Ask Laura: Students are 'gassing' each other up

Ask Laura: In this series, Laura Tierney, Founder and CEO of The Social Institute and Triangle mom, answers your questions about social media and kids.

Question: My teen wants to download the new Gas app. She says all her friends are on it, and she keeps getting invites to join the platform. What are the pros and cons?

Answer: Great question, and it’s one I’m starting to hear a lot. For parents who haven’t heard of the Gas app, get ready. It has surpassed TikTok, Instagram, and BeReal to land in the number one spot of Apple’s App Store rankings after just being released in August. So what is Gas, and should you allow your teen to use it?

The app is named after the popular phrase “to gas someone up” which Gen-Zers use to mean “give someone a compliment.” On Gas, users can sync up their location and contacts, and send anonymous compliments to friends and classmates through polls. Each poll has a different compliment, and if you win a poll, a “flame” gets sent to your inbox.

Anonymous social media apps often get a bad reputation when it comes to students’ well-being. Apps like Yik Yak and Ask.fm have been connected to several cyberbullying controversies. Gas, however, is intentionally designed to reduce the possibility of cyberbullying by creating a space where students can feel better about themselves and see that there are people who love and admire them.

I work with students here in the Triangle and across the country, and they tell me they love the positivity behind this platform, with one 9th grader telling me “It’s not toxic; it’s actually uplifting.” Some have even reached out to the creators to let them know how the app has helped their well-being and self-esteem, with one student on Twitter writing, “i’ve [sic] felt left out a lot and this has shown me that a lot of people in my grade still think of me.”

What makes this app different from other anonymous social media apps is that it is designed to eliminate the chance of anonymous cyberbullying. Users can only vote on the pre-written compliments and cannot direct message one another.

So what’s my take on Gas?

With students spending more and more time on social media and technology, my team and I are loving how Gas is empowering students to support each other online and connect with friends in positive ways. In addition to connecting to friends and family, technology can help students build a variety of skills, create amazing change, spread information about important causes to inspire others and hear from role models about how to be our best selves. As I mentioned earlier, parents should know that Gas users are prompted to add contacts from their phones and see each other's locations.

You can empower your teens to use social media in ways that positively impact them and those around them by encouraging them to do the following — and by role-modeling these actions yourself:

• Treat others with respect on (and off) social media
• Follow the platforms and people who make you feel happy and inspired
• Strike a healthy balance between time with screens and no screens

Though the drawbacks of social media should not be overlooked, when used in positive ways, it can fuel student health, happiness, and success. Gas provides an uplifting space for students to turn to when they are in need of a positive connection with their friends.

Laura Tierney is the Founder and CEO of The Social Institute, which partners with schools to empower students to navigate their social world -- social media and technology — to fuel their health, happiness, and future success. To stay ahead of the latest apps, games, and devices and learn about trending news impacting students, subscribe to The Weekly Huddle. To learn more about the Gas App, contact us to learn how you can gain access to our Platform Playbooks which provide detailed summaries of how students are using the latest and most popular apps.