Do You Think Social Media is Good for Teens?

Do You Think Social Media is Good for Teens?

Social media is a big part of many teenagers. Social media has given teens the ability to instantly connect with others. Teens themselves describe social media as a medium for connecting and maintaining relationships, being creative, and learning more about the world. It is an important part of socialising and connection in the modern world. The main reasons teenagers regularly use social media are for talking with friends, joining in on group conversations, learning about current events and staying up to date with online content, meeting new people, and many more.

Being socially connected is very important for the psychological development of teenagers. By connecting with others through social media, teenagers could develop better social skills, feel less isolated, learn about new cultural and societal ideas and issues, bond with friends, have fun, be creative and share their own ideas with friends, be better equipped to be active citizens in society, develop real world skills to help them become more independent, and learn about world events and current affairs outside of their immediate environment.

The social media is an everyday necessary, we need to use it for making life and jobs easier but it also has some cons that may be dangerous if we not using social media wisely, such as; 

Anxiety & depression, lack of sleep/poor quality of sleep because they spent too much time online before bed, negative body images, cyberbullying, FOMO ( fear of missing out). They are also likely to become more disconnected from reality and their families because they spend the large part of their time online. It is also dangerous that in social media we are able to share our personal information. Some teenagers even decreased their self-esteem because they receive negative feedback, sarcastic comments, and such, it can negatively impact their self-image.

In conclusion, social networking has been proved to have both positive and negative effects on our youths. Individuals should make a conclusion whether to go on using the sites or stop or even moderate on their usage. Parents should guide and advise their children on current matters like the usage of social media and warn them of its negative impacts to them when misused or overused. The education curriculum also should be revised so that it can include social media studies in its disciplines so as to alert students that they need to be careful in their social media usage.