Solutions for navigating an ever-changing social media world

Today’s students face a challenging paradox: the digital tools they need to complete their work are often the source of their biggest distractions. Students can quickly become overwhelmed trying to manage the daily confluence of online interactions with schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and family life. Written by noted author and educator Ana Homayoun, Social Media Wellness is the first book to successfully decode the new language of social media for parents and educators and provide pragmatic solutions to help students:

• Manage distractions
• Focus and prioritize
• Improve time-management
• Become more organized and boost productivity
• Decrease stress and build empathy

With fresh insights and a solutions-oriented perspective, this crucial guide will help parents, educators and students work together to promote healthy socialization, effective self-regulation, and overall safety and wellness.

Tips From Teens On Promoting Social Media Wellness

"Ana Homayoun has written the very book I’ve yearned for, a must-read for teachers and parents. I have been recommending Ana’s work for years, but Social Media Wellness is her best yet; a thorough, well-researched and eloquent resource for parents and teachers seeking guidance about how to help children navigate the treacherous, ever-changing waters of social media and the digital world."
—Jessica Lahey, Author of The Gift of Failure

"This is the book I’ve been waiting for. Ana Homayoun gives concrete strategies for parents to talk with their teens without using judgment and fear as tools. This is a guidebook you can pick up at anytime, and which your teen can read, too. I’ll be recommending it to everyone I know."
—Rachel Simmons, Author of The Curse of the Good Girl

Read About Ana Homayoun in the news:

• NYTimes, The Secret Social Media Lives of Teenagers
• NYTImes, How to Help Kids Disrupt ‘Bro Culture’
• Pacific Standard, Holier Than Thou IPO: Snapchat and Effective Parenting
• Parenttoolkit.com, Emojis, Streaks, Stories, and Scores: What Parents Need to Know About Snapchat

• Los Angeles Review of Books, Life and Death 2.0: When Your Grandmother Dies Online

• Chicago Tribune, Social Media Footprints are Nothing New, So What Were those Harvard Students Thinking?

• Today Show, 9 Tips to Help Teens Manage Their Social Media Footprint

• 5 Ways Parents Can Help Kids Balance Social Media with the Real World

Social Media Wellness is a critical resource for parents and educators who work with youth who spend time online - and research shows that 92% of youth are online daily, with 24% feeling as though they are constantly online. This book is the first to address many of the issues that exist in personalized learning environments, and does so by helping parents and educators understand the new language of social media in a way that is timely, relevant, and approachable.

The first three chapters of Social Media Wellness provide a foundational overview of online culture, and discuss the different ways tweens and teens are interact online - through public profiles, private messaging, ephemeral and anonymous interactions, and using livefeed video. Noted author and educator Ana Homayoun helps readers understand the give ways social media impacts today's youth, and then provides practical, effective solutions on how to help promote the opportunity for healthy socialization, effective self-regulation, and overall safety online and in real life.

The second half of the book provides parents and educators implementable strategies and exercises that focus on how to talk about social media with tweens and teens, as well as how to promote academic wellness, social and emotional wellness and physical wellness in an always on digital world. Homayoun provides practical, actionable solutions to help boost student productivity, improve sleep and overall wellness, and promote stress management.

Social Media Wellness is filled with exercises that parents can do with their children, educators can do with their students, and school administrators can use to design social media and online use policies for personalized learning environments. Sample contracts are provided for faculty, parents, and high school and middle school students, and can be used to create a curriculum. The book is designed to be a guide that can be part of a faculty or school community read program, and can be a resource that is referred to time and time again.