Do Online Friendships Hurt Adolescent Development - Coursework Example

? Do online friendships hurt adolescent development? Do online friendships hurt adolescent development? Computers and internet have succeeded in creating a virtual world or an online world which is affecting most segments of human life at present. Personal, professional and social lives of people are now increasingly tied up in the virtual world. The entry of social media or social networks made things much easier to people in communicating effectively and instantly with people staying at different parts of the world. Earlier, people were able to make friends from his/her surrounding locality. Now it is easy for an American or European to make friendship with an Indian or a Chinese with the help of social media or online world. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube etc are some of the most popular social networking services which connect people from different parts of the world. Even though age is not a barrier in creating membership in social media, teenagers seem to be more interested in using social media for communicating and building friendship with others. “According to eMarketer, more than 17.7 million teenagers between 12 and 17 year old will be using social networking sites by 2011. Almost 93% of teenagers use the internet for social interaction” (Dr. Fioriello, 2011). Majority of the teenagers all over the world has a profile at least in one social network now. These statistics clearly show the increasing trends in online friendship. Adolescence is a period of rapid physical and mental developments and friends can play a vital role in the mental development of a teenager. Online world provide teenagers an opportunity to access the trends and habits in different parts of the world. In other words, the chances of cross cultural communication are more in virtual world than in the real world. The awareness about other cultures will definitely shape the behavior and personality development of a teenager. Some people believe that online friendship may hurt the adolescent development in many ways. On the other hand some others argue that online friendship enhances the adolescent development. This paper analyses whether online friendship hurt the adolescent development or not. Positive aspects of online friendship in adolescent development 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos, up from 33% in 2004. 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments, basically unchanged from 2004 (32%). 28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004. 27% maintain their own personal webpage, up from 22% in 2004. 26% remix content they find online into their own creations, up from 19% in 2004 (Lenhart et al, 2007, p.3). The above findings show that adolescent girls and boys use online world for creative purposes even though their activities could be different. Girls are more interested in content creation and sharing of photographs while boys give more emphasize to posting videos of different kinds. In both the cases, teenagers are expressing their creativity in one way or other. Because of the genetic peculiarities, the interests of girls and the interests of the boys are different which is evident from their approaches to online friendship and other activities. It should be noted that the creative works uploaded by the teenagers in social networks are always attracting comments from their online friends. In most of the cases, these comments would be positive and encouraging and therefore it will help the development of adolescents in a positive manner. The thirst for recognition is more among teenagers and when some of their online friends recognize or appreciate their creative work, they will get more energy to engage in more creative works. “According to a new body of research described by Los Angeles Times, teens who are most active on social networking sites such as Facebook are actually more well-adjusted than their less-connected peers” (Natashamurashev, 2010). Adjustment problems are one of the major issues in adolescent development. There are many cases in the past in which teenagers behave violently because of their inability to adjust with the pressure situations. For example, teasing or harassing is common among teenage community. Teenagers engage in such activities just for jokes and entertainment. However, in many cases, innocent talks and teasing activities may end up in violence and aggression because of the lack of adjustment problems among teenagers. Virtual world also provides the opportunity to engage in teasing, harassing etc; but the violent or agitated responders cannot engage in aggressive activities since the chances of physical encounter are not there in the virtual world. Such people knowingly or unknowingly forced to practice the habit of releasing their aggressive energy through words rather than any physical activities. Their aggressive behaviors may slowly decreases as they forced to practice the aggressive energy release through verbal or written channels of communication. Online communication with friends can thus help aggressive people to reduce their temper and make adjustments in their behavior in the real world also. “California State in Los Angeles psychology professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam found that teens characterize their online friendships into similar hierarchies of closeness as their real-life friendships” (Natashamurashev, 2010) “Social technology such as texting and Facebook is a tool for today’s teens to develop emotional bonds, their own identities, and an ability to communicate and work with others according to psychologists” (Natashamurashev, 2010). Teenage is a period in which rapid physical and emotional development take place. In fact, teenage is the most dangerous period in the life of a person because of the making or breaking of a person normally takes place at this stage. It is difficult for the teenagers to segregate between the rights and wrongs during their adolescent period. Online friends can help teenagers in unveiling the hidden faculties of their mind. For example, a teenager, who watches videos posted by his online friends, may try to do the same thing in order to get recognition. Same way, after reading short stories published by online friends, teenagers may try to develop their own stories. In short, online friends can motivate a teenager to open up his hidden abilities or potentials in doing creative works. “11-13% of Twitter users are teens, but they don’t really maintain active accounts. Instead they use it more as a source of information and news, rather than actively tweeting and using it from a social perspective” (Fisher, 2010). Facebook seems to be the most popular medium among teenagers whereas Twitter seems to be the popular social media among adults. This is because of the differences in the functioning of Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is more teen oriented whereas Twitter is more adult oriented. Serious matters are dealt or tweeted in Twitter. Even though, teenagers may not express much of their opinions and views through Twitter, they are very much interested in reading the opinions of others. In other words, they are getting expert views and opinions from Twitter which will help them to make their own opinions after analyzing the arguments in favor and against certain things twittered. Online friends help teenagers in taking sound decisions in their personal life. Teenagers who have accounts in social media may take the opinions of his online friends before taking a purchasing decision. For example, suppose a teenager wanted to purchase an advanced and most modern smartphone. Samsung Galaxy S2 and Apple iPhone are the current choices available in the market. Bothe these two phones have its own merits and demerits. So he will definitely ask the opinions of his online friends about these phones in order to know more about these phones and to take a purchasing decision. Not only in taking purchasing decisions, but also in taking decisions related to education, employment, dressing etc , teenagers seek the opinion of their online friends. According to Tynes (2010), “the educational and psychosocial benefits of online communication include, developing cognitive skills that are consistent with those required in educational settings and perspective-taking skills that are necessary for citizenship in an increasingly multiracial society” (Tynes, 2010). The current world is extremely globalized because of globalization and things happening at one corner of the earth can simultaneously affect other corners. Local knowledge alone may not be sufficient enough for the future generation and international or cross cultural knowledge is necessary for them to lead a successful life in this extremely competitive world. Online friends can provide vital information to the teenagers about the things happening outside his community or locality. International business is growing day by day because of globalization and people forced to work outside because of the new trends in business activities. A global outlook is necessary for the teenagers to succeed in their international endeavors in future. Online friends can help teenagers in getting international or cross cultural awareness which is necessary for the success in their future life. Another advantage of online friendship is the enhancement of cross cultural communication. In the real world, it is difficult to communicate with people from other countries or other cultures. On the other hand, it is easy to communicate with people from different parts of the world through virtual world communication. The knowledge about the culture, customs, traits, politics etc of other countries will help a teenager immensely in developing an integrated personality. “Several studies have shown that the characteristics of online communication may encourage intimate self-disclosure” (Valkenberg & Peter, 2007). Self-disclosure means the revealing of personal matters to others, knowingly or unknowingly. Self-disclosure is necessary for the teenagers for their mental development. Keeping something as a secret for a longer period is not possible for many people. Teenagers often look for intimate friends to reveal the secret things. For example, suppose a teenage boy established a love affair with a married woman. He may often keep his love as a secret in order to avoid the look for reliable friends to get advice for the proper management of such relationships. He may not trust his friends in his neighbourhood. On such occasions, he will try to disclose the secrets to his online friends in order to get proper advices from them. Online friendship will help introvert adolescents an opportunity to reveal their feelings and emotions. Extrovert adolescents will never shy away from revealing their feelings and emotions to others publicly. On the other hand, introvert personalities always look for some secret channels to reveal their secrets. Since anonymity is guaranteed in online friendships, introvert adolescents will show more interests in building online friendship which will help them immensely in their personality developments. So far we have discussed only one side of the issue. Now it is interesting to see how online friends can negatively affect the adolescent developments. Negative aspects of online friendship in adolescent development As mentioned earlier, virtual world provides opportunities to interact with people from different parts of the world. In other words, chances of cross cultural communication are more in the virtual world. The interactions with friends from other cultures will force a teenager to test the foreign culture in his domestic circuits. For example, dating is an acceptable teenage activity in American and European regions. However, such things are not suited or followed in Middle East culture. The interactions with an American or British friend will motivate a Middle East teenager to explore opportunities for dating in his mother country. Sexual energy is hyperactive during the teenage period because of the development of sex hormones at this stage. Sexual problems are mostly occurring during the teenage period. Many people have the illusion that sexual problems among teenagers are pathological in nature. “The reality is that sexual problems are quiet common and are usually due to non-pathological factors” (Slife, 2007, p.383). Unwanted pregnancies are occurring during teenage period because of the inability of the teenagers in ensuring safe sex activities. Online friends may often share their sex experiences to others in the virtual world. They may spread colourful stories about their sex experiences to the teenage community. A teenager, who never engaged in sexual activity, may get motivated by such stories and may practice unsafe sexual activities. Thus unwanted pregnancies may occur which will destroy the future of a teenager. Some teenagers may opt for abortion whereas some others may keep their pregnancy. In any case, the chances of facing psychological trauma because of teenage pregnancy in future cannot be neglected. In short, online friends can destroy a teenager by motivating him/her to engage in unsafe sex activities. Children of lesbian mothers were significantly more likely to have considered having a homosexual relationship and significantly more likely to have had actual involvement in a same sex relationship (Slife, 2007, p.179). In some cases, online friends may share the experience of their homosexual activities. In western countries same sex marriage is a common practice whereas in Asian countries such things are rare. An Asian teenager, who never heard about such things, may try to test such things in his real life because of the motivation provided by his online friend from a western country. Thus indigenous culture could be destroyed because of the intrusion of foreign culture. It should be noted that in many of the Asian countries, western culture is imitated because of the influence of the online world. A study conducted by Larry D Rosen, PhD (California State University) in June 2006, among teenagers who are using MySpace, yielded the following results; 7% to 9% were approached for a sexual liaison 20% feel that MySpace has negatively affected school, job, family, and friends More time spent on MySpace is related to slightly more depression, more Internet addiction, less family support, slightly lower self-esteem and more online friends Having more friends on MySpace is related to more Internet addiction Certainly there are people who approach teens with sexual propositions (Rosen, 2006, p1-6). Internet addiction is one of the major problems which can be developed among adolescents as a result of the search for online friends using social networking sites. Internet addiction forces teenagers to spend a substantial period of their leisure time in front of the computer, chatting with online friends. Such teenagers will lose their interest in any physical activities like sports and games. The lack of physical activity will cause obesity among teenagers. Obesity will lead towards lot of physical and mental problems among teenagers. Lack of self-esteem is one of the major mental problems facing by obese people including teenagers. Face to face meetings or direct social interactions are necessary for a teenager to develop his personality in a proper shape. An online friend can never substitute a friend in his society or school. Online friends can hide their identity and deceive people in many ways. On the other hand a friend in the immediate vicinity can never hide his identity. In other words, online friends can never provide the same trust and comfort provided by friend in the immediate neighbourhood. Nobody will reveal their exact personality and characteristics in the virtual world. Most of the people exaggerate things when they communicate through the virtual world. In short, trusting the words of online friends can cause problems in the life of a teenager. By using the Internet, people are substituting poorer quality social relationships for better relationships, that is, substituting weak ties for strong ones. Adherents of this displacement hypothesis assume that the Internet motivates adolescents to form online contacts with strangers rather than to maintain friendships with their offline peers. Because online contacts are seen as superficial weak-tie relationships that lack feelings of affection and commitment, the Internet is believed to reduce the quality of adolescents' existing friendships and, thereby, their well-being (Valkenberg & Peter, 2007) Online friends can never be considered as the substitutes for friends in the neighbourhood of a teenager. Online friends have lot of limitations in providing the necessary things needed for a teenager from a true friendship. A teenager needs both emotional and physical support for his physical and mental development. Online friends can help a teenager through words whereas a friend in the immediate neighbourhood can help him not only with words but also with actions. In other words, online friends can provide only the emotional support whereas the friends in the neighbourhood can provide emotional as well as physical support to the teenagers. It is often said that a friend in need is a friend indeed. In other words, a true friend will always be able to help a teenager when he/she is need of something. Online friendship may become an addiction for teenagers and they will forget to spend enough times with other friends. It is difficult to build healthy social relationships through online friendships as in the case of other friendships. The commitment, affection, feeling and emotional support which provide by other friends cannot be offered by the online friends. In short, online friendship may destroy the meaning of real friendship. Virtual world friendship provides only imaginary things whereas other friends may provide real things needed for the development of adolescent. Conclusions Online friends affect development of adolescent both positively and negatively. They can provide vital information about the international community to the teenagers which are necessary for the teenagers in their future life. The awareness about what is happening in the external world can help the teenagers in developing a global outlook which is necessary for leading a successful life in this extremely globalized world. Online friends can help teenagers in taking sound decisions with respect to education, employment, purchasing etc. Personality development is another area in which online friends can help teenagers. Moreover, online friendship help will help the teenagers in developing well-adjusted behaviours while facing real life problems. More emotional control will be obtained to the teenagers through their online friendship. Along with advantages, online friendship has disadvantages also. Online friends can motivate teenagers to engage in sexual activities or dating activities which are against the norms and customs of his/her domestic culture. Same sex marriages, unsafe sex, abortion or unwanted pregnancies etc are some of the problems which can be generated among teenagers as a result of online friendship. Anonymity is the major problem associated with online friendships and therefore such friendship can be misused in many ways. Moreover online friendship may create internet addiction which may affect the physical and mental health of the teenager in many ways. To conclude, controlled online friendship or judicious management of online friendship will bring more benefits than problems to a teenager whereas uncontrolled or injudicious online friendships may hurt the development of adolescent. References Dr. Fioriello P. (2011). Why Teenagers Love Social Media. Retrieved from http://kidslearntoblog.com/why-teenagers-love-social-media/ Fisher L (2010). How do teens use social media? Retrieved from http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/teens-use-social-media/ Lenhart A, Madden M, Smith A & Mcgill A (2007). Teens and Social Media. Pew Internet and American Life Project Report. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2007/PIP_Teens_Social_Media_Final.pdf.pdf Natashamurashev (2010). Why Social Media Is Actually Good For Teens. Retrieved from http://socialtimes.com/why-social-media-is-actually-good-for-teens_b13239 Rosen LD (2006). Adolescents in MySpace: Identity Formation, Friendship and Sexual Predators. Retrieved from http://www.csudh.edu/psych/adolescents%20in%20myspace%20-%20executive%20summary.pdf Slife B (2007). Taking sides: Clashing Views on Psychological Issues. McGraw-Hill, 2007 Tynes BM (2010). Internet Safety Gone Wild?. Retrieved from http://jar.sagepub.com/content/22/6/575.abstract Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2007). Online communication and adolescent well-being: Testing the stimulation versus the displacement hypothesis. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 2. Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/valkenburg.html Outline Tile page formatted in APA is provided in the first page of the paper. Second page begins with the introduction of the topic under discussion; do online friendships hurt adolescent development?. General ideas about the influence of computers and internet on present human life and the influence of social media in building online friendship were introduced in the introduced in the second page. The importance and features of adolescent development are also provided in the introduction page. The body of the paper starts from the third page onwards with a heading of “Positive aspects of online friendship in adolescent development”. Under this heading, positive aspects of online friendship in adolescent development such as; building of creativity, proper adjustments in life, reduction of violence, development of emotional bonds, sound decision making, development of cognitive skills, enhancement of cross cultural communication, sharing of knowledge, opportunity for self-disclosure, personality development of introverts etc were mentioned. From page number seven onwards, negative aspects of online friendship in adolescent development have been discussed. Intrusion of foreign culture, spreading of unhealthy sex habits, spreading of homosexuality, internet addiction, weaker social relationships, lack of physical support, problems in personality developments etc were cited as the major drawbacks of online friendship. The findings of this research were concluded in page number eleven. References used for writing this paper were cited in page number 12 in APA format. Read More