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The Effects of Social Media on YOUTH
What are the effects of social media on young people
The Effects of Social Media on YOUTH
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There is no secret that a modern day teenager’s life is built around the usage of technology. As a result of society’s heavy reliance on technology, social media has become popular amongst people who are “technologically advanced.” Though there is a wide variety of social sites that can be accessed through modern day technology, a few have become very popular. Social sites which have become widely popular among teens include Instagram, Tumblr, and Snapchat. These social networking sites provide instant social connection and emotional support while letting teens post and send pictures of their everyday life. Many teens look towards social media for emotional support and social acceptance. The continual usage of these sites are negatively impacting the self- esteem of teenagers worldwide since they heavily rely on social medias to portray images of what they believe is acceptable for the society we live in. According to K. Nola Mokeyane, a professional writer who wants to pursue graduate studies in social work, “It's no secret that media has had an increasingly negative impact on the way teenage girls measure their personal image and beauty standards”. Social media such as Instagram, are mainly based on pictures of oneself and others. According to Joan Stern, an ABC news technology editor, there are about 150 million users on Instagram, this social app that is mainly based on followers, comments and likes on a picture. Instagram allows people to share their every moment through pictures and small captions, its like an ongoing documentary of ones life. This social app allows one to share and manipulate their photo through ‘filters’. This would give the impression that each and every user on instagram is judged based on their pictu... ... middle of paper ... ...al pictures. With the proper usage of Social Media one can successfully network with other and build up their reputation for future opportunities. When using social media one should be held to certain responsibilities and now the proper usage. Works Cited Edgington, Shawn Marie. The Parent's Guide to Texting, Facebook, and Social Media: Understanding the Benefits and Dangers of Parenting in a Digital World. Dallas, TX: Brown Pub., 2011. 6. Print. Mokeyane, K. Nola. "Media's Positive & Negative Influence on Teenagers." Everyday Life. Globalpost, Web. 21 Jan. 2010. Stern, Joanna. "Teens Are Leaving Facebook And This Is Where They Are Going." ABC News. ABC News Network, Web. 20 Jan. 2014. Victoria, Woollaston. "Selfies Are 'damaging' and Leave Young People Vulnerable to Abuse, Claims Psychologist." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
Meaghan Ramsey believes in business growth that stems from real social change. She has origins in nutritional science and has worked across FMCG and multiple organizations dealing with media, charities, and pharmaceuticals. Ramsey was also the Global Director of the Dove Self-Esteem Project at Unilever in London. Her TED Talk, “Why Thinking You’re Ugly Is Bad For You” occurred in September of 2014 at TED@Unilever in London. The audience that Ramsey is trying to target is the parents of young men and women who are struggling or may begin to struggle with body image/low self-esteem. She speaks to the parents directly about what can be done to minimize the use of the internet and social media at such a young age. Ramsey’s talk is affected by the audience in the sense that she uses
I believe the younger generation lets selfies and other forms of social media affect them by creating dishonest performance from who they truly are. The ones who are not affected by this and seem to present their true identities in most cases is the older generation. Social media has become an everyday thing for teenagers. They are constantly on the lookout for what new trends are going on and what they can do to get in on this trend. For example, in my past experiences I have seen friends as well as other people from school that see something popular on social media such as clothes and buy them to just try and fit in on this trend. They would post selfies with their outfit of the popular clothes to fit in and get the recognition of others, but when all this seemed to not be so popular anymore and people would jump on something new they would not wear it anymore and try to sell it. This comes to show that teenagers focus so much on social media that they distance themselves from their true image to try and fit in with what’s
Additionally, Instagram is also a contributing factor because in a journal article by Maria Lally (2015) focuses on the influence of Instagram selfies. Lally describes Instagram as “a way of life. They want to document everything and want to look perfect while doing so (Lally 2015).” She suggests that a lot of these public figures on Instagram makes their life including their appearance look presentable so they can get a high following mass and numerous of likes on their photo. It sets a standard that an individual must look a certain way in order to obtain all that and if they cannot, others will not notice them. It affects some in a negative way leading them to feel low self esteem and want to lean towards cosmetic surgery to enhance their
The 21st century has been marked by the rise of social media and Internet use. Social media and its impact have been coming to the forefront of academic discussion and studies in many different contexts. One of the standout discussions is that of social media and its impact on civic involvement and voice. As will be demonstrated in the forthcoming literature review, academics agree that among the majority of users, social media has a tendency to increase civic engagement. The discussion however does not examine the question of gender and how the frequency of use of social media affects the amount of civic organizations women are engaged in. Women have historically been at the lower end of all kinds of civic engagement, especially
By viewing new communicative technologies from primarily dystopian technologically deterministic angles, you ultimately ignore the ways that they are actually being used by youth today. danah boyd suggests through her research that teens today are using social media to form their own publics, using sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, they are creating private spaces within public platforms to express themselves and continue their friendships beyond physical attachments as well as without the intrusive presence of adults. Alice Marwick offers another understanding of youth’s online activities that differ from boyd’s. Instead of social media being used exclusively as a private space for teens and their friends, Marwick discusses how social media allow average people to reach the broad audiences once available only to those with access to broadcast media (157). Kids these days, have found ways to manipulate and adapt the intentions behind these social networking sites to bend to their own wills.
Social media and its effects continue to expand as technology becomes more advanced. One of its drastic effects is the way in which using mobile applications such as Instagram can have a damaging influence on people, especially on young adolescents. Instagram is a mobile social networking site and mobile application that allows users to edit and share photos as well as videos. Instagram is mostly used by teens and young adolescents with more than half of Instagram’s base ranging from 18 to 29 years of age (Instagram & TechCrunch, n.d.). Interestingly enough, as of September 2017, the site has reached 800 million monthly active users. Plus, with over 40 billion photos shared ever since its creation in 2010 and over four billion photos being
Ninety percent of American young adults (ages 18 to 29) use social media (Pew Research Center, 2015). According to Pew Research Center (2015), women are more likely to use social media than men. It is important, then, to consider the impact of young females’ presence on social media networks such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and how these platforms influence decision making processes.
Consequently, this means more adolescents have access to technology and its applications. Teenagers are obsessed with social media to a point where, “talking about oneself [...] activates a pleasure sensation in the brain usually associated with food, money and sex” (Sinek). The need to be validated causes feelings of entitlement to rise within teenagers because they believe that they deserve the praise. Teenagers believe they are entitled to the likes and retweets that they forget that the social media relationships are meaningless. They are constantly on their phones, checking social media for the acceptance of strangers while ignoring the people that they are with.
Social media create an environment where one is constantly worrying if they are saying or doing the right thing, or even if they are representing themselves in the right way. Sherry Turkle interviewed adolescents regarding building of online profiles. One girl Mona, says that she “worries that she does not have enough of a social life to make herself sound interesting…” Another girl says “I really want to only have my cool friends listed…” Due to this constant worry, “the years of identity construction are recast in terms of profile production” (Turkle).
Every day, millions of people are judged based on body type, followers, likes, and comments. Social media has imprisoned the hearts of young adults. Adolescents are held captive in a virtual prison, chained to the idea of presenting a false utopia. Instead of presenting this falsely idyllic life, young people should band together to remove social media from day-to-day life. Social media has increased suicides and depression among teens, it has decreased self-worth among teens, and it has promoted over-sexualization among teens.
The increase in social media is creating more pressure for girls to be physically attractive and perceived as perfect, resulting in feelings of insecurity for girls. Multiple studies show that a higher percentage of females use social media and are also more dependent on it than men. According to Dr. Holmes a San Francisco based psychologist, women outdo men when it comes to digital participation in social media. Since women are the majority of social media users, assuming that women suffer feelings of insecurity from the content on social media should not sound like a far stretch. Let’s discuss what kind of social media content is pressuring girls, why, and how women are dealing with their feelings of insecurity.
No matter how great their selfie is they may be measuring their worth on how many “likes” or “comments” the selfie gets. Social Media is a virtual world where you can transform your image the best way possible with filters. This turns the selfie into an addition and a determiner of teenagers’ beauty, worth, popularity and validity. If a selfie doesn’t get a lot of likes or receives a negative comment they may assume they are ugly, stupid, worthless, not good enough or feel people don’t like them”( PhD Campbell ). In fact, “ 35% are worried about people tagging them in unattractive photos, 27% feel stressed about how they look in posted photos, and 22% felt bad about themselves if their photos were ignored” (Knorr 1).
As the time passes, social media has held on today’s youth, and not in ways the world would have hoped for. Teens are being revealed to picture perfect images all over their timeline, leaving the question if they will ever look like those people online. Seeing picture perfect bodies and faces lowers all self esteem they have. Staring at an image of something so unrealistic damages one, it leads to things such as self harm, eating disorder, and huge drop in self esteem. As social media grows so does the issues associated with it.
In the twenty -first century, teenagers live in a life of social networking and life’s online. It’s hard to believe how much the world has changed over the decades, especially in technology. Technology helps people to contact relatives and friends from long distance more easily and conveniently. People can now talk to each other from everywhere in the world simply through chat and video calls. By time, internet connections have spread throughout households and social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram has increased gradually. However, the internet and several modern technologies have wasted many times and has hurt the society. Social media plays such a big role in people’s lives that some people couldn’t even imagine
As social networking increases in popularity, more and more people join these websites. Ian Daly states, “Sure, it’s difficult to resist the allure of a site that everyone with Internet access seems to have embraced with open arms” (Daly 481). People, especially teenagers, quickly go to social networking websites because it is the cool thing to do. Teens often run to these websites to fulfill their desperate need to fit in, because no one wants to be labeled a loser. Many teens feel the need to amass hundreds of friends and follows on Facebook and Twitter to assert their popularity. From the most popular kids in school to the least popular, most teenagers engage in social media to connect with each other outside of school. Adolescents who are connected to social networking websites often ridicule those who are not. For example, teenagers who are not on Facebook or Twitter are commonly treated as social outcasts. Social networking has also made gossiping about the teens who are not connected easier. Thus, encouraging teenagers to conform to the normalcy of social networking, or suffer the consequences.