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This chapter aims to explain general benefits offered by social networking, then will cover risks of social media use—both known and presumed—followed by recommendations to optimize and learn more about social media into the future. Chapter 2 is a discussion of social media relevance for more discrete groups of youth.

Young people love social media and by age group are avid users. A recent poll of parents of children and tweens found that approximately one-third of children aged seven to nine years and almost half of children aged ten to twelve years use social media apps (CS Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, 2021). Another survey found nearly 20 percent of tweens use social media daily. A whopping 84 percent of teens report using social media (and for nearly 90 minutes daily), but interestingly, only onethird enjoy social media a lot (Rideout et al., 2022). In its latest report on Media Use by Tweens and Teens, Common Sense Media found that media use in general grew faster between 2019 and 2021 than it did in the previous prepandemic four years. Other major findings included (Rideout et al., 2022):