When I picked up my 6-year-old son from school this week, he asked me a question that made me nearly veer off the road.

“When we get home, can we watch TikTok?”

Apparently, he learned about the app — yes, he knew it was an app — from his first-grade classmates. He wanted to watch a video about some guy drinking milk. (Word of caution, Gen X parents: Do not search for a viral milk video on TikTok unless you want to watch moms breastfeeding.)

I was shocked to find out how much my son — only in first grade and without access to any device that I haven’t personally handed to him — knew about social media. He’s ordered me, more than once, to snap a photo of him and post it on Instagram. He’s also asked to watch unboxing videos on YouTube. (I had to Google “unboxing.”)

I blame myself, of course.

It’s only Thursday and I’m already averaging 5 hours and 21 minutes of screen time a day on my iPhone, 40 minutes a day on Instagram alone. (The majority of my time, it appears, is spent playing Pokémon Go.) He watches me post to Instagram and scroll through my feed, sometimes asking to see videos of cute puppies, jumping baby goats and a chipmunk named Thelonius who lives in Atlanta.

Social media is a ubiquitous part of my life — and, already, part of his. That’s scary, and here’s why.

This week Hawaii was one of 41 states and the District of Columbia that filed lawsuits against Meta, alleging the company intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram — the latter being the most-used platform by adolescents after TikTok — with features that harm teens and young users. This despite Meta saying its social media sites were safe.

According to the 233-page lawsuit, “Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecendented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens,” with the motive being profit.

The company — which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger — had internal research in March 2020 that showed Instagram is toxic to teenage girls’ self-esteem and body image, as reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2021.

In May U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new advisory about the effects social media use has on the mental health and well-being of young users. 

“The most common question parents ask me is, ‘Is social media safe for my kids’. The answer is that we don’t have enough evidence to say it’s safe, and in fact, there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people’s mental health,” Murthy said in a statement. “Children are exposed to harmful content on social media, ranging from violent and sexual content, to bullying and harassment. And for too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends. We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis — one that we must urgently address.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services adds that recent research has shown that adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media face double the risk of experiencing depression and anxiety. Usage also may fuel body dissatisfaction, social comparison, disordered eating behaviors and low self-esteem, especially in young girls.

I know. I feel the same way. And I’m not an adolescent girl.

Anyone who uses Instagram with any regularity knows how contrived the space has become. Rarely do people post photos that depict “real life.” Instead, images are filtered, edited and curated to portray the best version of our lives. And it’s easy to start comparing our mundane existence — with piles of dirty laundry, stretch marks, frizzy hair and a bedroom that would make Maria Kondo keel over — to the seemingly put-together, if not utterly glamorous, lives of the people in our feed.

Add to that the particularly confusing time of adolescence, where fitting in can often feel more important than your GPA, when your body is changing and your hormones are all over the place. Instagram is the gasoline on that fire.

How are we, as parents, supposed to help our kids navigate social media when we’re entrenched in it, too?

That‘s one of the questions Brian Grantham, director of educational technology at Mid-Pacific Institute, tackles with students and their families several times a year.

When it started handing out iPads to students 13 years ago, the school believed it need to couple that with training — for students, faculty and families — on how to effectively and safely use technology. Back then, Facebook had been around for just six years and Instagram had just launched. Social media wasn’t the biggest concern.

Now, it‘s one of the school’s top concerns. Social media apps are banned on school devices, as is true at other schools, and MPI has open and two-way conversations about technology in a variety of settings, from social studies classrooms to chapel.

“There is no one way I found to address everybody all at one time,” Grantham says. “It takes a variety of voices coming in at a variety of times, and with consistent messaging.”

Grantham says he gets calls and emails regularly from parents about their concerns over technology, including social media usage and gaming. While teachers can control what students do in their classrooms, it’s up to the parents — and the kids themselves — to regulate once they leave campus.

“A lot of parents don’t want to be the ʻbad parents,’ and they look to the school sometimes,” he says. “But we can only do so much here in terms of control. It’s really about ethical behavior, understanding what’s right and wrong, what they should and shouldn’t be doing.”

Which is why the school participates in the national Digital Citizenship Week, held in October. (MPI does it in September.) The goal is to empower students and families to be more mindful about technology usage and choices.

But we can’t rely on schools to guide our kids across this digital landscape. That’s our job.

That night, when we got home, my son and I didn’t watch milk drinkers on TikTok. I showed him the app, talked about what it is and why it’s popular, discussed how it can be an unsafe space, and hoped it sank in. Then I put my phone away for the rest of the night.

And you know what? I felt better, too.