Celebrity
Jennifer Garner Jennifer Garner Said Her And Ben Affleck’s Kids Will Have To Provide “Scientific Evidence” That
Social Media Is “Good For Teenagers” Before They’ll Be Allowed To Have Their Own Accounts Jennifer and Ben are notoriously private when it comes to their children, and she has previously expressed concerns about the prospect of their kids being online. By by Ellen Durney BuzzFeed News Staff Posted 17 hours ago
Twitter Facebook Link Jennifer Garner just shared her super strict approach to social media when it comes to her kids.
NBC / Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images In case you didn’t know, Jennifer shares three children with Ben Affleck, whom she was married to for 10 years between 2005 and 2015. Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images The couple are parents to daughters Violet, 17, and Seraphina, 14, as well as an 11-year-old son, Samuel. Albert L. Ortega / Getty Images As far as celebrity kids go, we don’t know all that much about the Affleck-Garner trio, and it sounds like Jennifer and Ben definitely prefer it that way. Bauer-griffin / GC Images During an interview with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager on Tuesday’s episode of Today , Jennifer opened up about putting precautions in place to protect her kids’ well-being and privacy. Namely, they're not allowed to have social media. Nbc / Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images Talking more generally about raising teenagers, Jen gushed about her kids and described them as “pretty great,” which prompted the hosts to ask about how she’s managed to distance them from social media. Nathan Howard / Getty Images “How do you do it without them hating you?” Hoda asked. Nbc / Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images Jennifer explained that she challenged her kids to prove to her that having social media would be beneficial to their well-being. Michael Tran / FilmMagic “I just said to my kids, ‘Show me the articles that prove that social media is good for teenagers, and then we'll have the conversation,’” she said. “Find scientific evidence that matches what I have that says that it’s not good for teenagers, then we’ll chat.” Nbc / Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images When asked how her kids feel about this policy, Jennifer revealed that it’s so good so far. Mike Coppola / Getty Images “My eldest is grateful,” she said of Violet, admitting that things are subject to change. “We'll see. I mean, it's a long haul. I have a couple more to go, so just knock on wood. We’ll see if I really hang in there.” Nbc / Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images This isn’t the first time that Jennifer has expressed apprehension about the negative effects of social media on kids. During an interview with Katie Couric in 2019, she said social media was a “huge problem” at Violet’s school. Gotham / GC Images “Without even having parents who are well known, I worry about all kids having to deal with this new pressure,” she said at the time. Dave M. Benett / Getty Images The 13 Going on 30 star explained that a then-14-year-old Violet was interested in the idea of creating an
Instagram account, admitting that she could see the appeal because “it’s something kind of fun that I do.” View this photo on Instagram Instagram: @jennifer.garner “I just say, ‘When you can show me studies that say that teenage girls are happier using Instagram than not, then we can have the conversation,’” she said at the time, echoing the same stance she holds today. “‘But everything you look at, I don’t see anything positive for you out there.’” Amy Sussman / Getty Images for Baby2Baby For his part, Ben seems to have a similar attitude toward his kids’ online presence, or lack thereof. Rodin Eckenroth / FilmMagic Speaking with the LA Times last year, the
Actor admitted he didn’t pay much attention to the public’s perception of him until he realized that his kids were getting old enough to see the comments for themselves. Pierre Suu / GC Images “I got to a place where [the public perception] was so different from who I am that I just stopped reading and stopped caring,” he said. “But then, as my kids got older and started seeing the internet themselves, that’s the difficult part.” Allen Berezovsky / Getty Images Ben went on to explain that the idea of his kids consuming content online totally changed the way he feels about the many memes he’s inspired over the years. Kevin Mazur / Getty Images “Even the ‘ Sad Affleck ’ meme — that was funny to me. I mean, there's nobody who hasn't felt that way at a junket. But then my kids see it and I think, ‘Oh, are they going to think their dad is fundamentally sad or they have to worry about me?’ That's really tough,” he said at the time. Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images More on this Jennifer Garner Said She Works “Hard” To Avoid Stories About
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