Facebook is one of the top grossing social media platforms today that is increasingly finding more ways to keep friends and family connected. Rather they use it or not, majority of teen today have a Facebook account at some point in their life. Facebook has its advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages of Facebook can lead to an unhealthy teen. Facebook affects the mental health in teens causing issues with self-esteem, depression, and create an unhealthy dependency on the social media platform. Facebook affects the self-esteem of all its’ users but is more influential on teens than any other age group. On this social media platform the user can view, react to, and share posts. The user has the freedom to virtually do what they please. Self-esteem can be lowered due to the reaction to a post and the post the user views. When a teen submits a post and they do not get any reaction such as a, “like”, “love”, “Ha-ha”, “Wow”, “Sad”, and “Angry”, it can make them feel as though their Facebook friends do not care about them or that their post is not post worthy enough to have a reaction. The amount of Facebook friends a user has can often determine how popular the user is. More than likely the Facebook user does not even know all their “friends”, but has accumulated hundreds of friends just to seem more important and popular. Also, when the teen Facebook user views their “friends” post it can cause the user to compare themselves to the post they view. For example, a teen of
Rachel Ehmke addresses the negative effects of social media in a strident, yet true, way. The use of social media among teens in America is 75 percent and out of that percentage 68 percent use Facebook more than any other site or app (Common Sense Media, as cited by Ramasubbu, 2016, p.1). According to Suren Ramasubbu in his article “Influence of Social Media on Teenagers”, Facebook is an outlet for depression, sexting, and cyberbullying (2016, p.1). Ehmke points these effects as well to support her opinion along with other effects like indirect communication, loss of experiences, the imposter syndrome, and stalking. It can be concluded that the reasons provided by Ehmke are valid reasons to prove why social media can affect a person negatively.
Kardaras, Nicolas. "Generation Z: Online and at Risk?." Scientific American Mind, vol. 27, no. 5, Sep/Oct 2016, pp. 64-9. MasterFILE Premier. Kardars discuss generation z use of social media affecting them negatively. He opens his article with a story of Heidi who becomes addicted to social media when her school issues her a Chromebook. Before Heidi is issued the laptop, she was a sweet innocent girl and after having it for a semester she became someone her parents could not recognize. He states that social media is a “perfect storm” for humans because having a social connection key to “happiness and health”. Having the ability to always use social media leads to hyper texting the illusion of a real connection making it hard for teens to have face to face conversations, making a teens become “glow kid[s]“, someone who is raised on mostly digital social interactions. Facebook depression” can result in the teen to have lower grades and behavior problems in teens. He concludes his article with facts proving that Facebook can become addictive in some people. This source helps support my thesis that Facebook affects teens mental health.
A prevalent issue regarding social media and interactions exists between researchers and social network users. Social media is currently changing how relationships between people are created. Relationships can exist through people across the world through social media and can produce more emotional bonds with friends that you can see everyday. On the other hand, social media also could present conflicts due to the fact that some of these relationships can become unhealthy and that people could change to be more dependent on internet friends, becoming introverted.
October 15, 2010, the movie “The Social Network” was released and later received over $220 million dollars in revenue. The reason this movie received such a high amount of revenue is because of all the teenage users of social networking sites. This makes the debatable case of whether social networking is considered unhealthy for teenagers. But through common sense and logic, anyone can see that it should be considered a negative aspect because it encourages procrastination, creates a false sense of security, and allows teenagers to explore the option of suicide.
According to Dr. Douglas Kenrick, University of Arizona’s Social Psychology lecturer, Facebook is not bad but the usage of it is what paints an ugly picture. In the article above, emotional aspects seem to be most affected when one uses Facebook in comparing oneself with their peers, friends or relatives. Posts by the defined group outline the seven ways mentioned which are termed bad since it leads to mental health dysfunctions. The use of Facebook to follow others updates leads to a number of psychological hazards such as; gives one a feeling that their life is not neat as of others, one develops envy towards friends achievements, Facebook keeps touch with people who hurt before, it can disenfranchise marriage in the event of stalking. The emotional friction developed through the wrong use often leads to depression. If one can avoid using Facebook in a manner that they will not follow other people’s posts then they are less likely to get stressed up about others and to a great extent avoid mental complications such as depression. According to the study about 80% percent who use Facebook in following others updates with a lot of
The use of social networking sites is rising at great rates. According to a report conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2012, ninety-five percent of individuals aged 12-17 use the internet; and eighty-one percent of those use social network sites (Pew Interest). Although it is known that social media can have a useful impact on lives, often times people forget that with a positive comes a negative. The continual use of social network sites will impact teen lives more negatively than positively because they can cause huge distractions from valuable and critical pursuits like education; they can also cause mental health issues and a reduction in communication skills.
Communication barriers are not the only issue that has been brought on by social media. Extensive social media use has also been known to affect a person’s self-esteem. Some individuals suffer from a low self-esteem and limit themselves to social media in hopes to create a different image of them. According to Charles Cooley, “The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind" (Morine, 2009). For some teens and young adults, social media may help them open up and achieve a higher self-esteem. On the other hand, social media on other teens and young adults may have a completely opposite effect. In an article titled, Is Facebook Making Your Child Depressed, it is stated that social media websites such as Facebook “can create a skewed reality that makes teens feel alienated” (PR, 2012). When a person, that is not completely happy with their life, goes onto social media and reads all about other people enjoying a multitude of activities and enjoying their lives this could
There are two possible ways that the use of social networking sites can affect a person’s self esteem. According to a study conducted by Amy L. Gonzales and Jeffrey T. Hancock, Facebook helps amplify students’ level of self-esteem. They explained in their study that when people post something on their profile, they have the opportunity to filter the negative information that they would not like to be exposed, and only publicize the information that they consider as positive. By doing this, people can build an ideal image of themselves online, which consequently increase the level of their self-esteem (Gonzales and Hancock, 2011). On the other hand, the study conducted by The University of Gothenburg in Sweden, which
Social media is considered to be “websites and applications that allow individuals to participate in social networking” (Spies Shapiro, 2014). Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory suggests that life is like a play in which people are the actors. Through social media it can be possible that some may learn how to play their role/identity through the socialization of others. In recent years, social media has changed dramatically, allowing individuals to share feelings, ideas,
In this modern era everyone is very into social media. Social media has become a part and parcel of everyone’s life. Even kindergarden students have at least a little knowledge on social media. Social media is defined as a relationship that exist between network and people. A very common and widely used example of social media would be web sites for social networking and microblogging. Examples of utmost used social networking sites are “ Facebook ˮ and “ Twitter ˮ. Nowadays coming across kids on social networking sites has become a norm. Social media is used for many purposes which are to exchange ideas, feelings, personal information, pictures and videos. Social networking sites is one of the most preferable medium for expressing
Social media is any website that allows social interaction. Social media is growing rapidly throughout the world. More adults and teenagers are joining sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to interact with friends, family, and strangers. The introduction of social media has changed the world in many ways. It affects each individual in different ways. Today it can be used as a very helpful tool in changing a person’s life, but at the same time cause such conflicts which can negatively impact a person. While there are some negatives associated with social media, the positives in communication all around, has made the world stronger and a better place to live in.
Social media is one of the most common ways for people to communicate anywhere and at any time in modern society. Some people think that it is beneficial to have in society. Although, many people are starting to see negative effects arise from the use of social media as well. These negative effects are increasing and becoming more problematic every day. The disadvantages of social media far outweigh the advantages. Social media effects everyone in society, especially teenagers by negatively impacting their lives, face-to-face interactions, and mental health.
In general, the use social networking has many health and developmental benefits for the youth of today. Most teens have online accounts that they use to strengthen their friendships and stay connected with the people around them such as, school friends and teachers, groups they may be involved in, and maybe even family that are far away. Social networking also allows for an outlet to help teens with mental and moral support that they may lack in reality. This is really important especially for the youth who don’t necessarily have anyone to talk to or be there for them. Although one might argue that there are hotlines to help depressed youth, sometimes it’s not the same as having the support from your favorite social media site.
Facebook is currently largest social networking site in the world based on monthly unique visitors – attracting 130 million unique visitors every day (Alexa Inc. 2012). The site’s popularity exploded in 2007 and it bypassed its social networking rival, MySpace, in April 2008 (Phillips 2007). Over the last few years Facebook has impacted people’s social lives in various ways. With its availability on modern smart phones, Facebook enables users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and peers wherever they are in the world as long as they have internet access. It can also group people together who share beliefs and interests and has been known to even reunite lost family members and friends through its enormous social reach
Most people think that peer pressure is one of the leading cause of low self-esteem ,we read about young adult going through teen issues such as bullying , fighting and many more other issues but in 2017 things have changed .Many teenagers are obsessed with social media sites such as Facebook, Snap chat, or even Instagram . these sites were either design for reconnection with lost family or friends to showing people bit a piece what you do on a day to day basis but now that’s not the case. Self -esteem is when an individual has confidence and satisfaction in themselves with the changes in how social media works in this day and age self-esteem is one of the issues it affects. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and