Social media and risks for teenagers - Essay Example

Besides, contact with improper content has led to the potential influence on a person’s behaviors, cases of harassment and bullying (CWG, 2010). Therefore, this paper focuses on exploring issues regarding risks such as exposure to and creation of inappropriate content, sexual predation, and compromised privacy that are associated with the use of social media by teenagers. Risk arising from Exposure to and Creation of Inappropriate Content There is a risk associated with potential exposure to and creation improper content through social media, which has led to a negative impact on teenager’ behaviors.

For instance, O'Toole (2011) contends that, on a daily basis, seventy percent of teenagers between ages twelve and seventeen spend a period of one minute to hour on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and others; in fact, these findings were obtained from a report published by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA). As a result, this duration of time spent by teenagers at such sites increases the likelihood of using substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana due to exposure (O'Toole, 2011).

According to O'Toole (2011), these results are attributed to the argument that teenagers who spend time in social networking sites are likely to see pictures of other teenagers using drugs and other substances. For instance, the report by (CASA) indicated that 14% of teenagers who spend time in social networking sites on a daily basis have seen these pictures and are likely to change their behaviors and try using substances such as marijuana, alcohol, and drugs in the future (O'Toole, 2011). Risk arising from Sexual predation Campbell (2013) explains that cases of rape have gained dominance and power as a result of power provided by social media which, in turn, leads to sexual predation of the victims.

For instance, there have been cases of gang rape taking a new meaning in a situation when picture and images are posted and shared through social media. In this case, cases of teenagers’ sexual assault which have gone more viral compared to cases of adult rape due to the culture that has been established whereby students know everything about each other. Apparently, through social media and ubiquity of mobile phones that have cameras and connection to the internet, it supports behaviors of gossiping and character assassination, which causes despair of the victims; thus, this poses a significant risk to teenagers (Campbell, 2013).

Therefore, teenagers who have fallen victims of cases on sexual abuse through social media suffer a private agony which becomes a public humiliation when images concerning the incidence are broadcasted through social media (Campbell, 2013). Sufficient evidence has been gathered regarding the pervasive risk associated with crimes of rape associated with social media; in fact, this has led to a culture where victims are blamed for assault, and they are made to feel shameful to the extent that they are afraid of reporting these cases to police (Campbell, 2013).

Risk arising from Compromised Privacy Use of social media has led to a risk of compromising users’ privacy, whereby there are teenagers who are victimized by cases of private or embarrassing information being posted in these sites (De Souza & Dick, 2009). In fact, this has led to difficulties in establishing a balance between educating teenagers about potential legal