Social Media has a Negative Impact on Teenagers - Case Study Example

Social Media has a Negative Impact on Teenagers Teenagers of modern day have been considered more connected more than any other cohort worldwide. This has been possible through advances in social media. Over the past 9 years, the use of social media by teenagers has dramatically increased thus its impacts a matter of concern. Social media can be referred to as websites and applications that allow users to develop and share content and participate in social networking (Healey, 2011). Social media is a vast form of communication that has today permeated the teenagers to nearly all aspect of modern culture. Teenagers continuously are exposed to all kinds of social media outlets, from Facebook, Tweeter and MySpace, Instagram among others. However, teenagers tend to devote a large amount of time to social media, and this has been a negative impact. In the US. for instance, it is estimated that 8 to 18 years old devote more than 10 and half hours using social media. Many teenagers are exposed to so various dangers online from addiction to cyber bullying and from the false sense of connection to declining social skills. For a fact, social media has been spreading like a fire, and this sensation triggers major impacts because teenagers can access it anytime. This paper examines some of these negative impacts of social media to teenagers (Healey, 2011). Social media is addictive to teenagers The engagement in anything or use at an extreme can result to negative impacts such as addiction, and social media is an example of such an entity. An addiction comes from overuse of social media, and that has been a worrying trend. Compared to adults whose brains are fully developed teenagers brains are not and as such social media is today affecting teenagers more prominently (Webster, 2010). Likewise, teenagers are still having the ability to constantly developing brain, and the high use of social networks is wiring their brains accordingly. Many have been addicted more, and social media has been considered as their “god” (Webster, 2010). According to “Over All Media Use,” "…12- to 14-year-old and 14- to 18-year-old individuals exposed to the most social media: up to entirely 10 hours in a given day". From these facts, it can be evident that teenagers who should otherwise be spending more time learning new concept in schools or concentrating fully on their studies are leaning more towards these social network sites such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. This disturbance is resulting in poor scores and performance in many institutions of learning. In the article titled “Over All Media Use,” "students who are heavy social media users have the highest probability to report obtaining fair if not poor grades (normally Cs or lower) than other students". This portrays the negative impacts of social media on contemporary teenagers (Healey, 2011). These young teenagers lack good grades and concentration they require in order to attain good grades at school due to the fact that most of their time is spent on social networks websites while procrastinating on individual school work. Today, teenagers find their homework less exciting due to other “joyful” contents that they can explore on social media. Various studies have proved that teenagers prefer using computers for entertainment like as social media, but not studying which hurts school performances. Furthermore, the same students spend more time on social media such that even the time for sleep is limited, and this are worrying impacts health wise (Webster, 2010). Declining social skills Like many things, social networking could be beneficial in moderation. Unfortunately, moderation and social networking do not coincide in contemporary society. Social media has in a recent past negatively impacted on the social skills of its networkers. There is how the society established traditionally to be more socially bonded through interaction and provision of companion. For instance, older generations of networkers studied how to interact and communicate long before social networking was even a thought (Los Angeles Times, 2011). However, much of the teenagers or the younger generations rarely interact socially apart from when in school and work, places where social interaction is effectively monitored and minimal. These social networks provides a teenagers the ability to quickly and easily share detailed information about upcoming events that will be attending, various quotes that inspire, a given irritating experiences, even personal pictures of a typical life experiences that occurs throughout their day. Social media has created a worrying breach in the ability of a young generation to communicate and interact with one other (Webster, 2010). Many teenagers today prefer being glued to various sites instead of the traditional social interaction. Moreover, children no longer play together like people back in the days did; they network. Adults rarely seek physical companionship; in its place, many choose to network and have limited or no physical contact. Social media causes a false sense of connection Social media sites always make it more difficult for teenagers to separate between the meaningful relationships they create in the real world, and the numerous casual relationships formed through these social media. Through social media networks such as Facebook, Tweeter teenagers are able to create many mingle relationships. These relationships are many times with individuals they hardly know (O’Keefee & Pearson, 2011). They focusing so much of their psychic energy and time on these meaningless relationships, the most important relationship, they fear, will weaken. This is in a way negatively impacting on them and causes a false sense of connection. Cyber-bullying Social networking is never safe as it does not protect teenagers as they are used and abused through cyber bullying, imposter profiles, and sexual harassment. The immediacy provided by social networks is accessible to predators and the same time friends. Teenagers particularly are vulnerable to these practices of cyber-bullying where the perpetrators, anonymously and even posing as individuals their victims trust, terrorize people in front of their peers. Cyber bullying is bullying that occurs using electronic technology. Instances of cyber bullying are such as mean emails or text messages, rumors that are sent by electronic email or posted on social network sites, and embarrassing photos, videos or fake profiles(Webster, 2010). The problem arises because social networks do not screen any of the users and lack ways of knowing what kinds of group of individuals are using the social network. Thus, Social media offer a hunting ground of kinds of cyber predators seeking out naïve networkers. Cyber bullies in many occasions also use social media as a convenient way to blast their prey. Worst negative impact has been when some teenage get affected by this occurrence and end up killing one other and committing suicide. "43%of teenagers have been victims of social media" (Harris Interactive Cyber bullying Research Report, 2009) and surprisingly "almost 80 % of teens indicated that they either did not have parental guide or rules for Internet use or some amongst them found ways around the rules"(Harris Interactive Cyber bullying Research Report, 2009). This clearly shows how the incidents are impacting on young teenagers as many parents rarely care what their youngsters do when they are alone. Moreover, devastation of these social media attacks leaves deep mental scars. Furthermore, the anonymity afforded online brings out dark impulses that could otherwise be suppressed(Webster, 2010). Cyber-bullying has spread like bush fire widely among teens, according to a 2010 CBS News report 42% of teenagers reporting that they have been victims. False representation of people Posts on social media many times portray an idealized version of the reality, what something looks like, or details of how things are going. This leads users of social media to compare themselves constantly to others or think less of their individual lives. Assuming things are going well for individuals in teen’s newsfeed and they are having a rough day, of course this may likely negatively affect their mood (Madden et al., 2013). Moreover, in 2012 a group of researchers in the UK surveyed social media users, 53% of whom stated that social networking had changed their behavior; 51% indicated that it was negative behavior due to decline in confidence from the fact that they compare themselves with other. These are obviously a great concern for just today but the impact that this may bring to our population in the future (Atwood & Gallo, 2011). Conclusion Social media plays a critical role in contemporary society. It has for years now provided the teens with the information they require and as such impacted on their lives. Moreover, teenagers can access it anywhere and anytime. The use of social media has likewise increased because of uncountable means provided to teenagers. Social media has some advantages to it; however it is not a good idea to risk the lives of our future youth. The demerits of social media lead to major problems, which in totality dominate the benefits. Finally, the contents of social networks have become an obsession and create distractions between teenagers and their education. References Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Atwood, J. D., & Gallo, C. (2011). The effects of the internet on social relationships: Therapeutic considerations. Bloomington, IN: Iuniverse Inc. Healey, J. (2011). Social impacts of digital media. Thirroul, N.S.W: Spinney Press. Los Angles Times. (2011). ‘Too much Facebook time may be unhealthy for kids’, 6 August, p. 1,via Madden, M, Lenhart, A, Cortesi, S, Gasser, U, Duggan, M, Smith, A, & Beaton, M (2013).Teens, social media and privacy. Retrieved from O’Keefee, G & Pearson, K .(2011). ‘The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families’ Journal of PEDIATRICS, vol. 127, no. 4, pp. 800-804. Webster, R . (2010). ‘Cyber Bullying Statics’. 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