Facing the Social Dilemma: Resources

Discover resources you can share with families so you can begin real conversation about how social media impacts us all. These resources come from the webinar conversation “Facing the Social Dilemma.”

Social media is a hugely influential piece of most people’s lives. Because of this, its impact on children and families can be profound. View the webinar and learn what two Christian filmmakers discovered while working on the #1-streamed Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma…and how it impacted their lives.

Merriam Webster defines social media as: “forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).”

Notes Shawna Schultz, co-founder of Mass FX Media who led the animation team for The Social Dilemma, “We use social media very broadly, meaning any platform that people can interact together on. That’s like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Discord, Imgur, Tik Tok, Reddit, 4Chan, YouTube, etc. Things like text messages or video calls aren’t social media because they aren’t on a larger platform where people can connect and interact together; that’s one-to-one or one-to-many communication that’s in the same realm as a phone call.”

*The Social Dilemma is available only on Netflix right now. If you don’t have a Netflix account, you can subscribe or initiate a 30-day free trial to stream it.

View the Webinar Facing the Social Dilemma

Resources

The Social Dilemma Resources. Find resources to take action on your social media use.

4 Social Media Blunders to Avoid. These 4 social media blunders could destroy your ministry—and your reputation.

4 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Presence. It’s sometimes amusing—and sometimes just painful—to see how ministers use technology. Here are four ways to improve your social media presence.

What Tech-Savvy Kids Need from Your Ministry. Meet the tech-savvy kids in your ministry — and discover what they need from you.

Social Media and Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Mental Health (National Center for Health Research). Most adolescents and young adults use social media. With 45% of adolescents reporting that they are online “almost constantly,” and another 44% saying they are online at least several times a day,¹ experts are asking if social media use can be harmful to mental health. Here’s what you need to know about social media use among teens and young adults.

Screen Usage Among Teens and Preteens (cnn.com). US teens spend an average of more than seven hours per day on screen media for entertainment, and tweens spend nearly five hours, a new report finds — and that doesn’t include time spent using screens for school and homework. Read more about this research and what it means for your kids.

The Social Dilemma Teachers Section Check out the students/teachers section of the discussion guide for discussion questions and student activities

Screenagers’ and News Literacy Project’s robust list of resources for educators

Common Sense Media’s lesson plans on digital citizenship and wellbeing

Checkology for media literacy

Infodemic for skills telling fact from fiction during coronavirus

Spot the Troll for teaching and learning the signs of disinformation and trolling

A response from Facebook to The Social Dilemma is here.