How Social Media Influence Teenagers

Every two minutes people check their smart phones looking for the latest news of their online friends, pictures of celebrities they follow on Instagram or just to make sure their last photo or status update has been Liked! Of course this is only an aspect of today’s social media. What none can deny is the popularity they are gaining day by day.

In order to examine whether the pros are more than the cons for social media users, we are going to present both the positive and the negative effects. Under no circumstances should this article be considered as a verdict. Each one of us can make up his mind and take responsibility of his action.

Without doubt engaging in social media can be beneficial for education, Politics gaining awareness, socialization and career opportunities:

1. Student have free access to online information and can be easily communicate with their teacher
2. People are more likely to get politically involved if their online friends do
3. People get informed about the latest news faster than they would if they bought a newspaper or listened to the radio
4. Being online can really help you keep in touch with someone you would have normally lost contact and is an opportunity to make new friends
5. Especially via LinkedIn employees and unemployed had be able to find a job

On the other hand, equally many are the arguments against social media. Students are enabled to cheat on school projects and in many cases their grades drop. But this is the least of what a social media user can suffer from. People tend to be too open with personal information. They even share personal photos totally unaware of the fact that these can be used without their permission.

Details shared on social media can be very useful to criminals and sexual predators as they get all information needed to assault. Victimization by cyberbullying often been reported by students, which in some cases led to suicides! Especially, young people should be extremely careful with what they share since the risk they are taking is too high.

Social networking can have major negative effects if you face it as something totally innocent, because it is simply not. Since information is spread rapidly online an awareness campaign should start in order to make people and mainly teenagers, who are in the early stage of social media using and cannot handle their social accounts properly and with high responsibility to reconsider their relationship with social media. Prevention is always better than cure!

– By Giota Gkika

Stay tuned…

References

Claywell, C. R. (2013). Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking. Retrieved from http://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of_Social_Networking

Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Retrieved from http://michaelhaenlein.com/Publications/Kaplan,%20Andreas%20-%20Users%20of%20the%20world,%20unite.pdf

McGillivray, Nick. “What Are the Effects of Social Media on Youth?” TurboFuture. TurboFuture, 12 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Mar. 2017. <https://turbofuture.com/internet/effects-of-social-media-on-our-youth&gt;.