Social media has become a huge
part of our everyday life. We do not only use one social media platform, we use
several different platforms for different purposes. One thing that they all
have in common is that it is a way for us to keep in contact and communicate
with our family and friends. Social media made it easy for us to create an
online identity and connect with people, and we spend hours just scrolling
through all the news feeds. Everyone has different reason for using social
media. For some their online life is the same as their real life, but there are
also those who hide behind their online identity and feel more connected to the
online world. Having many friends and get a lot of likes has become very
important, especially among younger people. With social media we have created
an online community, which is shaping every aspect of our real life. Today’s,
technology can be helpful for businesses and for education, but it can also
have a negative impact. It also educates us of global issues and gives us the
chance to help, even if we are far away from the problem. However, it does have
a negative impact on us as individuals, especially teens and young adults. They
spend way too much time and energy on social media, and they do not know how to
control it. Today, they are so connected with the online community that they
are disconnected from the real world.
They are so afraid to miss out on something
that they are connected to all their social media platforms 24/7. This has created
an addiction, and for many of us the first thing we do in the morning and the
last thing we do before we go to bed is scrolling through our social medias.
However, it does not end there. While we are working, doing homework, sit in
class, or having dinner with our family and friends the phone is always there
with us and is connecting us to the online world. Turkle (2012) claims that,
“We’re getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be
with each other, but also elsewhere – connected to all the different places
they want to be.” It is not enough for us anymore to just be at one place,
which is resulting in multitasking. I would say that it is a harmful behavior,
both to the people around us and ourselves. We have become so good at
multitasking that we constantly are doing it without considering the consequences. We are not as good at multitasking as we
would like to think. This behavior means that we are not 100 percent present,
and it becomes hard to pay attention to conversations. Have you ever had dinner
with your family and friends and everyone is on their phones not listening to
you? Is there anything more annoying than talking to someone who is one his or
her phone and constantly asks, “What was that”? I am as guilty to this as
everyone else. The question is why our social media usage has become more
important than our friends in real life. No one is listening in real life
anymore, so people choose to post their feelings on social media where they
know they have listeners. We show respect to our online friends but not to the
ones in real life. This makes us want to spend more time on our technology
devices, since that is where we get our feedback (Turkle, 2012). We need to get
teenagers and younger adults to understand that this is not reality, and that
real life interactions are important. Our cellphones and computers are never
going to be able to replace a real person. When we use social media so much
that it disconnects us from the real world we have a problem. A change needs to
be done, and we need to be more present in our offline life than our online. The
more we connect online the more we go offline in the real world. We spend so
many hours online that we feel like we do not have time for face-to-face
interactions.
A problem teenagers are facing is
that they spend too much time on social medias and do not have enough knowledge
about it. Social media has become an addiction for teenagers, and it is a
threat to their future. When using social media and not have enough knowledge
they put themselves at risk. O'Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson (2011) claims that,
“the main risk to preadolescents and adolescent online today are risks from
each other, risk of improper use of technology, lack of privacy, sharing too
much information, or posting false information about themselves or others.” When
we access different sites or make a comment or post, we leave digital
footprint. However, many teenagers are not aware of this, and do not know that
they put their future reputation at risk. The lack of awareness results in
teenagers posting pictures or post without understanding the consequences that
they will late end up regretting. For the older generation that have used
social media for a while now know, “what goes online stays online” (O'Keeffe
and Clarke-Pearson, 2011). I know when I first started using social media I did
not really care what my friends or I was posted. It was just fun sharing
pictures and thoughts with my friends, and I did not consider the consequences.
Luckily I can say that I have never posted anything that I regret, but if I
knew what I know today I would be a lot more caucus about my media usage.
Knowledge is a powerful tool, and I believe that it is important to for
teenagers to realize that their actions being made in the online world is
following them into the real world.
Social media is also a threat to
their health. To constantly being online results in stress, depression, poor
sleep, and poor academics. O'Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson (2011) explains that
researchers have proposed a phenomenon that is called “Facebook depression,”
which means that depression occur when teens spend a great deal of time on
social media sites and then begin to show symptoms of classic depression. For
teens it is important to be accepted and feel connected with peers, and since
social media creates such an intense world it might trigger depression
(O'Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson, 2011). How do teenagers know is they are accepted
or not in the online world? For many it is the likes and comments they get on
their pictures and posts. Studies have shown that if individuals do not use
social media for 48 hours it will reduce aggression toward others, reduce
procrastination, reduce negative affects with toward others, and increase life
satisfaction. The same study also showed that after these 48 hours students
used Facebook more. This was a result of feeling disconnected (Powell, Gary,
& Reese, 2013). This shows that we need to limit the usage of social media.
Stress, depression, poor sleep, and poor academics are not the only problem to teenagers’
health. I would say that one of the biggest problems is that teenagers have taken
their offline behaviors, such as bullying, with them into the online world,
which has resulted in cyber bullying and privacy concerns. Cyber bullying is
huge issue that is happening to many teenagers. This can lead to psychosocial
outcomes that includes depression, anxiety, sever isolation, and in worst-case
suicide (O'Keeffe, & Clarke-Pearson, 2011). This is something that needs to
be stopped immediately. Not only does it disconnect the victim of cyber
bullying from the real world but also from the online world.
The amount of time teenagers and
young adults spend on social media has to decrease, and they need to learn how
to use it. I believe that there is a solution to this problem and I believe
that the solution is education. If everyone was aware of how much social media
actually affected them and how their actions online affected others I believe
that the online and offline world would look different. There is nothing wrong
with sharing your thoughts and feelings online, and it is a great way to
connect with people. However, we need to regulate the amount of time we spend
on it. Being addicted to social media put teenagers health at risk, especially
when they use it wrong. On a daily basis we spend more time on social medias
than we sleep, and I do not consider that to be a healthy behavior. We need to
work together and get more connected in real life, and realize the importance
of face-to-face interactions. Social media is an amazing tool to connect
people. It is useful in both education and businesses, but it needs to be used
in the right way. The way teenagers use social media today is not healthy for
them, or beneficial for their future.
References
O'Keeffe, G.
S., & Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The impact of social media on children,
adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 127(4), 800-804.
Powell, P.
W., Gray, G., & Reese, M. K. (2013). Connecting with Others: A Qualitative
Study of Online Social Networking Site Usage. The Practitioner Scholar:
Journal of Counseling and Professional Psychology, 2(1).
Turkle, S.
(2012) Connected, but alone? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together/transcript?language=en
