Erin Napier Emphasizes Importance of Media Wisdom
By Movieguide® Contributor
HGTV star Erin Napier is responding to her critics after teasing a project encouraging parents who are keeping their kids off of social media.
“Alright y’all, I’m up to something,” she said during her project teaser. “I can’t tell you about it yet, but I can tell you that I’m looking for parents who are keeping their kids social media free through high school and junior high too.”
While many fans were supportive of Napier’s upcoming project, some were quick to criticize and expose flaws they saw with the plan.
“What happens after high school if they haven’t learned how to use [social media] responsibly before they leave home? This makes sense before they become teenagers but I think it gets more complicated after that,” one fan said.
Napier responded directly, “what happens when they encounter alcohol? Hopefully you’ve taught them how to use it correctly.”
Another fan was more antagonistic, saying, “last I checked social media isn’t illegal for under 21,” adding that they felt Napier was being “very defensive about the topic.”
“You didn’t want me to reply to your comment? I’m not defensive,” Napier responded. “I believe social media should be available to adults who are emotionally mature enough to handle it. Sort of like driving a car or buying alcohol. A reasonable comparison I think.”
This is not Napier’s first time expressing her views about prohibiting her kids from social media until they are old enough. She believes it is not healthy for them to use because of the ways it can distort their image of themselves along with the other negative impacts that studies have found social media can have on adolescents.
Napier also takes care to keep her kids out of the limelight on her own social media posts. Napier and her husband are both thankful that social media was not around when they were kids and would not have wanted their parents to post pictures of them when they were growing up.
Movieguide® previously reported on Napier’s decision to keep her kids social media free:
HOME TOWN star Erin Napier recently revealed the touching reasons why she has not allowed her daughters to have phones or social media.
Napier shared a clip from an interview with Kate Winslet where the actress said she did not allow her children to have social media accounts.
She followed it up with a lengthy post, accompanied by a throwback shot of her.
“This was me in 11th grade,” Napier wrote. “Smart phones did not exist. I loved making art and doing photography with the Canon SLR I bought with my money from making tips playing music at the coffee shop downtown.”
She went on to talk about her love of photography and how her friends and family encouraged her in this passion. Their encouragement made Napier “confident, not at all worried about if any other girls in my class were into that sort of thing.”
“I am so thankful I grew up without the crushing pressure of social media,” she continued. “As a highly sensitive artistic kid, the criticism or silence of ‘likes’ would’ve hurt me deeply. It would have shaped me into someone, something else. I read once where we should only accept the criticism of people who know us and love us well enough to deliver it gently and in a way that helps instead of hurts.”
Napier called social media “the harshest criticism of all,” as well as “a distorted and broken and misguided kind of critic who sets these young people without their fully developed emotional minds on the wrong path.”
“Is it mean to keep [my children] from communicating with smart phones? I don’t care,” Napier concluded. “I’m also keeping them from finding a distorted picture of who they think they need to be, porn, hate, the criticism of strangers. Childhood is so short. We’re gonna savor every last second of our girls’ that we can.”
Do you limiting minors time on social media is helpful?
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