Effects of Social Media on Teenagers Essay

Today, we are living in a global world where technology has taken control of the functioning of mind and our daily activities. Many people especially the youths have moved to digitalization which has a high influence on their lives. Various researchers conducted to prove that social media has adverse effects on the lives of teenagers. The most top used social media platforms used by young people include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The communication and interaction of young people are profoundly affected by the use of social media. In life today, social media is evolving very fast. Many people use it, most significant percentage being the young people. Research shows that more than 75% of teenagers in America spend more than 65% of their time on social media chatting with friends and sharing their photos and images. Social media has both positive and negative effects, depending on what the individual is gaining from using it. Social media was invented to bring positive value to the world, but in some ways, the youths have misused its purpose. On the side of teenagers, social media leads to addiction, cyberbullying, gambling, drug usage, the formation of criminal groups and low self-esteem among the youths.

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Addiction to social media leads the young people to poor performance in their studies. Many students who would have performed better end up failing or not reaching their potential. While professors are teaching, they are busy on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram following up on what's trending thus losing concentration (Puccio, Deana, & Havey p 57). At home, the young people are too busy chatting that they can neither help their parents nor study the next day's topic in advance. Addiction to social media leads to poor studying habits which can change an excellent student to a lousy student. Addicted young people can also live in a world of their own, far away from reality. Using their phones all day will not leave them time for outside undertakings like engaging in sports or camps. They don't get a chance to meet new friends, talk to their parents about day-to-day experiences. Instead, they chat with their friends on social media platforms. They end up living in a world of social media that does not exist.

Young people's addiction to social media makes them go to bed late while reading the latest news on Facebook and Twitter, and chatting with friends. Sleeping late is harmful to an individual's health mostly the brain. Failure to get enough sleep would trigger migraines and a feeling of fatigue. Addiction to social media also causes depression in young people. Seeing other people who are better in appearance or more talented would make them feel inferior. They would wonder why they are not that successful, beautiful or talented, thus feeling pressured and depressed like other people. Mental complications could lead the young people to commit suicide in the long run.

Social media use has also led to increased gambling practices among many youths. It has lately appeared as a noteworthy public health problem. There is worry that teenagers and young grownups comprise the top risk group with gambling problems. Gambling leads to time wastage where teenagers spend most of their time gambling and even watching games with the hope of winning. The time they spend on gaming can be utilized elsewhere, to yield good results. For instance playing with friends, spending time with parents or even studying. Money is also wasted on gambling whereas it would have been used to fulfill other more critical needs. (Gainsbury et al 20). Teenagers, especially students might feel they want to place bets on their school fees money so that they can get extra money for their upkeep. They would view gambling as an easy way of getting cheap money. When these young people lose their money on betting, they end up becoming depressed because they didn't have any other money on them, or even because of frustrated and unmet expectations (Jana, Chomynova & Csemy p 78). Losing a lot of money while they thought they would win can lead to depression. At this point, the individual might find suicide to be the only easy way out of all these problems.

References

Gainsbury, S., et al. "The use of social media in gambling." Gambling Research Australia (2015).

Puccio, Deana, and Allison Havey. Sex, Likes and Social Media: Talking to our teens in the digital age. Random House, 2016.

Spilkova, Jana, Pavla Chomynova, and Ladislav Csemy. "Predictors of excessive use of social media and excessive online gaming in Czech teenagers." Journal of behavioral addictions 6.4 (2017): 611-619.