Megan Stenmark

Professor Leah Huizar

UWRT 1102
7 October 2016
Extended Inquiry Project: Research Review
Topic: The negative impacts social media has on adolescents
Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
In this scholarly article, I found a study from the University of Houston to be very interesting.
The study asked people if while using Facebook they compared themselves to other peoples
posts making social comparisons. More than half of the experimenters said they do which causes
depressive feelings. I believe this same idea has an impact with adolescents especially because
they see what other people look like or might have that they want. They see things on social
media and wish they looked like a certain celebrity or had this car a girl just got and it makes for
depressive feelings that they are not good enough. The study also told us that the more times
people logged onto Facebook the less confident they felt as well as more depressive feelings
aroused. This article furthers my research because it fulfilled a study that so many adolescents
feel when they get on social media. Whether they think someone is prettier, has a better personal
belonging them them, or whatever it may be leaves Facebook users feeling less confident for
such a small and sad reason.
Http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com, OnlineCollegeCourses.com -. "How Social Media
Is Killing Student Success - OnlineCollegeCourses.com." OnlineCollegeCoursescom How
Social Media Is Killing Student Success Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
This scholarly article had a research study from UCLA that compared studying and also using
social media at the same time. This study showed that experimenters cannot think as strong and
critically when they are also using social media. The reason to this is because while doing school
work you are using different parts of your brain then you are while using your hippocampus to
fully engage in learning. The striatum part of your brain is what you use to multitask but it does
not work as well while switching from school work to social media and not fully concentrating.
The article stated that multi tasking is not as efficient in learning and once your brain engages in
multi tasking it is hard to stop. It is hard to stop because studies show social media is addicting to
the brain. I thought this particular study was very interesting because this may be why students
sometimes do poorly in school because they would rather be on their phones after school then
concentrating on getting homework done and just blowing it off. This shows another negative
impact of social media on adolescents because it interferes on a students number one job which
is their education success.
JavaScriptKit.com, By. "Social Anxiety in the Age of Social Networks." Association for
Psychological Science RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
This scholarly article was about the ways in which social media can cause social anxiety in those
users. The article states a study that said extremely active users of online social networks are
actually those who struggle the most in the real world with social skills. I found this article to be
very interesting because as an adolescent I find this research to be so true even in my own
personal life. I find that a lot of people are way more social behind a computer screen and then

Megan Stenmark
Professor Leah Huizar
UWRT 1102
7 October 2016
person to person they are very shy. I think this is important to my paper with further research
because of the strong correlation with my inquiry. I am interested to find out if this idea has a
relationship with cyberbullying, because a lot of bullies are too scared to say something in person
which is why they attack people online with hatred words.
Ramasubbu, Suren. "Influence of Social Media on Teenagers." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.
This article from the Huffington Post focuses on the negative impacts that social media has on
adolescents. The three issues that the article focused on were depression, cyberbullying, and
sexting. The article states that 75% of adolescents in America have a profile on a social
networking site which has lead to peer pressure, loss of self confidence, and even obesity from
sitting at a computer so often. I believe this article is a good starting point to start gathering
information more in depth on the negative impact of social networks. I can start to collect
information and data on sexting, cyberbullying, and depression to see how these ideas link to
teenagers and the time they spend on social media.
Tahnk, By Jeana Lee. "Social Networking Among Teens Can Lead to 'Facebook
Depression'" Parenting. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2016.
This article relates adolescents using social media with the risk of Facebook depression.
Facebook depression occurs in teenagers when they dont feel accepted or fit in with the crowd.
Adolescence is a time where teens try and find who they are and where they belong and if they
cannot find that it can emotionally and physically harm them. The harmful effects could be
engaging in illegal drinking or use of drugs as well sexual activity. With 75% of teens owning
cell phones, and 22% logging onto social media ten times a day this kind of activity makes it
easy for teenagers self esteem to go downhill. I can relate this to my research inquiry because
depression is a leading negative aspect with adolescents and social media. Several precautions
should be taken by not only parents but also teens to not rely on social media as being the way to
connect in their daily lives to prevent bad things from happening.
"Talking to Kids and Teens About Social Media and Sexting." Talking to Kids and Teens
About Social Media and Sexting. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2016.
This article refers to the dangers in which ways adolescents get caught up in sexting through the
use of social media. Sexting is the use of text messages and inappropriate pictures sent to the
opposite sex. A statistic I found surprising in the article was that 20% of boy and girl adolescents
are involved in sexting. Peer pressure plays a huge in role in sexting which is why most
teenagers do it. Some adolescents may not know but sexting is illegal and can face charges if
pictures are involved as that is pornography. It is important that parents have these talks with
their children when they the age of having a cell phone because it is very dangerous. The idea of
sexting is critical to my research because this is a very negative impact that comes along with
social media and the young adolescent age group.

Megan Stenmark
Professor Leah Huizar
UWRT 1102
7 October 2016

@TeenHelpcom. "Cyber Bullying Statistics - Bullying Statistics." Bullying Statistics.

N.p., 2015. Web. 05 Oct. 2016.
This article has several interesting statistics and facts that relate cyberbullying to the use of social
media by adolescents. Cyberbullying is defined as bullying on the internet that is most common
with teenagers. Cyberbullying is done in different ways such as harsh messages, sexting,
spreading pictures or rumors around the internet, as well as pretending to be someone you are
not. Cyberbullying is something that leads to depression, suicide, and other serious issues that
unfortunately happen to teenagers. Cyberbullies think it is humorous and that it wont follow
them in their future which is false. A lot of consequences follow bullying depending on the
degree it cold turn into a legal issue. A few interesting facts I gathered form this article is that
about half of adolescents have experienced some sort of bullying, and 10% to 20% experience it
regularly. This relates to my inquiry because cyberbullying is a growing problem in the younger
generations because social media is a major part of their lives.
"The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families." Table of Contents.
N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.
This scholarly article is about the many different forms of social media that have taken up the
majority of adolescents lives in the recent years. These forms of social media include Facebook,
twitter, Instagram, twitter, online phone games such s Sims, and even YouTube. Studies show
that 22% of teens log onto social networks more than ten times a day, and more than half of teens
log on to social media at least once a day. Researchers have found since the rise of technology
and the younger generation users several dangerous situations have start occurring more and
more frequently. These issues regard around bullying, sexting, depression, clique forming, and
the loss of privacy. A point this article made that I found new and interesting is the idea of
advertisements social media uses promotes bullying. For instance, on twitter there is a section
called trending and this is where you go to see what a lot of people are talking about and what
the hot topic is. A lot of times these are big issues happening around the world today, where teens
will then respond with their opinion and from there it starts a lot of drama and hatred when
others dont agree with the same opinion. I found this to be a good example on my social
networks when the Charlotte protests were happening a lot of bullying was occurring when teens
didnt agree with each other. Another negative impact of social media on adolescents is the idea
of the digital footprint. When teens are young and post whatever they want it doesnt really come
across their minds that their future employers will forever be able to see all of that. The famous
quote what goes online, stays online is very true and can hurt people in the long run from when
they were younger and dint think about the effects of putting certain things on the internet. I
think this article had a lot of great information and studies to put forth into my research
especially the ideas of the digital footprint and advertising social media has that may affect why
bullying occurs more.