Sunday 6 March 2011

Social media does more good than bad for teenagers by Rhianna Biggs



Recently, the media has been focusing on the bad consequences of teen social networking such as cyberbullying and sexting. But is social media actually bad for teens? According to the Los Angeles Times, teens who are most active on social networking sites such as Face book are actually more well-adjusted than their less-connected peers. The digital world is simply a new and more multidimensional place for teens to do what teens have always done – form their own identities away from their parents.

Apparently, children most likely to spend lots of time on social media sites are not the least well-adjusted but the healthiest psychologically.

On the other hand social media can be dangerous regardless to all the physiological facts, you may argue that social media makes the kids of today dumber and lazier because they can find the answers to questions with a click of the button. Google has been found to be the most popular social media site with 76% of 13-15 year olds using it more than: msn, yahoo, bebeo.com, face book, wikipedia, my space ect.

Social media, is becoming very popular which is a concern especially for teens because their becoming a lot more anti- social, the time they spend on sites such as face book is increasing by large percentages, their inside most of the day not enjoying the outside world. Teens are isolating themselves from their families by hiding away. Unlike socialising outdoors, you cant be fully sure about who I you are socializing with and why they are socialising with you e.g their have been many stories in the news relating to teenagers being manipulated by the media, people pretending to be the same age even though they were really middle-aged men. Social media also can be extremely addictive for teens which can cause teens to remain glues to computer and laptops for hours without fresh air, something to eat. Wherever you look social media is around, from computers to phones, its all around us and this affects teenagers most because social media is targeted to our generation. This is why old valuable media sources are slipping away, its predicted that newspapers would stop printing in apox ten years time.

Therefore I have to disagree with the statement " Social media does more good than bad for teenagers" because its taking over their lives, its consuming them. The pressure they face with having to update their followers on twitter or friends on face book.

1 comment:

  1. An interesting post, Rhianna. However, you quote quite heavily from an existing article so you need to make sure that you edit your post to acknowledge your sources at the bottom. This is a habit you need to cultivate from now on, throughout your GCSE and beyond.

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