Medina Monge 1

Gloria Medina Monge

Professor Jennifer Rodrick

ENG 115

6 October 2017

Social Media: Its a harm to teenagers

How do you feel about social media as it keeps growing each every day? Many of us are

most likely acquainted with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Twitter since those are

the top social networking sites teenagers are now using. The question all adults ask us teenagers

often is how have those social networking sites have shaped our generation. I personally, as a

user of 4 out of the 5 mentioned above, feel that social media has been positive but mostly

negative in the lives of many teens. I agree with many parents that are against it since there has

been incidents where kids have received death threats by fellow peers or caused self-harm

through peer pressure. Social media has caused teenagers to become dependent as they ignore

their responsibilities in the real world, get negative attention in hopes of being heard, and hurting

themselves physically to prove their get attention.

In this category we see how both females and males can be dragged into the virtual world

of social media. They seclude themselves from the real world by spending more time behind

screens than being active and interacting with others face to face. In their world they dont see

the dangers that the internet brings to their life such as low grades, less face to face

communication, and problems in their relationships. They are staring at a screen more than half

of the time which is exposing them to cyberbullying, sexual predators, and privacy issues. They

are the most vulnerable to harm since according to Rajeev

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teenagers (13-19 years) having larger networks of friends compared to older

users (Above 60 years). Young adults, particularly adolescents tended to be unaware of

just how much time they really spent on social networking sites. According to a recent

poll, 22% of teenagers log on to their favourite social media site more than 10 times a day

and more than half of adolescents log on to a social media site more than once a day.

That makes them more vulnerable to the dangers of the internet as well as wasting time

that could be more beneficial if used in another activity such as studying. Although

teenagers say that they can the self-control whenever they want their test school reflected

otherwise as minor group of the study was showing concerning self-control over their

media. In the study conducted in Rajeevs article in correlation of social media usage

about 2% fell into indicate that the indulgence in these social networking sites was

having very serious and significant impact on their lives and they must immediately

address to the problem. That is alarming as they are cutting time from their required

activities to make space for their social media.

Teenagers are so consumed in the social media world and seek attention when

needed. They are often seeking for a validation or attention that can make them more credible in

front of their friends, peers, and adults. While they try to accomplish such thing, they end up

receiving some sort of negativity from fellow peers. Girls tend to be victims of being

characterized as attention seekers more than boys but that doesnt exclude them at all. Teenage

girls on social media are often criticized for the things they say and post in their personal

accounts. Theres always something negative to say on social media about a female teen even by

the same sex peers. Reeve says

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WHY IS IT bad that teenage girls want attention? American Girls does not say. I think

it's shorthand for a whole set of sexist assumptions: Women should be unassuming and humble,

they should not be ambitious, and they definitely should not seek out acknowledgment and praise

from others. ("You don't know you're beautiful," declared the boy band One Direction in one of

many condescending song lyrics in which young men bestow their attention on women like a

precious gift.)

These teenage girls are judged and reprimanded for their decisions on what they chose to do with

themselves. According to society they are supposed to seek attention because that makes them

arrogant, but girls just want the recognition for the words they say and believe in. While Reeve is

interviewing Anna she asks the following questions and her response about the attention calling

through one tweet Did the ease with which boys could pursue girls on social media and the

internet feel oppressive? Had the pressure to get likes on Instagram hurt her self-esteem? to

which Anna responded, I can see how that could easily happen, but for me personally social

media has never hurt my self-esteem, Anna told me. If anything it's satisfying to watch people

like and retweet what you have to say." We can clearly see she just wants credibility and praise

for her thoughts which isnt wrong to our nature as humans we seek attention to feel better about

ourselves. Sometimes we could bring it to ourselves in negative ways like how Anna did it

through a screenshot of the text, which appeared to be sent by someone named Tony. Such

screenshot portrayed Tony to say "If you were really a feminist, you would be comfortable

showing us your body," then wrote. "Breasts are not sexual body parts. They're something

everyone has. Don't let your internal misogyny stop you from sending nudes." Anna tweeted the

screenshot under the words "they're advancing. which went viral after she tweet it. She might
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use this for a good purpose to show how boys will try to influence females to sexualize

themselves. Others might turn the table and make it seem like she's attention seeking in a very

negative way. She was just seeking validation and in Annas case her one tweet went viral and

gave her that feeling while some supported her others disagreed.

Their grades, social life, and emotions are being hurt as they are bashed on social

media and now they are also causing physical harm to themselves for extra views and popularity.

The dangers of social media affecting teenagers lives is more than just mentally now kids are

doing various dangerous and illicit activities on social media to be onboard with the trends.

Teenagers are risking their lives over a few extra likes, comments, and views on their pages.

They are falling victims to the hashtags that are trending now and hurting many in the process of

getting attention. In the past few years that social medias popularity has risen among teenagers

so have certain ideas. Those ideas have been created by the same teenagers in efforts to become

known in these platforms. Many videos have surfaced accompanied by a hashtag promoting a s

challenge. In that we have seen how some challenges have been for good causes like the ALS

Ice Bucket Challenge which raised about $115 Million towards the cure of the disease and

awareness. There has been other challenges to raise awareness for diseases like the ASL

challenge but there has also been challenges for fun which teenagers have created. A few

challenges have been the Cinnamon Challenge, the Eraser Challenge, eating the hottest pepper

challenge etc. Theres a variety of ideas that are just floating around social media and got some

sort of attention or popularity that has inclined other kids to try it as well. In many cases you

have probably came across a video title ...... Challenge Gone Wrong it could be any of the

mentioned challenges or others related. In many cases we see videos in which people have tried

and a dangerous outcome has happened putting in risk their lives for a few extra likes. According
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to Jessica Firger, The list of the many challenges teens take on from social media reads like a

disturbing report from a torture chamber: have a friend douse you with boiling water, eat a

Carolina Reaper (the world's hottest chili pepper), pour a bottle of vodka into your open eye, or

chew and swallow an entire cactus plant. These challenges sound more like punishment rather

than fun for the kids, well at least they will not be having fun but the viewers might find it funny

and sharing it making it go viral. Adults and especially parents just cant seem to comprehend as

to why these kids are going to such extent to harm themselves in those ways. People are just

Attempting to grasp the motives behind the reckless stupidity of teenagers has been a frustrating

endeavor for parents since the beginning of time, and many experts believe the internet has made

it even worse. Now the teenagers are being influenced right at home in front of their parents to

do such activities from the comfort of their homes. Parents are becoming alarmed trying to stop

those trends but with the power easy access to social media like cell phones it has become harder

now.

Overall social media has become a danger for teenagers that visit it daily since it causes

problems in their personal relationships, mind, and physically. Its not worth risking a 4.0 GPA

for half of your time on social media, its not worth risking your mental well-being to try to

prove a point to strangers, and its not worth risking your life for a few extra likes. Social media

does present a harm to teenagers as many parents would agree meanwhile others might disagree

because they feel their children are well supervised like the mother in Talking to kids in social

media video.
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Works Cited

Firger, Jessica. Why Teenagers Get Suckered In by Social Media Dares; They may look like adults, but

rattling inside a teens skull is a brain that still has a lot of growing up to do. Newsweek, Vol.

166 no. 20, 2016. Expanded Academy ASAP, Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.

http://go.galegroup.com.libproxy.csun.edu/ps/i.do?&id=GALE|A452661208&v=2.1&u=csunort

hridge&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w#

Rajeev, Ranjith et al. Dependence on social networking sites in adolescents Journal of Evolution of

Medical and Dental Sciences, Vol. 5 no. 22, 2016, Health Reference Center Academic, pg. 1172.

Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.

http://go.galegroup.com.libproxy.csun.edu/ps/i.do?&id=GALE|A470559604&v=2.1&u=csunort

hridge&it=r&p=HRCA&sw=w&authCount=1#

Reeve, Elspeth. For teenage girls on social media, attention is a way to be heard New Republic, vol.

247, no 5, 2016, pg. 69-71. EBSCOhost, accessed 21 Sept. 2017

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.csun.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=7d7aaf39-76af-

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Wallace, Kelly CNN Talking to kids about social media CNN, 2014, accessed 03 October 2017

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/living/social-media-positives-teens-parents/index.html
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