The Impact Of Technology And Social Media On Youth

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.

Older generations don’t realize how much technology has affected this generation of teenagers, along with the social media that comes along with the technology. As stated in “How Social Media Changed Teens’ Lives Forever”; “Negative posts or comments also can do great damage to a teen’s self-esteem.” (Ashley Black, Thomas Atseff and Colleen Kaveney) While many parents think social media is just a way to connect with others, many teenagers take it for granted. For example, “quitting social media because it made her miserable and obsessed with appearing perfect online”, is what a teenager felt about social media and what it has done to her. Though many think that social media is a great way to connect, teenagers take it to another level.

Social media has been a topic of debate for years. Some people are strongly against any use of it while others like the instant connection it provides. A major concern over social media is the lasting effects it has on teenagers. Social media can affect teenagers through many ways including things like their self-esteem. Cyberbullying is a raging topic of discussion centered around teens social media use. It can also effect their people skills and create a lack of community involvement. Some parents think that watching what their children do on social media is an invasion of privacy but is your concern for their privacy greater than your concern for their safety? Social media poses a great danger to today’s children. It can affect many aspects of their lives.

While some young people utilize technology to create great content such as music, literature, or coding, it has created a budding effect of a generation that is obsessed with consumption. The truth is the majority of youth’s time has been excessively dedicated to passive activities like watching tv or online videos, gaming and scrolling through social media. According to Common Sense Media, when it’s summed up America’s youth is using an average of 6 hours of media daily, not counting for school or homework. That is a massive chunk stolen from a child’s day and the effects can be extremely damaging. It is leading the young generation of today to become overstimulated, over-scheduled and under pressure to perform both academically and beyond

Social media might be destroying the American youth of today. Social media are several websites and applications created so people may commutate, collaborate, or share information through social networking. Enough though social media sounds great, there are big issues such as, cyber bullying, lower grades, and wasting an incredible amount of time. These are things we should all be cautious about when we allow younger folks enter the world of social media.

Over the last few decades, the use of technology continues to develop daily, impacting the lives of many American’s in a negative matter. In society, because of advanced technology through electronic devices, bullying has increased, people lack in social skills, and it has made people lazier.

Technology has its perks. It’s flashy, it’s fun, it's exhilarating, it’s the hot new thing in town, it makes life more efficient. People can contact someone on the other side of the world with the touch of a few buttons, have the new top that they’ve been wanting for the past two months delivered in just 48 hours. While technology has greatly made life easier on people, people have now abused technology to such a point where people are unable to correctly interact with others, children are no longer developing the proper social skills, and people are unable to accomplish task without the crutch that technology provides.

Are teens being affected by social media and causing them to have eating disorders? Have you ever looked at something on the media and thought to yourself, I wish I looked like them or I wish I was as perfect as them? Teens are struggling everyday because of the things they see on social media. Teens constantly feel as if they need to compare themselves to the “perfect ones”. Yes, teens are being negatively affected by social media because they want to “fit in”, feel confident and the pressure from the media causes them to come upon some sort of negative affects.

Imagine this: the year is 1980, a family is sitting around a dinner table engaging in conversation about how his or her day went, everyone is listening to each other, all is well. Now, fast foreword to 2016, that same dinner table looks completely different. Everyone is looking down, distracted by his or her phone, no one is really listening to each other; this is the reality of today and it shows how much we have changed in the short span of a decade. Without a doubt, I believe that the use of technology has more negative effects than positive ones on our world today. The use of technology has created a place where no one really knows how to talk or communicate with each other, teens and kids can't function without their phones, and eight

Picture a family in a living room silent. All you can see is the light of their tablets and phones lighting up their faces. Technology is everywhere we go. You can not walk down a street, take a plane, or go to a coffee shop without seeing someone staring at a screen. Technology can hurt us in physical and social ways.

Technology has affected our lives for the worst. It has created a multitude of problems that have yet to be resolved. These problems include a loss of identity, antisocial behavior, and a misrepresentation of experiencing life. Technology takes us away from being active participants in our individual lives and places us in a virtual and unrealistic world. Those in contact with technology, which is essentially everyone, are unaware of the deeper influence that technology has upon them. Individuals should be aware of the fact that technology has a significant impact on their lives. We have become desensitized by technology to the point that we do not see that it has affected our lives in such a negative way. Technology brings more problems than

Studies have shown that the average person now spends more time each day on their phone and computer than they do sleeping according to Nick McGillivray (“What are the Effects of Social Media on Youth?). Social has become part of our social society, especially for the many youths. There are positives to being on social media and also equal amounts of danger that come with using social networking sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. These social networking sites also have effects on today’s youth by altering the way they behave, the way they learn, in not only a classroom setting but also in the real world setting, and the way that they socialize with their peers and others.

Social media has significant consequences across all demographics. First, children are more distracted due the amount of media they utilize simultaneously. Multi-tasking is common among children. Often, children can be seen text messaging and listening to music on their IPod, while doing their homework. Results of a panel discussion by the NYU Child Study Center identify that 80% of adolescents have access to at least one type of social media. Furthermore, 54% of teens communicate through text messaging, sending over one hundred text messages each day. In the same light, children participate in bullying through social media, “because it’s harder to have empathy for your victim when you’re not face-to-face with him or her.” (Diaz, Evans, and Gallagher). Next, young adults are the most proficient and hyper-connected technologically in comparison to other generations. Raised in a time of information overload, these young people prefer text messaging a friend instead of meeting for lunch or going to a movie together. This generation develops relationships through cyber communication to, “provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship” (Turkle 2012). Simply said, millenialls have a “thirst for

Our world has become an electronic playground. With the invention of new technology we have simplified and aided processes in countless fields. While electronic technology may be beneficial; it has some detrimental effects. Technology has had a massive, negative impact on our society: our children are learning differently, our social skills and ability to communicate are becoming compromised, and the invention of social media is becoming a leading cause to numerous mental health issues. Technology is taking over, like the apocalypse no one saw coming.

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.