I was overseas when the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted into a brutal October wave. Each morning, away from my community in Seattle, I awoke hours before my family to scroll through an avalanche of social media. Post after post of opinions, rage, graphic images, and downright horror. Information was moving torrentially and shared with similar speed, third-party posters having no time to look into the validity, sources, or evidence of what they were sharing. Major news outlets were moving too fast and making huge errors in the process, and journalists covering disinformation, such as Shayan Sardarizadeh for the BBC, have since been doing the rounds on viral posts containing false claims, conspiracy theories, and hateful content about the war.

As the academic year kicks off, parents and guardians across Seattle fill out last-minute paperwork, pack backpacks and lunch sacks, and remind countless children to set out their clothes the night before. While adults nudge children and teenagers to grab a sweater on their way out the door, many can forget to actively check in and stay engaged with their kids’ mental health.

“Adults often have trouble understanding what students are going through,” said Natalya McConnell, executive board director of the Seattle Student Union and senior at Franklin High School. “We have never had such a widespread pandemic, and this has isolated a lot of students,” she continued, adding that many students are still in a state of crisis. That the past three years have been difficult for students to navigate is largely understood; Seattle recently approved a $4.5 million investment in the Student Mental Health Supports pilot.

For the first 3 years of my son's life, I lived in a rural area where community was hard to come by. Like many, I sought out connection with other new moms and parents online, from mom groups to focused mom pages that featured writer moms, artist moms ,and moms who work. Mothers filled pages across screens with acronyms I did not know yet: AI, BD, NIP—all the letters that made me thankful Google existed. They shared stories, they shared problems, and, at times, openly shared judgment.

In my early years of being a first-time parent and a new mom, I realized something else was happening to my mental health and stress levels from certain online spaces. I was seeing and comparing myself, my child, our experience and our lives to other people. I had found myself in toxic online spaces.