Behind the Screen: What Nurses Need to Know About Youth Social Media Use

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Nearly every school-age child and adolescent is online, and most are there constantly. This two-hour program will equip nurses to address what that means clinically. This educational program will examine what current evidence says about social media's effect on the developing brain, sleep, and mental health; the mechanisms behind problematic and addictive use; and the escalating safety threats facing young patients, including cyberbullying, online enticement, and trafficking recruitment. The session also covers the legal landscape nurses must navigate, from mandatory reporting obligations around exploitative imagery to the rapidly shifting landscape of state and federal laws restricting minors' platform access. Participants will leave with validated screening tools, practical red flags, and concrete language for counseling adolescents and families about safer digital habits.

Target Audience

Registered nurses and other interested healthcare professionals

Objectives

At the conclusion of the educational activity, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the effects of social media use on pediatric neurodevelopment, sleep, and mental health.

2. Identify online safety threats to pediatric patients, such as cyberbullying, trafficking recruitment, and AI-generated exploitative imagery, and the clinical red flags associated with each.

3. Summarize current federal and state legislation restricting minors' social media access along with its anticipated clinical and public health outcomes

4. Apply validated screening tools and a structured counseling framework to assess problematic social media use and counsel adolescent patients and their caregivers.

Participants can earn 2.0 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development credit. Each nursing participant must be present for the entire session and must complete an evaluation of the session to receive credit.

Presenter

Melissa Nunn, DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC/AC, CNE, NEA-BC, CNEcl

Location

Accessible via Zoom.

Disclosures

No relevant financial relationships were identified for any individual who can control this activity’s content. The presenter and activity planners for this educational activity have disclosed no relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.