Do you remember what it was like when you were stressed out with a classmate at school? How glad we were when we were finally allowed to go home. In the afternoon or at the weekend we could meet up with friends – and just forget about the unloved classmates.
Our children and grandchildren no longer have this luxury. They are constantly in touch with all their classmates via WhatsApp, Snapchat and TikTok. Even with the unloved or just hated. Even at the weekend or in the evening just before falling asleep.
Child protection initiatives such as “Look!” warn again and again about messengers and social media: If you are not constantly on Instagram or WhatsApp, you are not part of the clique. Anyone who doesn’t take part in tests of courage on TikTok is uncool. Anyone who puts their cell phone aside loses contact with friends or doesn’t realize that the first two lessons are canceled the next morning. Violent videos, pornography or dangerous chain letters are shared via apps. And of course there is bullying about it. There’s brutal peer pressure – and the school bell doesn’t ring a break from all the trouble anymore.
A new app takes this peer pressure to an absurd level: anyone who registers with BeReal gets an alert once a day (including two warning emojis): “You have two minutes to post on BeReal.”
If you don’t take a photo within the time limit, you can’t see what your friends have uploaded.
The BeReal app advertises itself with funny and action-packed pictures. Anyone who surfs through the connected social network will also repeatedly find pictures that young people have taken of themselves in the bathroom or in bed
We already know today that social media has a bad effect on their mental health – and that in the case of severe cases of bullying, even changing schools no longer provides relief because the kids are still connected.
How much pressure do we actually want to put on our children and grandchildren?
It’s time that schools and teachers used protected and moderated apps and platforms instead of WhatsApp. And just as we used to tell kids there’s life after school, we should tell them today there’s life outside of apps too.