Natalia Valdez Ms. Lehmann English 2-1B 7 February 2022 The Effects of Social Media on Teens Erik Qualman once said,“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how we do it.” Social media has had a large impact on young adults. Teens should be responsible users of social media because social media impacts teens well-being, social connections, and academic achievements. In examining social media’s impact on well-being, it is clear the connection is complex. How we use social media impacts our well-being. Social media has both positive and negative impacts on teen’s emotional health. There are a range of challenges teens face in life, and social media allows them to seek out help they might not get otherwise. James et al write, “The ability to communicate anonymously can mitigate barriers, such as shame, that interfere with support- seeking offline” (72). Being able to anonymously ask for help has a positive impact on teens’ lives because it allows people to ask for help without feeling judged so that they can get the help they need. Having considered the positive impact of social media, users must also be aware of the negative. Social media has been blamed for many negative impacts on people’s lives.James et al explain, “Several investigations document correlations between heavy media use and reduced well-being – related outcomes, such as diminished life satisfaction, internalizing negative experiences, and various dimensions of ill-being, such as depression, anxiety, attention problems, and stress” (72). When young adults use social media to compare themselves to others, negative outcomes will follow. When social media presents the good things in our lives as the only things, users can lose sight of the messiness of life, making them feel less satisfied with what they have. The impact that social media has on adolescents’ well-being depends upon how it is being used. Social media’s impact on face-to face interaction and connectedness is complicated. “The proportion of teens who use social media multiple times a day has doubled over the past six years. “In fact, 38 percent of teens today say they use social media multiple times an hour, including 16 percent who say they use it almost constantly.” (2) Young teens have increased the time usage of social media threw the couple of years. This has changed the preference for face-to-face communication with friends. It’s good that teens have learned the skills to work social media but it affects the skills toface-to-facecommunicationsskills. Some argue that the dangers of social media have been over exaggerated. Despite the appeal of this argument, the negative effects of social media cannot be ignored entirely. Using social media too much has been connected to a lack of emotional and physical well-being as well as weaker social contentedness. Success in school has also been impacted by screen time. “Academic performance is directly related to sleep time and inversely related to overall sedentary SMU [screen media use] among the students who participated in this study”(Peiró-Velert et al 5). The study found that the more time students spent on their screens, the less time they had to sleep, which resulted in lower academic achievement. It’s obvious that social media’s impact is complicated, and people should be mindful of how they use it. By using social media responsibly, teens can minimize its impact on their health, face-to-face connections, and success in school. Being aware of how they use social media can help minimize the negative impact on teen’s well- being. Social media’s impact on teens is largelybased on the personality of the teen still, the amount of time that teens spend on social media affects their academic achievement.Luckily, teens can control this.Just like Eric Qualman said, social media’s effects depend on how we decide to use it, in the end you decide.
Works Cited Page
James, Carrie, Katie Davis, Linda Charmaraman, Sara Konrath, Peter Slovak, Emily Weinstein, and Lana Yarosh. “Digital Life and Youth Well-being, Social Connectedness, Empathy, and Narcissism.” Pediatrics, vol. 140, no.S2, November 2017, pp. 71-75. Academic Social Premier, doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-1758F. Accessed 21 January 2020.
K.Y. “Social Media and Teens.” School Library Journal. October 2018 Vol.64 Issue 10, pp.18-18, 2/3p. 1 Graph. Accessed 21 January 2020.
Peiró-Velert, Carmen, Alexandra Valencia-peris, Luis M. González, Xavier Garacia-Massó, Pilar Serra Añó, and José Devís-Devís. "Screen Media Usage, Sleep Time and Academic Performance in Adolescents: Clustering a Self- Organizing Maps Analysis.” Plos One, vol. 9, no. 6, June 2014, pp. 1-9. Academic Search Premier, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099478. Accessed 10 February 2022. Research Paper Reflection
1) Explain the process you went through to write this paper.Please be specific. The process I went through this paper was research many articles to find the right information.Using the information is this paper I then has to cite all my work. Went through revisions, got my paper back and fix everything that was wrong.
2)What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them? This research paper would also qualify as an argumentative essay because we presented the negative and positive effects on social media usage. We argued on both sides on how social media can affect face-to-face communication but can help you express your feelings more or ask for help.
3)Explain one thing you learned about reading research or taking notes on research that you can apply to your next research paper. When writing a research paper always cite your work, if not it could lead to plagiarism. Don't let someone else try to pass it as theirs. Always look for relevant sources, articles etc.