However not being on social media can have real-world consequences in the classroom, the child could be treated as an outcast and mocked or bullied for it.
There is a middle ground, which is to use a pseudonym and ensure anonymity. You can then selectively disclose this pseudonym to people you trust. It might be safer for the children that way and also make it more difficult for adult authority figures to interfere with their lives.
I was very impressed that they seem to have this conditioned into them so young, and to a level of importance that exceeded even my own paranoia about doing it properly.
If it's never brought to their attention, it's pointless to worry about.
The reference is to the Virgin Suicides. The doctor can’t believe that Cecilia would slash her wrists because he can’t comprehend that she would have experienced real or perceived distress at her age. To which she responds with the quote above.
I’m suggesting that it’s very easy to be dismissive of teenage problems as trivial or easily solved when we’ve already long recovered from that particular malady.
Okay that sounds reasonable, but how does that relate to my prior comment?
I think eventually, teens will see social media as "uncool" in the same way as they see smoking cigarettes as "uncool" (in some countries). It takes a lot of social propagandizing to popularize that idea, but we did it with cigarettes and we can do it with social media.
We need to make being off the grid cooler than being on it. Privacy is cool!