Will Snapchat’s New School Guide End Teacher Frustration?

Snapchat’s new guide to help schools navigate the social media platform can help tackle teachers’ “frustration and disempowerment” in America’s classrooms, campaigners say.

The new Educator’s Guide to Snapchat tool kit includes videos highlighting the app’s features for schools and safeguards for teens, and an educator feedback form where teachers can share perspectives on how it is being used in their own schools.

The guide, created in partnership with the Safe and Sound Schools campaign group formed by parents who lost children at Sandy Hook, arrived following criticism from lawmakers that social media platforms are not doing enough to protect children and teenagers.

The tool kit has an emphasis on helping teachers understand how Snapchat, a popular platform with teenagers known for its disappearing messages and filters, works.

Contained in the guide are a range of different areas and tools.

• Tips and best practices for addressing critical issues like cyberbullying, including helping teachers understand that they are not isolated incidents, but rather repeated acts with malicious intent designed to harm someone.
• It provides conversation guides for discussing online safety with both students and parents/caregivers, such as helping students understand misconceptions around “snitching” or “tattling.”
• The guide touches on issues of the law, including informing educators that acts committed on a student’s personal device during their own time may still violate school policy if it substantially disrupts the school environment.

Safe and Sound Schools’ executive director Michele Gay told Newsweek that while developing the guide, “we uncovered a deep sense of frustration and disempowerment among educators when it comes to supporting students’ social growth, both online and in the classroom.”

Research released last year by U.K.-based online safety group Internet Matters found that while most teachers understand the importance of online safety, “many feel unequipped to teach media literacy topics,” with nearly one in three (30 percent) citing a lack of relevant training as a barrier to effective online safety education.

“Tech companies should consider users’ media literacy when designing platforms and products, rather than relying on children to look out for themselves, or their parents and teachers. On-platform guides and tools for educators created by the tech platforms would represent a step in the right direction,” said Lizzie Reeves, senior policy manager for Internet Matters, said.

In recent years, concerns about the impact of social media on young people have led to increased efforts to regulate its use, particularly for children and teenagers. These initiatives have emerged at state level across the U.S.

The first state to do so, Utah took a significant step in March 2023 by passing legislation requiring parental consent for minors to use social media and imposing a social media curfew for young users. Arkansas followed suit in April 2023, with a law mandating parental approval for social media accounts for users under 18.

In January 2024, Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act went into effect, requiring parental consent for under-16s to create social media accounts. Similarly, a Florida law signed off by Governor Ron DeSantis requires consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to do so.

New York’s Governor, Kathy Hochul, signed two bills into law in June 2024 regulating the use of social media by minors. The legislation aims to give parents control over algorithm-driven content for children and enhance data privacy protections for under 18s.

“Truly comprehensive school safety must extend to the digital spaces where our students spend so much of their time today,” added Gay.

“The generations currently in our schools are digital natives, and engaging online is a natural extension of their social lives. While policies like device bans are being implemented, the ripple effects of online and social media behavior continue to impact our schools.”