Talking Social Media Safety and Digital Confidence at the Boys & Girls Club Teen Summit
Updated: Aug 13
In August 2024, I had the opportunity to help facilitate a Boys & Girls Club Teen Summit and lead a conversation about social media safety.
Instead of presenting teens with a long list of warnings or pretending adults have every part of the internet figured out, I wanted the conversation to feel honest, useful, and relevant to what young people experience online every day.
We talked through practical ways to protect personal information, respond to uncomfortable situations, think carefully about what we share, and use social media with greater confidence.
Most importantly, the session created room for real questions.
Event at a Glance
Event: Boys & Girls Club Teen Summit
Date: August 2024
Caroline’s role: Teen Summit facilitator and social media safety speaker
Topic: Social media safety and digital confidence
Audience: Boys & Girls Club teen members
Organization: Exact Boys & Girls Club chapter or host organization to be confirmed
Caroline’s event notes confirm that she used real-life stories, practical advice, and relatable conversation to help teens think about how to stay smart, safe, and confident online.
Social Media Is Part of Teen Life
For many teenagers, social media is not separate from everyday life.
It is where they:
Talk with friends
Discover music and trends
Share creative work
Follow current events
Learn about opportunities
Build communities
Express parts of their identity
That means social media safety conversations need to go beyond simply telling young people to put down their phones.
Teens benefit from practical tools that help them recognize unsafe situations, understand how their choices can travel beyond the original post, and know where to turn when something online does not feel right.
Social media can support creativity, connection, self-expression, and learning. It can also expose young people to cyberbullying, harmful content, privacy concerns, and pressure around appearance or popularity. Boys & Girls Clubs of America encourages families and young people to discuss privacy, online behavior, harmful content, healthy boundaries, and when to ask a trusted adult for support.
Staying Safe Without Losing Your Voice
Social media safety should not make young people feel as though the only safe option is to stay silent.
The goal is to help teens use their voices while understanding the responsibility and risks that come with sharing online.
That starts with a few questions:
Who can see what I am posting?
Does this reveal information about where I live, go to school, or spend time?
Would I be comfortable with a teacher, future employer, or family member seeing it?
Do I personally know the people following or messaging me?
Is someone pressuring me to share something I do not want to share?
How does this account or conversation make me feel?
Who can I talk to when something seems wrong?
These questions are not meant to frighten teens away from social media. They help create a pause between the moment something happens and the decision to post, reply, share, or continue the conversation.
Protecting Personal Information
One of the most practical parts of digital safety is learning what information should remain private.
That can include:
Home addresses
Phone numbers
School schedules
Real-time locations
Passwords
Financial information
Private photographs
Travel details that reveal an empty home
Information belonging to friends or family members
Even a post that seems harmless can reveal more than expected when it includes a school logo, street sign, location tag, house number, or regular routine.
Privacy settings are helpful, but they are not a guarantee that a post will stay within the intended audience. Screenshots, screen recordings, shared passwords, and changing friendships can all move content outside its original context.
A useful rule is to treat anything shared digitally as something that could potentially be copied or seen again later.
What to Do When Something Feels Wrong
Teens should not feel responsible for handling every difficult online situation alone.
If a message, account, image, request, or conversation feels threatening, manipulative, inappropriate, or simply uncomfortable, practical next steps may include:
Stop responding.
Save evidence through screenshots when it is safe to do so.
Block or restrict the account.
Report the content through the platform.
Tell a trusted adult.
Contact school staff or law enforcement when there is a credible threat or immediate danger.
Young people also need to know that asking for help does not automatically mean they will lose access to every device or platform.
When teens expect immediate punishment, they may be less likely to speak up about harassment, mistakes, harmful content, or interactions that have escalated.
Boys & Girls Clubs of America recommends building open communication so young people know they can report harassment, troubling content, or uncomfortable online experiences and receive support.
Social Media and Self-Confidence
Online safety is not only about strangers, passwords, and privacy settings.
It also includes noticing how social media affects confidence, mood, and self-image.
A carefully edited feed can make it seem as though everyone else is:
Happier
More successful
More attractive
More popular
Constantly included
Never struggling
But social media usually shows selected moments rather than the full reality of someone’s life.
During conversations with young people, it is important to remind them that views, likes, comments, and follower counts are measurements created by a platform, not measurements of their value.
Digital confidence can look like:
Unfollowing accounts that consistently make you feel worse
Limiting comments or direct messages
Taking breaks when scrolling stops feeling enjoyable
Sharing creative work without chasing perfection
Refusing to participate in online cruelty
Supporting friends instead of comparing constantly
Remembering that not every moment needs to become content
Confidence online does not mean never feeling insecure. It means developing tools to recognize those feelings and make choices that protect your well-being.
Your Digital Footprint Can Grow With You
Teenagers are allowed to change.
Their interests, opinions, humor, friendships, and goals will continue to develop. But posts made during one stage of life can sometimes remain searchable or resurface later.
That does not mean teens need to build a perfectly polished professional brand before graduating high school.
It means understanding that digital choices can become part of a longer story.
Before posting, it can help to ask:
"Does this represent me in a way I am comfortable carrying forward?"
Young people should be able to have fun, experiment creatively, and express themselves. A little awareness simply gives them more control over how that expression is shared.
Using Social Media for Something Positive
Safety conversations should also recognize what teens can build online.
Social media can help young people:
Share art, music, photography, and writing
Promote a small business
Discover scholarships or career paths
Learn new skills
Support a cause
Find communities built around shared interests
Celebrate accomplishments
Stay connected with people who encourage them
The goal is not only to avoid negative experiences.
It is to help young people develop the confidence and judgment to use digital platforms in ways that support their goals, creativity, relationships, and future.
Three Takeaways for Teens
1. Pause before posting
Take a moment to consider who can see the content, what information it reveals, and whether you would be comfortable with it being shared beyond the intended audience.
2. Trust discomfort
You do not need to prove that a situation is dangerous before taking it seriously.
When an interaction feels wrong, you can stop responding, block the account, save evidence, and ask someone you trust for help.
3. Your value is not a metric
Likes, views, followers, and comments may measure activity on a platform, but they do not measure your talent, character, potential, or worth.
Creating Honest Conversations With Young People
One of the things I appreciated most about the Teen Summit was the opportunity to speak with young people rather than only speaking at them.
Teenagers already know social media is complicated. They experience the positive and negative sides of it in real time.
What they need are adults who are willing to listen, answer questions honestly, admit when an issue is complicated, and help them make informed decisions without immediately turning every conversation into a lecture.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana describes its mission as empowering young people to reach their full potential through safe spaces, positive mentors, and programming that supports academic success, healthy habits, and good character. Conversations about digital safety fit naturally into that larger goal of helping young people feel prepared for the world they are already navigating.
Bring This Conversation to Your Group
Caroline Marcello offers age-appropriate presentations and facilitated conversations focused on:
Social media safety
Digital confidence
Personal branding for students
Online privacy and responsible posting
Content creation
On-camera confidence
Using social media positively
Finding and communicating your voice
Sessions can be adapted for teen programs, schools, youth organizations, leadership groups, college orientations, parents, educators, and community organizations.
Caroline is based in Lafayette, Louisiana, and is available for youth speaking engagements and social media safety programs throughout Louisiana and beyond.
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