IN THEIR OWN WORDS: WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE WISH THEY'D KNOWN ABOUT SOCIAL MEDI

It’s dangerous. It’s addictive. Get off your phone.

Kids constantly hear about the downsides of social media from the adults in their lives, often in the form of dire warnings and commands. But these adults did not grow up with social media themselves.

They didn’t get a phone handed to them as toddlers, just to keep them quiet in a restaurant. They didn’t join TikTok’s predecessor Musica.ly and do silly dances before they even learned to read. They didn’t have their schools shut down in a global pandemic, their connections to friends and peers relegated to phone and computer screens.

Kids coming of age with social media are forging ahead in a whole new world. And now that they are getting older, they have some advice for their younger peers.

Here’s what they wish they knew when they first got online.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO SHARE EVERYTHING

“It’s so easy to look at your friends’ stories and feel this feeling of FOMO, of missing out and comparing yourself, like: ‘Oh, my friend just got a new car.’ It’s like this overwhelming sense of comparison. But the things that people post on social media, it’s just the highlight reel, like the 1% of their life that they want to showcase to other people.”

BAO LE, 18, a freshman at Vanderbilt University

DON’T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY