Video · Teachers Media
Social Media and Schools
Social media is the environment in which most UK teenagers spend a substantial portion of their day — and one that schools have to teach about, in it, and around it. The pedagogy hasn't caught up as fast as the platforms have changed, but the evidence base is growing and the practical moves are becoming clearer.
About this video
The evidence about social media and adolescent wellbeing is now substantial, and — with appropriate caveats — points in a specific direction. Heavy use is associated with poorer sleep, poorer mental health outcomes (particularly for girls), and reduced attention span. The relationship isn't simply causal (many other factors are involved), but the correlations are strong enough that most researchers now advise limiting adolescent social media use rather than treating it as neutral.
For schools, the pedagogical challenge sits in three places: teaching pupils to navigate social media critically (how algorithms shape what they see, how to spot misinformation, how to recognise manipulation); managing the effects of social media use on classroom life (phones in lessons, out-of-school conflicts spilling into school, image-based bullying); and preparing pupils to be adults who use social media purposefully rather than compulsively.
The last of these is arguably the most important and least well developed in current curriculum practice. Pupils leave school having been told "be careful online" without having learned how to build a healthy digital life — when to log off, how to notice compulsive use, what constitutes meaningful versus low-value online interaction. That gap is a legitimate space for schools to fill.
Practical curriculum territory
- Algorithmic literacy. How platforms decide what pupils see, and why that matters for their view of the world.
- Critical evaluation. Spotting misinformation, evaluating sources, understanding what to trust and why.
- Wellbeing habits. Sleep hygiene, phone-in-bedroom decisions, notice-and-name practices for when use is unhealthy.
- Online conflict and identity. Cyberbullying, image sharing, cancel culture, the persistence of online records.
- Purposeful use. What social media is genuinely good for, and how to build a healthy relationship with it.
Discussion prompts
- What is your school's current phone policy, and does it reflect the evidence on adolescent screen use?
- When you talk with pupils about social media, do you sound like an adult who genuinely understands the platforms, or one who's pontificating from outside?
- What would a Year 8 curriculum look like that took pupil digital wellbeing seriously — not moral panic, not naivety?
Try this in your classroom
- Ask pupils in your class to keep a two-day log of their phone use. Discuss what patterns they notice about how they feel afterwards.
- Show pupils how an algorithm shapes their feed by comparing two people's TikTok or Instagram front pages for the same query. Discuss the implications.
- Include an honest, non-preachy discussion of social media in one PSHE or form-time slot this term. Ask pupils what would actually help.