Social Media: Effects, Importance, Advantages

Social media is everywhere in the society today and there is no hiding. According to a Pew survey in 2014-2015, 94% of teens have access to social media everyday. That number is growing at a exceptional rate and more than likely will not slow down. Social media has proven that it can have a positive impact in numerous ways , however; more teens now of days fall to the negative consequences due to the immature age.

The world is starting to revolve around social media. Social media has a positive outlook in innumerable ways. Back in the day, every source for educational purposes happened in a textbook or face to face with a teacher. Most schools did not have enough textbooks or resources to allow each student to access that book at home, however; with internet access, teachers can update students, publish a textbook online and even the teaching of their class for them to have at a touch of a button. Other ways that prove social media can be good is that advertising for business that affect the youth can now be published on via Instagram, Snapchat, or etc, by just scrolling through each site instead of flyers or radio stations.

One of the reasons teens use social media so much is because it allows for distant communication to friends, relatives, or other people in their lives. It use to be that people only communicate with people they went to school with or lived in a community with. That is not the case anymore, social media allows communication to anywhere around the world that has a cell phone tower. Without this, communication from afar would be impossible. All of this proves that social media can have a very positive impact on our youth.

Although social media was first intended to be a resourceful product, it has dangerous consequences. Many teens do not understand about the addiction to social media until it seems that it is too late. Certain media sites like Instagram and Snapchat put an image into teens heads that they need to look like that or act like that. It becomes a game of how many likes can I get on my photo?. It pulls young teens in and tries to destroy their self esteem and self image when it was not intended for that purpose. The users on these sites have the power to use the app in a positive way but the feeling of popularity overrides that. Over half of adolescents that are logged onto a social media site have experienced a form of cyberbullying.

It is proven that most teens can not hold temptation of refreshing their news feed every two minutes just to see what someone else is doing without even thinking about it. With the use of social media used so much, it becomes a force of nature almost to be involved in another's life instead of worrying about your own. Most teens would rather surf the internet for no gain important productive information instead of using their powerful resources to help them succeed with their school work.

There's so many other ways that social media can affect the youth in a positive and negative way. Social networking sites are not going to go away, however; how is this going to affect our youth in the future?

It is understood that capabilities of social media on the youth now. Social media will not only affect them now but soon start affecting their future. It seems that the future for our youth will lean towards the negative side due to kids not knowing how to interact face to face with someone, which is how it use to be without technology. Also teens usually begin to think that everything they see on the internet is the truth which in most cases it is not. However, if teens learn to put the phone down, step outside of their comfort zone and interact with our world then they will become one of the most powerful, educational generations yet.

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