The Down Side to Social Media

                                                           

 

                                                                

                                                                 Maria Campos, 12

 

 

 

 

Teenagers are addicted to their social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. They are ways you can communicate with your friends, family, and just anybody. Even though there are some positive things about these social media sites there are also a lot of negative effects.

Teenagers are already under plenty of stress, depression, or anxiety; the question is, is social mediea adding to this? Most teenage girls feel insecure when they see other people posting pictures of themselves showing their beauty like actresses, friends, or even complete strangers.

“The sizes of supermodels and actresses often influence teenage girls -- who are actively seeking to find an identity -- to believe they have to be thin to exemplify beauty.”, said K. Nola Mokeyane, publicist for Global Post.

 Another negative factor is cyber bullying.  Bullying is already a huge issue in today’s society, but social media is just another way someone can bully. Someone can post mean comments about someone or even post pictures about them that can affect their reputation or cause someone to believe the things they say about them. It may cause suicidal thoughts to run through somebody’s mind. There have been many occasions in which teenagers have hurt themselves over cyberbullying. Also, these social sites may interfere with a student’s
education by being a distraction from their work.

 “Studies found that middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study periodachieved lower grades.”, said Larry D. Rosen, psychologist.

 

Social Medias make it hard for teenagers to focus on their work. Most of us would much rather be on our twitters , or on instagram posting pictures than doing homework. These sites are a huge distraction to our education. These sites have also caused misspelling and grammar errors to increase among the teenagers too! Teenagers use acronyms or misspelled words in order to save time and sometimes they get used to typing this way.

 

There are also dangers to these social media sites or just phones in general. There have been many incidents where phones have caused car accidents or deaths because people refuse to put their phones away while driving.

 

These cells phones or social media sites put many things at risk for ourselves. Many people refuse to accept the fact that they spend too much time on these devices or are negatively affected by them but it’s the simple truth.