Social Media Is Corrupting The Minds Of Young People

Online social network has gained astounding worldwide growth and popularity which has led to attracting attention from variety of researchers around the world. In Carla Poertner article,”Is Facebook Making Us Stupid,Boring and Insecure?” She is right on target about youth being impacted over social networking. Social media has influenced youths whether it being their motives, lifestyle, or even a choice and ways of their realizations. Although, some will argue saying that social network is a good influence towards young people it is morally wrong due to getting themselves into addiction leading to danger, lack of concentrating in school, even their physical and psychological health. In other words, generations of teenagers and young adults

Melissa Healy, a reporter of the Los Angeles Times, in the article Teenage Social Media Butterflies May Not Be Such A Bad Idea, claims that kids who spend lots of time on social media are not the least well-adjusted, but psychologically healthiest. Healy supports her argument by demonstrating how social media is beneficial to a teen’s health. According to a three-year Digital Youth Project, when teengars use social media, it helps them develop important social skills such as communication, grappling with social norms, and developing technical skills. Psychology professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam describes that teens behave the same between offline relationships and online ones, so most teens will use the internet safely. The author’s purpose is

Social networking sites are used worldwide by millions of people. People use social networking sites to meet new people or even contact a friend. Social networking sites help people keep inter connected.

Raacke, J. & Bonds-Raacke, J. (2008) says in order to interact with others such as family and friends in the past few years Social Networking Sites have emerged. DeAndrea, Ellison, LaRose, Steinfield & Fiore (2012) states that Social Networking Sites has a defining feature of decreasing the barriers to interact with each other by enabling online communications. Pempek, Yemolayeva & Calvert (2009) states that Social Networking Sites create innovative ways to send pictures, photos, messages online to the private and public. The most popular Social Networking Sites used now days among college students are Facebook, Twitter, Linked in and My Space. Due to its heavy usage Facebook among the several other Social Networking Sites is considered as rich site for researchers who are interested to research Social Networking Sites. Facebook (2009) states that Facebook which was initially created for college students attracted 150 million users with more than half of them outside college.

Social media has been known to help students develop important knowledge and social skills. “At first glance this may seem like a waste of time; however it also helps students to develop important knowledge and social skills, and be active citizens who create and share content.” (Chen 3). The more time teens spend on social media the more they become aware of their own social side and how to interact with others, especially their peers. “Some types of social media has beneficial effects, like helping adolescents establish some sense of identity and build networking skills” (Riley Davis). Too much time being spent on social media can also exploit teens to some harsh realities that they’ve probably never experienced in their lives before.

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.

Social media is the way teens network. It includes applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where individuals can connect, share photographs, and like others posts or images. These applications can be accessed through electronic devices such as iPads, phones, computers, etc. It is known to educate, engage, and impact individuals and their environment. The most well-known theory is that an individual can control what he/she sees, considers, or feels about a topic. To some degree this is valid. Nevertheless, does teenagers know that social media influence them in some way? Social networking is harming to a teens growth as it boosts their online identities, separates them from the universe of social connection, occupies their attention from television, and it also affects relationships. The 21st century has seen the internet change into a device that has made communication less severe and handier. This change occurred rapidly with thoughts of social networks that would allow the association of individuals in various nations. Teenagers, being the principle players of the online networks, has been caught *up in the blend of social networking as they have developed into a period where innovation has reformed the way individuals approach their day by day routines. However, because of the extreme measure of time spent on these sites, they are left to result in pessimistic consequences for their advancement.

Social media is described, by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2015), as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)”. As few as 10 years ago the term social media was yet to be coined, but within that decade the use of these blogs, websites and sharing platforms has increased exponentially with no plateau in sight. From creating Instagram accounts for household pets, to sharing Halloween themed baking ideas over Pinterest, people today have access to social media outlets for almost everything. Today about 74% of people ages 18-65 use some form of a social networking site (Pew, 2014). Facebook takes the lead in social media usage with about 71% of those adults. LinkedIn and Pinterest are tied for second at 28% of users, 26% use Instagram, and Twitter falls last in the top 5 most used social medias with 23% of users (Pew, 2014). In September of 2013 the Pew Research Center measured that 90% of adults ages 18-29 used these social media outlets on a daily basis, which is an astonishing increase from the 9% that was measured in February 2005 (Pew, 2014). Due to the fact that young adults are increasingly involving themselves in these online platforms, it is very important to understand the long term and psychological effects (such as depression, social anxiety,

According to “Mixed Perceptions About Kids Using Digital Media,” kids and teenagers ranging from ages 8-18 spend an average of 7 ½ hours a day using digital media. Kids and teenagers use social media for different reasons. For example, some feel like they want to fit in with the “cool kids” by having multiple social media apps. Having the latest and greatest devices, trends, and social media is the biggest culprit of peer pressure in this day and age. They may not realize it, but by using social networks it opens up a whole new world of danger, risks, and

Visualize this: It is almost time to eat dinner, and the teenagers have not bothered to do their homework because they have been preoccupied with social media all afternoon. They are spending a majority of their time taking pictures and posting them for ‘likes’ to fit in with everyone else, or they are stalking other people’s posts and pictures, wondering why their lives are not as thrilling as the others’ lives appear. Worst of all, kids of all ages are committing suicide after being cyberbullied to the point that they cannot take it anymore. Picturing it now? Regrettably, that describes the scenery of how their generation is now – the effects of social media on young people are horrifying.

People who want to keep in touch with friends and family commonly use Social Networking sites. The most popular of these sites include, Classmates, MySpace, Friendster, Live Journal, Twitter and the most common, Facebook. Facebook allows users to connect to others by sharing pictures, blogs, videos, interests and more and has taken over American teens and even adults. There have been sites long before Facebook was created but this fairly new site has become the most popular today by far. Since 2004 this site has gained over 175 million active users and is still growing.

A wide variety of people use social media and people see us as “always on our phones”. It is widely used throughout many generations. Professor Larry Rosen in Psychology Today explains how 70% of people in the last four generations have a Facebook account. Yet this study did not include our society, so this number is most likely greater now. But, as predicted, the same 2016 article tells us, “overall younger generations used more social media sites than older ones”. Teenagers can be seen being preoccupied on some type of technology. In a recent asking posted in the Huffington Post, modern American teens were asked about their social media. It showed that “90 percent of American teens say they use at least one social media site, and 71 percent of teens say they use at least two sites”. There are many different types of social media; social media as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “forms of electronic communication such as websites for social networking and microblogging through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content. No matter what the reason, people use social media very often. The Pew Research Center tells us, “around seven-in-ten Americans use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves.” With an increase in popularity, even the older generations are catching on and joining media sites. The same source explains usage of these devices has increased 31% in people over the age of 65 over the last 11 years. Overall, we observe an extremely dramatic increase in usage for all age groups between the years of 2005 and 2016. Whether people like it or not, social

Facebook has become such a huge epidemic due to the way people can communicate with one and other through instant messaging and commenting too seeing photographs and uploading your personal information. Although there are many negative impacts that social media has on our youth’s lives; there continues to still be an uprising community of people who continue to use Facebook as their number one form of communication (Los Angles Times 2011).

In this case, the study proved that teens and young adults have become obsessed with social networking and has led to many questions if networking is good or bad (Conger, 2010). In 2009, the media expressed that social networking could cause harm to our bodies and brains by “shortening our attention spans” and “weakening our immune systems” (Conger, 2010). Whereas other studies that have been conducted prove the opposite and suggests that teens who spend more time on social networking sites are more likely to be “well-adjusted” and “psychologically” healthy (Healy, 2010). At this point, it’s time to investigate the pros and cons of children being on social networking sites and understand why parents are against social networking and why certain individuals feel that networking is beneficial.

At any given time of day, anyone can access an abundant amount of information at the click of a button. Men, women, kids, teenagers, adults and even the elderly are learning how to use the internet to their advantage. Among all the benefits the internet has provided to us, online communication has proven to be the most beneficial. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have made it easy for everyone to stay in contact with each other. Regardless of how far apart a family member or friend is, everyone is just one click away. If someone is not having a good day, they can share their feelings with everyone in a matter of seconds. These social networking sites have become quite popular among adolescents. They allow teens to stay more connected with their friends outside of school. Now teens have become more obsessed with their friends Facebook or Twitter status than engaging in outdoor activities like football or