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[quote=Anonymous]Here's my beef with social media for tween girls in general: I was an attractive enough but slightly overweight tween/teen girl. I'm too old to have had social media in school but I remember seeing other girls on magazines and tv and just feeling so bad about myself because I didn't fit that mold that pop culture perpetuated as "ideal." Many of you reading this probably remember feeling like this too. It was damaging.

Today, kids have these pop culture machines in their pockets. And they check them literally all day, every day. Can you imagine the psycho-social effects of being absolutely bombarded with Kardashians and fake eyelashes and Brazilian butt lifts and fake lips etc... EVERY SINGLE TIME you pick up your phone, which is probably multiple times per half or or hour? It's astounding.

I don't have girls, but I was curious about this and checked out the followers of some of my nieces and my son's tween girlfriends who follow me on social media (yep, they follow me). It was heartbreaking. These sweet, beautiful, totally normal girls, so many of whom follow 1,000+ accounts and half of those at least are vapid caricatures of what 13 year olds think women are. I got down a rabbit hole and went to Instagram sites of people like the Kardashian sisters, the Hadid sisters, and also women like Amanda Gorman and Kamala Harris and Greta Thunberg. Guess what: these young ladies follow ALL of them because they are good at consuming media. Know which posts they reliably, always like? The Kardashians et al (you can tell, because if your friends like posts of shared followers, you see those likes first). You know whose posts they aren't liking? I'll let you guess. They probably aren't even seeing the worthwhile substantive women in their feeds, because you know, algorithms.

Bullying is real, and it's scary, and it's terrible, and we should do something about preventing it. But it may not reach your daughters.

This stuff? Guarantee it reaches 4/5 girls.

It is so toxic and so sad.

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