VIDBE-Q Volume 69 Issue 4
visual impairments and other educational team members who support students with
visual impairments) and parents of students with visual impairments.
More than anything else, it is important for parents and educators of students
with visual impairments to be aware of the current prevalence and methods of
social media and internet use among the general population of U.S. teenagers. In
2023, the Pew Research Center conducted their annual online survey of nearly
1,500 U.S. teenagers that was weighted to be representative of U.S. teenagers ages
13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household
income, and other categories (Anderson et al., 2023). As I originally explained:
"Lifelong social, academic, and professional success is now more dependent on
digital social interactions than ever before" (Kelly, 2011, p.33). In the more than
10 years since my original publication on this topic, this dependence on digital
social interactions has only grown exponentially to an all-time high that shows no
signs of slowing down at any point in time. Notably, the vast majority of teenagers
(ages 13 to 17) in the U.S. use YouTube and TikTok every day, and many report
using these social media applications "almost constantly" (Anderson et al.,
2023). YouTube is the most dominant source for social media among U.S.
teenagers ages 13 to 17 with TikTok being the second most frequently used
platform, Instagram being the third most frequently used platform, and Snapchat
being the fourth most frequently used platform (Anderson et al., 2023). Nearly
