The Influence of Technology on the Lives of Teenagers and Youths Can Be to Their Benefit

Some of the issues that makes it important to address the issue of technology use among teenagers are whether they use it responsibly or if the entertaining aspects of technology make them forget about what is good for them from various technological innovations. Time is another important aspect of technology that needs to be looked into in relation to the responsible use of technology among teenagers and the youths in the world today. Societal responsibility is one of the issues related to technology adoption and use by teenagers and youths that need to be addressed in a bid to ensure the technology influence on teenagers and youths is for their benefit. For instance, which members of the society can help teenagers and the youths to make good use of the technology and technological innovations around them to help them build their intellectual, social, cultural and religious responsibilities (Borowiec, 29). Almost every member of the society has a role to play for the betterment of others. In the case of technology, policymakers, guardians, educators and law enforcers are among the people who can play an important role in ensuring the lives of teenagers are protected from bad influence such as the social media vices, misuse of electronic devices such as cell phones and the use of time in interacting with the various technologies and their relevant innovations. Some of the people and organizations that can help regulate the negative influence of technology among teenagers and youths are governments, parents, teachers, and innovators.

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The government includes the lawmaking bodies and the implementers of the law that can help regulate the way teenagers and youths are exposed to the media and other technological innovations that can influence their lives negatively. Such bodies also have the responsibility of ensuring that the technology teenagers and youths use are age appropriate and are for their benefits. In some cases, it is important to ensure that people understand their roles in terms of engaging the teenagers and the youths in gainful activities for most parts of their lives. That way they can remain useful, not only to themselves but also to other people and even to the government. Laws enforcer, for instance, can ensure that censorship is used to control the content that teenagers and the youth access from the internet (Borowiec, 20). The social media has been widely criticized for exposing teenagers and youths to contents that are not appropriate to them. If censorship is effectively carried out, then it would be easy to ensure that the social media is only used for activities that connect the young users to their families, creating for them academic opportunities and strengthening their social lives and abilities. Government as an organization is responsible for some of the technology that leads to increased moral decadence among teenagers just because they want to make money. Since the network providers, content providers, and social media influencers contribute immensely to the revenues the governments collect, they may be permitted regardless of the fact that they misuse the opportunities and mandates given to share unauthorized services and contents with teenagers (El Sherif et al., e169). If the same government can ensure that what drives their decisions as regards technology is not entirely the revenues they generate to the country, but also to the possible negative effects, then the negative influence of technology among the young users can be effectively controlled.

Secondly, the educators are another important group of people who influence the way teenagers and the youths think about technology and social media, use them and perceive them. Since most teenagers spend most of their times as leaners, their biggest influencers are the teachers. Again, it is important to note that teachers are taught psychology such that they can easily understand the needs of the teenagers and what can be done to politely refuse to grant them some of the things they need desperately. Issues of internet addiction are mostly controlled by the teachers who ensure that cell phones are not used in school, and when they are used, then the use is regulated. That way, the teachers ensure that what the learners use the internet and the various electronic gadgets and devices. The social responsibility of teachers is of importance in the development of learners as children, teenagers and as youths. The teachers are not only supported to be people whose job description is only to teach the learners the provided syllabus, but also identify their talents and opportunities in life (Rosen et al., 370). They are also mandated to ensure that any engagements that would distract the learners from exploring their full potentials are regulated. It is important to appreciate the influence educators have in the leaners to the extent that the learners believe most of the things they are doing are the correct ones. In fact, when teachers decide to discourage their students not to play video games during their free time, the dependence or addictions to video games among the learners may reduce immensely (Rosen et al., 374). That is because the teachers know the best way to drive a point home for the learners and ensure that they internalize such instructions.

Parents have a big role in ensuring that teenagers and youths use social media platforms to improve their lives and not the other way round. Some of the ways in which parents can ensure this is through teaching them the benefits of using social media and the negative effect of using social media. Social media platforms contain a lot of information both good and bad. It is very important that parents should be aware of what the teenagers and the youths are doing in the social media so that they can identify the approach they give the teenagers and youths when they are teaching them the effects of using the social media. Parents are always the role model to the teenagers and the youths, therefore, when the parents are using social media in the right, then teaching the teenagers becomes very easy. Although the social media has a lot of the good information that both the teenagers and the youths can use to help them improve themselves in terms of business and in education, social media also comes with other risks when it is not handled carefully. Since youths and teenagers are very vulnerable and are in the stage of exploring, some websites contain information that is not beneficial to teenagers or youths (Bleakley et al., 24). Therefore, as parents, it is very important to stand up and educate the teenagers on the benefits of the use of social media also alerting them on the risks that come because of bad use of technology. Parents engaging themselves in educating the teenagers will help reduce the rate of cyberbullying which today is occurring at a high rate. Another reason why parents should monitor the sage of technology among teenagers and the youths is to help them have a positive habit towards the social media by having breaks and not allowing notifications to their devices (Bleakley et al., 24). Some of the teenagers are too much into the social media that they have forgotten the real world. As parents, it is very important to monitor the time that a teenager is spending in the social media.

Lastly, the innovators can also play an important role in ensuring that the contents and technological innovations that influence the young users negatively are controlled effectively. For instance, customization so that the content people get are age appropriate since it is important in ensuring the teenagers and the youth only consume internet contents that are appropriate for their age. In fact, it is important to note that the innovators can play an important role in ensuring that the technological innovations exposed to the learners have more of benefits to their learning processes more than they have any negative influence on their development (Borowiec, 33). In fact, the government and parents need to collaborate with the innovators to ensure that they understand how best to use technology for the benefits of the teenagers and the youth who can still make wrong choices on what they perceive as good for them.

On the contrary, the extent at which the teenagers and the youths have been exposed to various technological innovations, it would be impossible to control their negative influences. The social media influencers have become the major definers of the characters of the young internet users. Issues such as cyberbullying, internet discriminations among other cybercrimes have become so deeply rooted in the society today that any effects by parents, the governments and even the innovators can do very little to reduce them (Wasinski, and Tomczyk, 73). The teenagers have reached a point that they can develop their own internet and build their own internet gadgets to allow them to access the internet and use as they please. Again, controlling the way people use the internet is very hard, and the teachers do not spend all the time with the learners, neither do their parents (Wasinski, and Tomczyk, 69). However, it is important to note that a combination of the parents, teachers, the government and the innovators can lead to a reduced negative influence of technology and increase their benefits in the lives of the young users through legislation, controlled innovations, and monitoring.

Conclusion

In summary, in the world today, the activities teenagers and youths engage in for the most part of the day involve interaction with technology in one way or another. For that matter, the issue of safety in the use of technology has become of importance. It is very difficult to draw a definite line between technology overuse and rewarding use among teenagers. Some of the important people in ensuring that teenagers and the youths use technology for their benefit include the teachers, parents, the government as well as the innovators. If the above-mentioned people play their roles well, then technology can be of more importance to teenagers than harm.

References

Bleakley, Amy et al. "The Role of Parents in Problematic Internet Use among US Adolescents". Media and Communication, vol 4, no. 3, 2016, p. 24. Cogitatio, doi:10.17645/mac.v4i3.523.

Borowiec, Steven. "South Korea'S Smartphone Spies: New Law Embeds Surveillance Tool on Teenagers' Phones". Index on Censorship, vol 44, no. 3, 2015, pp. 28-31. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/0306422015605708.

El Sherif, Reem et al. "Reducing Negative Outcomes of Online Consumer Health Information: Qualitative Interpretive Study with Clinicians, Librarians, and Consumers". Journal of Medical Internet Research, vol 20, no. 5, 2018, p. e169. JMIR Publications Inc., doi:10.2196/jmir.9326.

Rosen, L.D. et al. "Media And Technology Use Predicts Ill-Being Among Children, Preteens And Teenagers Independent Of The Negative Health Impacts Of Exercise And Eating Habits". Computers in Human Behavior, vol 35, 2014, pp. 364-375. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.01.036.

Wasinski, Arkadiusz, and Lukasz Tomczyk. "Factors Reducing the Risk of Internet Addiction in Young People in their Home Environment". Children and Youth Services Review, vol 57, 2015, pp. 68-74. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.07.022.