Social Media Can Lead A Teenager

Social media, it has taken the lives of everyone who has heard it over the years from teens to adult and changing the life of everyone. But, has social media been harming the minds of the new generations? Being in a world where social media is available to approximately everyone, many have been affected negatively by social media.

Bing! Chloe, Andie’s friend, texted her wanting to know if they can hang out later. They then proceed to talk about their day and all of the juicy middle school gossip going around. Most teenagers would concur that this is “the norm” nowadays. Teenagers find talking in person or on the phone too intimidating and as a result, find themselves challenged when trying to form new relationships.

Social media itself is a huge danger to society. It causes many suicides within the world because of the cyberbullying and spreading of rumors. “Recent studies have shown that one out of four teens have been the victims of cyberbullying and one out of six have admitted to having cyberbullied someone” (Trautner 1). The internet and social media is supposed to be used to communicate with friends and for searching information, “Kids use technology different than their parents do. Sometimes it is hard for adults to understand that this can even be a possibility” (Trautner 1). It is not supposed to be used to bully someone, especially not to the point where the victim would think about suicide. “One of the statistics that has been highlighted within this news coverage is the threefold increase in the suicide rate for girls ages 10 to 14. The rates for girls in this age group increased from 0.5 to 1.5 per 100,000 during this time period. The increases for boys in this age group were not as high, climbing from 1.9 per 100,000 during 1999 to 2.6 per 100,000 in 2014” (Olsen

The internet and social media have opened so many doors for our generation. Thousands of resources are at our fingertips that 30 years ago would seem impossible. However, this information can be more of a burden rather than a blessing. Scrolling through Instagram you will most likely find images of people with ‘perfect’ bodies in swimsuits. It is very easy to compare your body to these images and not feel confident about yourself. Now put yourself in a young teenager’s perspective, looking at all these images. Their main question might be “Why don’t I look like that?” This raises an issue for teenagers to be more likely to not be comfortable in their own skin, have lowered self-esteem, and body shame themselves. Another issue with social media is the anxiety that can come from it. Today it is apparent that most teenagers using social media platforms tend to be worrying about the color scheme of their profile, number of likes and how fast they show up, their following ratio, regulating the number of posts, the number of followers, number of retweets and many more anxieties. In a weird way, it can be easier to make fun of someone or bully someone behind a screen and not right to their face. This raises another version of bullying known as cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is the most common online risk for teenagers and adolescence (O’Keeffe 801). Researchers have found signs of depression from the use of social media (802). From repeated and extended use of social media there has been 92% of teenagers ages 13-17 going online every day in the US, negative things are sure to come from that usage (Dunlop 35). As just mentioned, there are major negative effects of social media on adolescence, including cyber-bullying, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, and depression.

Causes of suicide vary but as technology advances new causes are apparent. Social media plays a major role in causes of suicide. Technology allows cyber bullying to happen frequently and recur until something or someone stops it. Victims of bullying often think they have no way out of their situation or feel like there is no help. People with suicidal thoughts struggle either mentally, physically, or emotionally. “Three million children are absent from school each month due to bullying. Twenty percent of those bullied kids have suicidal thoughts” (Bullying and Suicide, 2016, p.1). Media’s such as snapchat, instagram, twitter, or facebook all provide factual information about previous cases of suicide. Cyberbullying is a serious problem especially among adolescent girls. Girls are more likely than boys to attempt suicide due to cyberbullying, because girls are struggling to find themselves as a person (Bichell, 2013, p. 3). Any form of negativity or put down affects them, and who they are trying to become.

Rebecca Sedwick, a 12-year-old girl, committed suicide after being repeatedly cyberbullied by 15 girls for many months. Once again, cyberbullying through social media has led to the suicide of a child. (“Phillips, Suzanne”) Social media allows hundreds of ways to communicate with others with electronic devices. Sometimes communicating with strangers, and sometimes unanimous. This idea of constant messages, notifications, and texts can be very dangerous when it comes to cyberbullying because the victim feels like they have no way out, or nowhere to hide. Social media for kids and teens ultimately has only negative effects because it leads to cyberbullying, a decrease in education, and suicide.

Teenagers are wanting to kill themself because of cyberbullying. For example, “39% of teens on social media have been cyberbullied. Some of the people have ever committed suicide’’(source 1). This shows that...

Initially, social media is commonly used as a weapon to attack others on their opinions or simply because they despite other people. For instance, cyber bullying has caused huge problems ever since social networks have started becoming popular. “Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online. 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once,” (“11 Facts about Cyber Bullying” www.dosomething.org). This is more targeted at teenagers and children because they are unaware of the harmful things they might say over the internet. To illustrate, cyber bullying can become a very serious issue when a minor commits suicide. “Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including . . . cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive . . . about a person” (“Cyber Bullying & Social Bullying” http://www.bullyingstatistics.org). It’s the parent’s duty to filter the internet. Based on this information, social media is not necessarily safe, anyone can become a victim

The common technological tool, social media has introduced many more dangers to the world. Some of the dangers included internet scamming, online predators and cyberbullying. In Magliano study, he gathered information about the amount of people who have experience cyberbullying on social media, 38% of people experienced cyberbullying on Facebook, 45% on Twitter and !3% on Instagram. Many people especially teen who are active on social media and are cyberbullied fall into depression. Some even take their own lives

Social media plays an important role in the lives of teenagers and potentially young women. It can actually be a big influencer on their decisions being as it’s a place to express yourself in many ways even if those ways put off negative connotations to those around. Daily on social media you typically see a lot of ads, people who you might perceive as “beautiful” or “pretty”, along with statuses and pictures that talk about how the “perfect” relationship or person should be. As a teenager myself, I recognize that a lot of young girls struggle with finding themselves and wanting to be different. Females in general have a hard time This current generation of teenagers are more concerned with social media sites like facebook, instagram, twitter, and snapchat. More people are concerned with the number of likes or favorites they get rather than actual important or real world things. For a teen that struggles with self-esteem issues, it could be confusing to see a lot of “pretty” girls and not know why you don’t or can not look like them. Social media when used addictively has negative or harmful effects on young girls self-esteem.

(Attention Getter) Look around at your peers. Would you ever think about how many of them wish they were dead? When 17.7% of high school student in the U.S. say that they have seriously consider committing suicide (CDC, 2015), we need to seriously address why this is happening. The pressures of life at our age are very apparent. However, they are not so difficult that 4,135 teenagers a year should be committing suicide. The rate of teenage suicide has tripled since 1950, but why? Well, to answer that question, there is a large amount of evidence that the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior.

As of 2016, suicide has replaced homicide as the second-leading cause of death among U.S. teenagers because of social media bullying. Social media has taken a significant toll on our society, one that affects millions of students around the globe. Every day, online platforms are gaining in popularity. So much that study now shows that the average person spends more time each day on their phone and computer than they do sleeping! While social media offers some benefits in regards to education and relationships, the risks of cyberbullying, social anxiety and identity theft far outweigh these advantages.

With the widespread presence of teen suicides, parents can 't help but wonder and worry, but they never find out where the child’s depression came of. A review of data collected between 2004 and 2010 via survey studies indicated that “lifetime cyberbullying victimization rates ranged from 20.8% to 40.6% and offending rates ranged from 11.5% to 20.1%” (PubMed Central) There are several specific ways that social media can increase the risk for the suicidal behavior. Cyber bullying and cyber harassment are serious and prevalent problems, as “approximately 2000 middle school children that indicated that victims of cyberbullying were almost two times as likely to attempt suicide than those who were not” (PubMed Central). Although cyberbullying cannot be identified as the only factor for suicide between teenagers, it increases the risk by intensifying feelings of isolation, instability, and hopelessness. According to the recent study, “approximately 43% of the students report experiencing cyberbullying during their lifetime, and 15% of students admitted to cyberbullying others during their lifetime” (Patchin, 2015). There are even more statistics showing how cyber bullies affect teenagers’ emotion and push them to self-destruction. Nowadays, social media has created virtual

From "thintastic" blogs to suicide stories, social media has become not only a source of conversation but a gateway to harmful suggestions that many teenagers see and believe to be allowable, when in fact the situations proposed are dangerous to those who attempt them. Statistics show that 20% of anorexic teenagers will die prematurely, and 80% of teenagers who commit suicide are depressed (South). Social media has glorified and brought to attention eating disorders, depression, and suicide among teens that might otherwise not become a statistic in these critical categories.

Some of the top benefits of social media over the years are that it is free to anyone, the content can get out to resources virtually immediately, and it can be delivered to a wide variety of people. For these reasons, communication through social media has become an extremely accessible and convenient way to communicate. It is also popular for those who need to be in contact with others. One example that comes to mind is a teenager who goes away on a trip to visit a friend or family. They can be hundreds of miles away but still talk to their parents as if they weren’t. Another example is a person who is shy and has a hard time making friends face-to-face, social media sites are a great way to meet people and build relationships.