With an ever increasing use of social networks and technology by a rising generation that has never seen the days when mobile devices did not exist, comes an increase in the risk of children falling prey to other’s evil designs. We must prepare our children for this mine field, that is social networking, and protect them from people and things that are not always as they seem. Social networking sites have given rise to undesirable character traits in teens such as narcissism, bullying, risk-taking and power seeking. Social networks have also led to increases in stalking, blackmail, and people trying to take avenge of each other.
Adolescence can be a hard time in many peoples’ lives, trying to discover who they are. For many teens this time
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Three quarters of mental illness happen between the ages of 14 to 24 (Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication). Poor mental health can lead to kids doing poorly in school, substance abuse, violence and other unhealthy activities. When you add social media to a time when people are mentally vulnerable can lead to suicide and attempts to commit suicide. Bullying has become a problem on social networking sites among teens which leads to feeling of loneliness and depression. Too much use of networking sites can also lead to loneliness and depression. These feelings have led teens to make attempts on ending their lives (Social networking sites and mental health problems in adolescents: The mediating role of cyber bullying victimization). Other less final side effects of too much social media is addiction to social media and the need to check the phone every five minutes. It can lead to narcissism and feeling the need for others to know them. This can be the reasons for the overwhelming amount of selfies on the internet. They crave attention and don’t care who will give it to them which can lead to unwise decisions when it comes to security. This also leads to crazy and wild posts of bad behavior like drinking, as teens try to outdo each other for attention (Social networking sites and mental health problems in adolescents: The mediating …show more content…
Researchers state that the role of parents is “most important” in helping teens develop good online attitudes and habits. Parents have the power to shape their child’s online use and consumer habits by having discussions with your child before they get a social networking site. When setting up the sites help them set the privacy settings on high or if they already have social networking sites check the privacy setting on them. (Teens’ concern for privacy when using social networking sites: An analysis of socialization agents and relationships with privacy-protecting behaviors). As a generation that remembers a time before handheld devices, it is your job to make sure to research and stay up to date so that you can have a conversation about social media dangers. It may feel like this new generation of teens is pioneering forward with new technology and you are falling behind. If you do not stay current with the new technology the rift between what they know and what you know will get bigger, your teen with be less likely to listen to you about security issues. That’s why staying current with new technology helps you protect your children and you can have a better understanding of what your teen is talking about when it comes to technology. (Exploring the Role of Parents and Peers in Young Adolescents’ Risk Taking on Social Networking Sites). Have your own social networking
Adolescence is a time when everything we've ever known is being changed. Relationships, friends, thoughts, and other things that shape who we are become more awkward and confusing and are changed from what they have been in the past. Consequently, we will change also because all these things shape who we are. During a period of such change, it's hard to know who we really are. Adolescence is the time when we find out who we truly are, but not until we know who we aren't. Adolescents use common words, actions, and rivalries to try to define their unique personalities, goals, and ideas. They label themselves in different ways, trying to find a single word that defines them entirely. Through this ongoing change of identity, adolescents fully realize who they are by trying on different identities until they find the one that fits them the best.
America has many issues, one of them is the issue of social media taking over our world. People of today could not go a day without social media; it runs their lives. Though social media makes our lives easier, by allowing us to stay connected, it is threatening the sanity and psychological health of people. Many people over use social media they post every move of their day and get addicted to informing people what they are doing. Teens are the most highly affected people in America due to the fact that they use social media the most in everyday life; this makes them more vulnerable and capable of becoming addicted. People need to realize that technology is affecting the teens of America and making them psychologically ill.
Adolescence is a period of transition between the ages of 13 – 19, after childhood but before adulthood. Adolescence can be a difficult period in a teenager's life. Many teenagers do not know how to react or how to adapt to all of the physical, social, and psychological changes that occur during this period. Some adolescents pass through this period without problem, while for others, it is a period of torture, discomfort, and anxiety. With all the biological and social pressures that occur during adolescence, many teens fail to assume their identity. Sometimes family and society does not help to make this task easier. Challenges teenagers face due to biology and society are body image, hormonal changes, social and parental pressures, family problems, school pressures, alcohol, drug abuse, homosexuality, and suicide.
With the level of exposure that teens are facing today by joining the social networking trend, they often forget the dangers of social networking such as stalkers and pedophiles, who may use the sites as a major tool of the trade. Said dangers can befriend naïve teens and lure them into dangerous situations. For example, Raymond Wang had a friend being stalked by an unknown person through one of the social networking sites. This stalker acquired private information about her via Facebook, and it got to the point where the stalker was sending her threatening or perverted letters to her actual mailbox detailing what he would do to her. “This has really affected her a lot because now she’s scared other stalkers might do the same and she doesn't want that to happen or have anything happen to her.” (Wang 19) Even though users are given the option to make one’s profile private, there is still the looming threat that stalkers are able to gather enough information about the person’s whereabouts. Another similar incident happened to Regina Chau, a member of a social networking site catered to the raver lifestyle, Plurlife. When she first joined with her offline friends she liked everything about the SNS, but “[where] most of the people you accept to your friends list would probably be strangers.” (Chau 18) she had befriended a person she did not know offline and one these “friends” got a little too friendly with her; “he would keep asking over and over if I wanted to meet up with him at the next event. I found this a little creepy and did not message him back after that.
While this research gave her a very detailed insight into how social media can have a positive effect on younger people by improving social interactivity it also revealed that when a child is bullied on social media it can have an extremely injurious effect on their mental health. She feels that with the presence facebook especially, it leads to narcissism antisocial tendencies and aggression, while overuse cases anxiety and depression. The two main causes of anxiety and depression due to social media are researched to be bullying and unrealistic expectations such as unrealistic looks, weight and valuables. When teenagers, especially females, see these unrealistic expectations and understand that it is unreasonable to achieve these so called desirable factors they put an immense amount of pressure on themselves as they feel that they aren 't good enough which causes anxiety and depression (Sternberg Clinic, 2015). Another major negative impact that social media can have on an young individual 's mental health when used excessively is impacting the quality of students school work and overall performance. Teens are masters at keeping themselves occupied in the hours after school and way past their bedtime, which results in them not attempting to complete their homework. When students try to multi-task by studying and checking
According to Tufts University social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks (www.tufts.edu). Current research indicates that there is a connection between increased social media use and deteriorated mental health. Unfortunately, young adults, the most active social media users, have a predominantly high risk for developing mental health issues, making this connection particularly concerning. Many lives may change to fit the mold of social media, and it may be consuming to the extent that one would miss out on real life scenarios in their immediate surroundings. It turns
Besides cyberbullying, there are many other negative outcomes for American youth in the use of social media websites like Facebook. For example, many teens are using shorthand and abbreviations when writing or communicating online. Additionally, teens lose themselves in social media, ignore their surroundings and even become addicted to social media. Consequences of this include a rise in obesity, devaluation in family, lack of exercise and decrease in focus on school and homework. Adolescents that use social media more often than others are more prone to “narcissistic tendencies,” “anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders” (Protalinski, 2011). American youth that share more online also display manic, aggressive and antisocial behaviors.
... middle of paper ... ... Social media can also affect social health; for example, it can lead to cyber bullying. Then that teen will not want to attend school because that teen is living on constant fear of being bullied. Most dangerous of all, it can give away your identity.
Social media or cancer? Just like cancer, social media slowly withers away people’s brains, especially in teenagers, when they consume almost everything they read. Social media has grown exponentially while attracting the young minds of teens and molding them without teens knowing. They latch on to things that they feel comfortable with, because they are still trying to find who they really are. Today, social media is used by almost every teenager in America. Sites like Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, and Facebook can affect them in a negative way, making them feel worse about themselves or even changing who they really are. Social media can seem harmless to many teens, but it can actually hurt them and cause mental health issues.
The cons of social media can be very risky, especially when the youth of this society is partaking in it. Children and adolescents are now known for inappropriate content on social media sites or just simply not understanding the concepts of privacy. A nationwide issue that has been addressed is the action of cyberbullying. This action often leads to harmful circumstances such as suicide attempts, with some being successful. In just one state in the U.S., 1,491 high school students that were the “cyber bullies” were related to suicide attempts and about 4,693 students were rel...
Social media has only been easily accessible on our decade, but has boomed in popularity and user use. It has taken over our society and culture providing a new channel to connect with the world in real-time. While, social media has many advantages -- especially in providing resources and knowledge to the public, it has many downsides as well, including not providing enough protection for our youths. As such, we see the rise of addiction to social media, cyberbullying, and negative body images. We need to push our government, schools, and families to educate our youth on internet usage. With technology’s increasing growth rate and that fact that technology will be our future, it is pertinent to teach our children how to use social media in a responsible manner.
Bhardwaj 1 Think of a time when people didn’t have technology and how they had to interact, whether it had been from writing letters to using telegraphs, communicating with people was hard to come by back then. Of course, times have changed and now technology has made it easier over the years, social media has become an essential part of our lives whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many other websites. Nowadays, everybody is using it whether its companies using media to promote their products or even teachers tweeting out what last night’s homework was. Social media is a great tool that helps us connect with the world and communicate our ideas. Yet there are some people who believe that social media has a negative impact towards our society as they believe that people can get addicted to it, it causes them to get easily distracted, and many other dangers.
Social network sites have without a doubt become an important part of everyday life for many people, considering that Americans live in a country of technological advances. From people constantly checking their Facebook page to people posting pictures on Instagram, social media has changed people’s behavior and the way that they communicate with others. Social media includes websites such as Facebook and Twitter. This essay will focus on the causes and effects of social networking on the daily lives of American citizens.
According to the article, “10 Ways Social Media Affects Our Mental Problems,” Degreed claim that social media make us restless by “two-thirds admitted to having difficulty relaxing when unable to use their social media accounts.” Teenagers are always tired when they have to stay up late at night to catch up with all the news feed on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter that make them have no energy to go on the next day. Based on the newspaper, “Excessive Social Media Use Harms Children’s Mental Health,” by the Telegraph shows that “children who go on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more than three hours a day are more likely to have mental health problems.” Social media can lead to bullying that affects teenagers mental health issue and being stressed. Social media have now taken a part of human life and some are addicted to the point where they can’t even live without
Nowadays, social media is growing very rapidly throughout the whole world. Social media has changed the way that we communicate with others through using these common social networking sites like Face book, Twitter, and Instagram…For that, social media has positively and negatively impacted our life.