Assessing the Patterns of Youth Use of Social Media and their Parental Oversight

 Background: Social media plays a crucial role in the lives of networked adolescents and take up a great deal of their time. Parental oversight or monitoring is essential at this period to protect against inaccurate, inappropriate or unsafe content and contacts. Aim of the study:  Was to assess the patterns of youth use of social media and parental oversight for them. Study design: Descriptive research design was used in this study. Setting: This study was conducted in all governmental 15 secondary schools in Tanta city. Subjects: A convenience sample of 1000 students (6.12%) (483 boys and 517 girls) from 1^st grade to 3^rd grade of 15 secondary schools were selected by proportional allocation method. Tool of data collection: Structured questionnaire sheet that consisted of five parts: socio-demographic data; availability of social media and internet media; causes of using social media; patterns of using social media; parents' oversight to their adolescents’ social media activities. Results: The results of this study showed that 78.1% and 76.2% of studied males and females respectively use social media for communication and more than half of them use it since more than three years for about 3 times per day. The majority (84.1% and 71.4%) of males and females, their parents did not oversight them. Conclusion: The majority of the studied adolescents use social media for communication since more than three years for about 3 times per day. Lack of parental oversight was prevalent among the studied subjects while using social media. Recommendations: It is essential to design health educational programs to preparatory and secondary school students to improve their inappropriate use of social media and to prevent its hazards. Educate the parents and the families about the importance of their oversight and follow up their adolescents during using social media.