered that and thought it was quite interesting.

wow - I had never thought of it like that! Very interesting indeed.

That's an interesting point. I was a teen pre-mobile phones of any kind and used to spend hours walking round the village (no where to go) talking about rubbish with my friends. When it came to exam time, some of us buckled down to revision, others just procrastinated in their bedrooms (if their parents forced them to stay in) or spend hours hanging around together panicking about exams (if their parents weren't forcing them to stay in).

One chance at education. Very lucky to live somewhere that she won't get shot for going to school.

Last warning to stop dicking about. Perhaps by reminding her that if she wants toys in the future, she will need a job, and that is a lot harder without exams.

That is an interesting slant on the subject and when I think of it ... yes I use to spend hours just hanging about when I was young.