Social media, social skills and so much more – My Son Isaac
“Meeting new friends in new locations is not necessary. I interact with train enthusiasts on the internet. Every day I accomplish this mission. Thanks so much for the kind offer, I can’t tell you how much it means, but no thanks.”
Disputed Isaac, courteously but with conviction. Misreading a suggestion aimed at Tabitha – not him – about treading her toe in a drama group.
A brief hushed silence followed, like the dimming lights moment at a grand theatre (when Isaac’s anxiety levels raise, we allow chitter chatter to lower, so he can control the release valve on necessary thoughts).
“Not every human likes trains and that’s ok. I will speak on FaceTime to grandma for example but there are often technical issues. And PLEASE why did she mention my low voice on August the 16th at 3.03 – she should understand about hormones.”
Holding our tongues whilst Isaac’s holding court is a necessary strategy from time to time. Even like now, when he’d assumed, wrongly, our drama group idea was dangled at him; allowing him to run down big worries like this one where he’s imagining real-world socialising – that he’d recoil from – made a sort of sense.
And so he calmly concluded:
“I’ve finished my communication about not wishing to meet new people in noisy places. Now it’s joke time. What are a chocolate’s preferred pronouns? Her/she! Ha ha! It’s appropriate. Like a Hershey bar. And people are he/him or her/she. And they/them. Which is more than one person but I am finding this difficult to process. And my friend who is a “they” understands if I may make an error.”
Softened with a goodbye, “an embrace now, please”, this typical type of exchange then sees Isaac make a bouncy exit. Towards his more certain and sealed virtual space of an iPad or Xbox.
It must be noted that these dictatorial demands Isaac makes of sociability are about brief bouts of his free time. School, the dynamic, personalised and enriching space that I’ll never cease mentioning, is very much real world – where the most skilled people teach and tender to my autistic son like professors of the human condition applying all their knowledge and achieving abundant results.
(His new class, with a focus on nurturing whist laying down educational and career pathways, is yielding personal growth matched only by his physical acceleration. In this moment in time, with his needs and aspirations balanced in such a perfect way, he’s propelling. The pastoral and professional attributes of his progressive learning plan – that mixes curriculum regulars with life skills, cooking, and more – are world beating.)
Out of school though, when his positive stimulation from the real world may have reached optimum, he will regularly take to his room to deregulate digitally. From controlled meeting and greeting online, to Wikipedia-ing transport, music and the like. With much immersing, creating, and gaming as well.
Because the truth is, Isaac’s online presence is so often his social milieu of choice. One that does play a critical role compensating for the mayhem of spontaneous social gatherings and peer-to-peer banter.
Isaac’s a social animal, but his lodestar is to lead a conversation. Ready to land his thoughts and let the Isaac show begin. Scripted monologues are his preference – fascinating, endearing but exhausting for the receiver. Quite quickly, in unmoderated physical spaces, clutter and half finished sentences and sarcasm suffocate and send Isaac spinning a little.
An online space gives him more control and your-turn-my-turn chat. And can also aid his skills for two-way, on topic dialogue through live streams, messenger apps, YouTube and gaming (even round the house, I can communicate with him this way).
And my instincts and observations here are supported objectively. The American Journal of Speech and Language Pathology concluded that “videogaming is a popular leisure pursuit for adolescents with ASD.” And that “speech-language pathologists should consider how videogame play may be a useful context for teaching new communication, social, and language.”
However, one would expect that knowing Isaac is being loud and proud in social media’s nooks and crannies and being exposed to online content would throttle me with fear.
After all, pirouetting TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has serious poleaxe potential, with risky outcomes running amok. Especially for someone as honest and literal as Isaac. Someone who would conclude that streetwise means a Taxi driver’s knowledge of every street name in London (which he, of course, has; where there’s Isaac, there’s human Waze).
Every parent force feeds themselves a diet of chilling stories, experiences, what-ifs, what-nows and where-nexts about portals, platforms, the hyper-connected, tech-enabled ever-changing universe. Making sense of metaverses and digital detoxing are attempted by the middle-aged, whilst clumsily (at best) trying to observe it all through the “young person’s” prism. How to separate teen from screen is a clarion call across the land. And those headlines of criminality, abuse and the priority of safeguarding absolutely inform and instruct me and always will.
Yet, despite all this, my alarm-bells aren’t what they might be; they may not have a mute button, but I certainly experience a dulling for now.
Which is probably due to Isaac’s propensity to sit outside the norms of teenage conformity – like a contented grey swan breezing away from the white flock. A whopping symptom of this being his tell-all, share-all mentality. To us, his parents.
Backed up again by research – Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy, talk of truth-telling and above average objections against deception – this is by no means a judgement, or indeed, a showy-offy ode to how honest my son is. Isaac’s reportage way, flowing with repetition, recollection and regurgitation, comes with issues of editing, precising, knowing what to say and when; and has few shades. All weighty challenges that can hold him back – like struggling with palm-splitting, heavy shopping bags on a long walk.
But this resolutely truth-telling teen and rule keeper does enable something that a parent might yearn, specifically in this digital age:
Which is a totally transparent and comprehensive observation of online behaviours that arms us with pretty much total peace of mind for now. From a social media perspective I actually feel on a more solid and trustworthy terrain. And that’s before I even talk of how it’s helped his friendships, learning, connections and more.
From needing the “consent of my parents about YouTube friendships and repeating the lyrics of my favourite music artists” to “instructing all my followers to attend to copyright laws and avoiding all inappropriate comments at all times or I shall ignore and switch off” Isaac operates like a pedantic online prosecutor, stickling for due process and due diligence.
“I’ve just read a person say that The DJ Khaled is huge. I believed this to be body shaming and that’s not allowed. Though I now appreciate the comment was about his HUGE popularity. It was unintentional – my new favourite word. It helps me with change and when things happen that I don’t expect.”
This literal self-policing arrests many concerns.
What’s more, there’s the fact that – right now – those themes of needing-to-conform and fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) that are so amplified in the always-on and visually-led virtual world are alien to Isaac. His mind is unoccupied by these social currencies. Ones that can so often corrupt and conflict.
Innate in Isaac’s uniqueness is an inability to conform. What was once a behaviour I found hugely tricky, is now something I can view as rather fortunate.
And thanks to some recent deep moments of positive thought, I’ve realised that how Isaac started out in life gave us a head start that’s now reaping some unexpected dividends.
Because if there’s one residue from my wholesale reaction to Isaac’s diagnosis, it’s the constant easing off the pedal of the pressure to conform. This hostile real world may never properly be fit for (his) purpose. It hadn’t been as a three year old, it remains challenging as a teen.
A reason why, now, we’d actually never try to persuade him to join a drama or any kind of group (his assumption during that conversation I began this piece with, was that anything said in a room is aimed at him, emphasizing the difficulty of dissecting chat as opposed to your-turn-my turn, named digital messaging). Discoveries are his to make, and his alone. Online, when on point, enables this.
In those early years, my survival mechanism for this newfound need for a nonconformist reset manifested itself in specific ways, some of which have lessened but not vanished. For example, being used to casting envious eyes towards typically progressing and developing peers needed to be cast off. That was gruelling at a time when people of a different ‘ilk’ weren’t necessarily embraced or even accepted.
Similarly, like being handed a penny farthing for a high gradient and gravelly road, it was eyes ahead and move deliberately and diligently, day by day. Head in the sand over a head full of plans. By pulling shut the portholes on everyday hopes and dreams that might have been on the horizon, any voyage of discovery would be sealed watertight into a here-and-now mindset. It remains so.
But like being moved into an unknown neighbourhood, with odd customs, dialects and patterns, the diagnosis spelt an unexpected change and new crucial ownership of “difference”. Now it sits in my soul.
Admittedly, my daydreaming can tilt off course at times. When I imagine a straightforward and typical life with Isaac – where holidays and milestones and parties and a hullabaloo, improvised lifestyle is led. Then, losing my “difference” sentiment can be like keeping hold of an old pair of slippers that are more comforting than useful in an almighty gale and being locked in your muddy garden. But it swiftly comes back, with “difference” grounding me and being at the fore of my thinking about Isaac.
The actress, Sally Phillips, describes disability – whatever the flavour – as “changing one’s consciousness”. That’s it in a nutshell.
Whether deliberate, through a process of osmosis, or – most likely – part of his personality from day dot, this consciousness aligns with his non-compromising self. A self-fulfilling prophecy somehow, that by non-conforming and being wholly “him” Isaac has a ready sown thick skin to ward off the prodding, pricking and tearing traits of social media. His “difference” can be the first line of defence.
What’s more, safety aside, Isaac’s personality and passions thrive in the digital space in so many ways:
For example, up until not that long ago, food, with its blinding colours, biting textures, and never-the-same presentation, dominated Isaac’s anxiety and roughed up his routine and sensitivities, in the way it does for so many autistic people. The endeavours – over many months and years – of Eliza and educators have exposed him to multiple trials and much tastebud success. The internet subsequently has taken things up a notch.
Jamie Oliver’s channel, amongst many, is a favourite for Isaac. The For You Pages (FYPs) on TikTok – with algorithms based on interests over likes, feed him – literally. Boldly clear and mouthwatering ideas, quirky characters cooking up easy-to-digest dishes. The simplicity of eggs, protein, sushi and more unscramble in Isaac what was once a food fear thanks to the brilliant and ever-improving functions of slick editing, transitions and cuts, building texts and bite-sized information.
Isaac the foodie, who’d have thought. Proud to rustle up nosh, film it, talk about it, celebrate it and most importantly, eat vast amounts of “mostly healthy stuff with protein – though treats can be important too.”
The web is also, of course, a highly effective vehicle for Isaac’s train enthusiasm. His one thousand YouTube subscribers reinforce positively his films and vlogs, series and spotting adventures.
Isaac’s skillset multiplies in tandem with the tech developments taking place on all platforms. His content is ever more watchable and witty, with shifting voiceovers, snappily cut music (copyright kosher naturally), and rich with narratives and themes.
Importantly, socialising is very real with conversations on live streams, and a sense of confidence that even when a “rail freight driver based in the South of England has commenced an interesting discussion with me” I connect too, analyse exchanges, and feel secure.
To complete this virtuous circle of social media wholesomeness, Isaac has been spotted by fellow YouTubers at train events, the online world feeding the real; a foundation freeing up dialogue and friendships that would have been so much more forced and fearful for him if dropped in without factual beginnings.
And all in a cocoon of honesty that we see and scrutinise and feel sure of.
However.
Just as I settle into this pleasant rhythm of how Isaac mixes with people – safe in the perceived comfort blanket of non-conforming online communities – complexities arise. And the world isn’t so simple. As ever, stings in the tail of autism and, indeed, the typical world too.
One evening recently, Isaac burst out of his room and yelled:
“It’s over, a disaster, the end of the world, it’s tomorrow, what will we do??? Dad do something NOW!!”
In a high anxiety state, resembling a preacher at Oxford Circus blasting the tannoy with pseudo religious urgency, I had to talk him down. Panic attacks are part of him, fairly regular and in the main, mini fires we can put out.
But this, the announcement that the world was ending, fed by a trending doomsday online crackpot theory that all channels were awash with, had taken hold and was strangling him. A cousin helped calm him. Logic in the face of thousands of trending tosh was faltering. It was, an episode.
One that reminded me how wonky and wobbly the world is. That, whilst being sure social media is a fit for him, it can have a rotten flavour too. For whoever you are, autistic and non-autistic.
Indeed, to illustrate further, with this huge hiccup aside, how Isaac interacts online ill informs completely when considering his sister, Tabitha. Age 9, the similarities are miniscule. I’ll always talk about their beautiful complementary differences. But the approaches we need as parents are asymmetrical at best; any comparisons can muddy thinking or parental strategy, should there be such a thing.
Social media will not only be entering another epoch by the time our resilience to her demands wane, but what she will demand, and how it will affect her, will be so very opposite.
Whether sizing up Clare’s Accessories for Bucket Hats, eyeing up TikTok trends (I keep a close eye, we look together, it’s my account and have controls on but…) she can perform, watching YouTube kids whilst blinded by numbers of viewers and and likes and shop names (Target in the USA is her dream location). Just the sheer impressionability, The fear of social media stalks me.
The materialism it will foster. And the FOMO and desperation to conform. Its poisonous tentacles sapping out the goodness. Her love of clothes and brand names versus Isaac’s invisibility; soft and comfortable being the only sartorial demand.
And breathe.
Yet, to confound my confusion, there’s a typicality I can’t deny I don’t take to. Her real world loves, the desire for that drama group, the nuance-knower in social situations. Her ease and natural-ness at chitter-chatter. Her new love of “Doctor Martens”; showing me her “mood necklace”; how we can negotiate the terms on homework time.
As ever, my conclusions are wispy. Yes, social media and the online world is a vibrant, promising, healthy space for Isaac; no, it’s not concrete and safe, and can precipitate into something concerning. The unknown world it offers for Tabitha will as ever involve a world of unlearning – which I’ve spoken about before.
What I will conclude is that my two children change and morph and change again. They’re individuals who must straddle the physical and digital worlds in ways we can view and help and nurture in the moment. The world and the both of them shift always like tectonic plates in an earthquake sensitive region. Being aware and making foundations that hold firm is the best we can do.
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