Your child has a second world. You know surprisingly little about it.

You may know exactly how long your child spends on their phone. But do you know what they see, who advises them and whose ideas they learn to trust?

Imagine your thirteen-year-old spending two hours every day with someone you have never met. That person comments on appearance, relationships, success and who is supposedly to blame when life feels difficult.

On TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, we often reduce this influence to one sentence: “They are on their phone again.” Yet algorithms choose the next video, influencers shape opinions, likes affect confidence and AI can convincingly imitate real people.

Here are eight situations children may encounter on social media, plus eight small steps you can try today.

1. Your child is competing with an app designed to keep them watching

There are no closing credits after a TikTok video. Another one is already waiting. The system keeps learning what holds a person’s attention, including content that shocks or annoys them.

A child can therefore receive more and more emotionally charged posts. Every new video is another opportunity to stay on the phone for a little longer.

Try this together:

Open your recommended feed. Mark three irrelevant posts as “Not interested”. Show your child that recommendations are not fixed and can be influenced.

2. A like is small until it becomes a measure of self-worth

Likes, comments and notifications provide instant feedback. Some children start reading that feedback personally: few reactions can feel like proof that they are boring or disliked.

The issue is not only likes. Mentions, messages and alerts repeatedly pull attention back to the app.

Try this together:

Review notification settings. Keep only what is genuinely useful. Some platforms also allow people to hide public like counts.

3. Two children use the same network but see completely different worlds

One child follows football and jokes. Another follows fitness, business and confidence advice. Their feeds soon look like different platforms.

Repeated exposure can change what seems normal, common or desirable. Perfect bodies may distort body image. Mockery can start to feel ordinary. Influencers can quietly define success.

Try this together:

Compare the first ten posts in your feeds. What do they suggest about your interests? Which subjects never appear?

4. A child wants to relax but may put the phone down feeling worse

A funny clip can be followed by a party they were not invited to, a perfect body and an influencer claiming that anyone without a life plan at fifteen is failing.

Social media can offer friendship and inspiration, but certain content may also contribute to anxiety, body dissatisfaction or the impression that everyone else has a better life.

Try this together:

Every fifth video, name the emotion it caused. This helps children notice that some content improves their mood while other content reliably makes it worse.

5. The best manipulator does not need to lie

Manipulative videos often sound confident and simple. They may select only facts that support a prepared conclusion while ignoring everything else.

Repetition matters too. A familiar claim can start to feel true even when no reliable evidence supports it.

Try this together:

Find a surprising claim. Ask who published it first, what evidence supports it and whether independent trustworthy sources confirm it.

6. The manosphere: when fitness or relationship advice turns into hostility

A teenager looking for exercise or confidence advice may be led towards creators who describe relationships as a battle and blame women for men’s problems.

These communities do not share one ideology, but some spread openly hostile views. Their appeal often lies in simple answers to painful and complicated questions.

Try this together:

Watch a video about the “real man” or “right woman”. Is it useful advice, or does it need an enemy? Also check what the creator is selling.

7. A child may spot an edited photo, but a convincing person can now be fake too

AI-generated video can reproduce a real person’s face and voice. Attackers use deepfakes for scams, blackmail and disinformation.

Old advice about unnatural blinking is no longer enough. A polished deepfake may not have obvious visual mistakes.

Try this together:

Find the original recording or confirmation from a trusted source. If a clip claims to come from a broadcaster, check whether that broadcaster actually published it.

8. Parental controls help until they become a contest

Technical controls can limit unsuitable content, set time boundaries and protect privacy, especially for younger children. They cannot teach a child to recognise manipulation or ask for help.

Start by defining the real problem. Is it total screen time, lost sleep, constant interruptions while studying or a particular kind of content?

Try this together:

Choose one rule with a clear reason, such as no notifications during sleep or no phones at shared meals. Review it together after a week.

Who prepares children for the world where they spend so much time?

Banning an app is not the same as teaching a child how to recognise risk, check information and respond when someone pressures them online.

Parents and teachers can build these skills before children urgently need them. Start at home, then continue at school.

Start with yourself. Continue at school.

Pavel “Spajk” Matějíček and Akademie Bakaláři created the Czech webinar When the Web Catches Your Child for parents and teachers.

BOIT also brings practical online-safety programmes into schools: Alfy Online for younger pupils and A Day with Klára for older students.

We are building #aSaferCzechia.