It can be used to raise awareness for an important cause, but it can also be used to spread hate, especially between young and adolescent. Being a teenager, I can definitely say that how social media runs teens life, but is it the right way? Austen McCann makes a brilliant point in his article, “Social media has allowed them to take their life online and instead of saying goodbye to friends at school and waiting to see them the next day…”Although social media can connect people to the world and friends and family around them and bring them closer even living far away from their love ones, in the other hand it is also one of the highest ranking causes of suicide amongst teenagers in the 21st century. As important as connection via the Internet can be, social media does not have to be the primary source for teenagers. In today’s world the use of social media has become must in work or school place due to which parents need to be alert of the forthcoming problems and acquire knowledge to use these sites in a healthy way. Pediatricians are focused on helping such families and victims to analyze the situation and identify threats like cyber bullying, sexing, facebook depression, and, compromise of their privacy.
The average teenager spends a minimum of 2 hours and 20 minutes on social media every day. In Austin McCann’s Impact of Social Media on Teens articles he brings up that “social media is becoming more than a part of their world, it’s becoming their world.” Teens complain about constantly being stressed with assignment, but maybe assignment isn’t the main source of the stress. Everyday Health magazine states that, on statistics, a teenager who spends more time outdoor is generally a happier and healthier kid. However, since 2000, the time teenagers spend outside has decreased significantly causing more depression and obesity.
Not only does it affect health, social media deprives parents from having a thorough conversation with their children without them checking their phone. Even though the positive effect of having a social media profile is to communicate with friends/family, they don’t even have the decency to lift their head and engage in a conversation. Enjoying the little things around them becomes a difficult task to the average teenager when they’re too busy tweeting about it and updating status on facebook. The contradicting effects of it goes to show that social media is not all it is talked up to be. That is the word that teenagers have no choice but to constantly follow. Social media encourages the false images of how everything should be in a perfect world. This impact is what causes the insecurities and questionings to girls and boys. These misleading pictures of how bodies, relationships, houses, cars, etc. should be are what lowers self-esteem and leads to depression and suicides.
Aside from connecting, social media revolves around who “retweeted” who’s “selfie” and “how many favorites did that pic get”. It’s almost sickening knowing that teenagers base their insecurities around how many likes they get. The false perception of life portrayed all over social media is misleading towards teens and not worth the effort to filter. Not only is social media misleading, today’s generation it is also very unimportant. Aside from the news part of the sites, majority of the posts are extremely insignificant and unimportant to our world. Another impact social media has had on teens is teens are being more comfortable online doing things.sexting is one of the perfect example of how comfortable teens are online.
Many teens today are not comfortable enough to engage in physical sexual activity in person with someone, but are more than comfortable to participate in sexual activity online. Social media apps like snap chat, liveme.com and many more make this too easy for teens to go online. Teens feels safe behind the screen or phone so they post their nude pictures and dirty stuffs. Or they will engage in sexual conversation through facebook messaging/ chat or texting. No matter what it is, sexting or bullying teens are feeling more comfortable doing stuffs because of all this different kinds of apps available and also because they are behind the screen.
So they feel safe thinking that no one will notice or recognize them by creating fake accounts, but they are not fully aware that if government really want then they are able to track them down. And it had happen in many places and lots of teenagers are been convicted of doing all this stuffs. Identity crisis is also one of the main issues because of social media. The section above makes it extrememly clear that teens today who are highly engaged in social media are having an identity crisis.
Not all of them are , but many teens are in someone else social media than they are with their family. Social media has made lot easier for teens to have an “double life”. Everyday I see students whoi tweet and posting things on facebook that totally contradict what their parents, or others that know them personally, think of them. Has social media ruined people life mostly teenagers ? yes I think so. However there are also some positive effects of social media lets not forget that too. Sociial media has and is changing the way life use to be. It is effecting who we are who we are, what we do, and how we interact. Avoiding social media can be very difficult in 21 century. It is very challenging task, but we can atleast minimize negative effects of social media in everydaylife. Encouraging friends and teens to spend less time on social media and more time on outdoor activites. And also by providing proper knowledge of negative effects of social media especially to teenagers.
