We asked our Youth Advisory Board three questions about TikTok: what they like about it, what they hate about it, and what they think parents should know about the social media app. Here are their thoughts - along with insights from Executive Director Michelle Cove and Education Outreach Manager Amanda Mozea - in this episode of The MEDIAGIRLS Podcast.

In this short podcast episode (just 15 minutes), Executive Director Michelle Cove and Education Outreach Manager Amanda Mozea answer three questions sent in recently by our listeners. This includes the most frequently asked one: “At what age should my daughter be allowed to start using social media?” Find out their "tell-it-like-it-is" responses in this special Q&A episode. 

In this episode, we share what teen girls from our MEDIAGIRLS program told us about the latest media trends and how their self-esteem is impacted. One thing is clear: While girls are highly aware of unrealistic beauty standards, they’re still obsessed with trying to look like these "fake" images as much as possible.  Find out more on what teens are absorbing from media, and how you can talk to the girl(s) in your life about these challenging messages.

Last spring we published a blog post about how to discuss with girls what to say and do if someone asks them to send a “nude” (a picture of her naked or partially naked). Over 70% of girls are asked to send a nude by the time they reach high school; unfortunately, many girls do it because they don’t want to seem prudish or uncool. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, let’s arm girls with strategies to handle the situation. Listen to find out the best ones!

With more than 1 billion downloads and 500 million active users around the world, TikTok rivals Instagram and Facebook for relevance today. It is a video-sharing app that allows you to post videos between 15 and 60 seconds in length, and videos often feature lip-syncing, comedy, ironic jokes, memes. What do girls love so much about it, and what should parents and educators know about this platform?

One minute, girls think they’ve made a new friend or potential love interest, and the next minute, that new person just disappears on them—no more texts, no more direct messages on Instagram, nothing. What happened?! In this episode, we’ll talk about how to acknowledge the feelings that girls experience when they’re ghosted, what they can do about it, and how they can avoid being a ghost themselves.

Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, Miss World, AND Miss Universe are all Black women. Before a new Miss America was crowned in December, Miss America, too, was a Black woman! What does this mean for more inclusive beauty standards, in particular beauty standards for women of color? Are the recent slate of pageant winners entirely positive for Black women? For more inclusive beauty standards? As is true of most of our topics, it's a little more complicated than you might think.

Girls feel intense pressure to get enough so-called likes on social media. In fact, all too often they tie their very self-worth to the number received. It can feel like one giant popularity contest that never ends. How do we alleviate some of this pressure and help girls see the high cost to their well-being? In this episode, we talk about how to help our girls understand that social-media metrics don't equal happiness.