Social Medias Impact On Teens

       Nowadays, teenagers have all the digital devices you can think of and they all come with social media apps. Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat, all affect teenagers in different ways. One might argue that having social media helps improve lifestyles like being more fit and healthy from seeing models and how they look, but in the long run, teens become dissatisfied with their appearance and become very insecure about their body, feel a state of depression or anxiety. Perfect Illusions PBS said that 42% of girls in grade 1 - 3 want to be thinner. No one that young should be feeling self-conscious about their body. 78% of 17 year olds, girls especially, are unsatisfied with how they look. Seems unbelievable, right? That’s not it. 46% of high schoolers have an eating disorder. If social media is affecting kids and teens this much, why do we continue to have social media? The false body image that is being carelessly thrown out to the world has got to stop. Would you want to being living life like this? If you are, why?

        Instagram is flooded with perfect body images which are almost always photoshopped to reach this ideal body that no one really has naturally. In many cases, at a young age, people are exposed to social media and perfect models that stand on the page. Body images can create false fantasies for young girls, such as making them want to look a certain way even though everyone has their own body type. Teenagers start to have this image in their head of what they need to look like in order to be beautiful and when teens look at their flaws, they become depressed, but mostly very insecure. The article Social Media: A new source of insecurities, says that at age 13 teens become to recognise the image you don’t have and by 17 years old, it only becomes more noticeable to them and worse. Even though a teenage girl could end up being as “perfect” as other models or celebrities, she will still tend to not feel satisfied with herself because each model looks different. Luckily, throughout time people start accepting who they are and what they look like, but very slowly it happens.

        Now, I know for a fact that almost all the seventh graders at my school find themselves in bed with their phone checking social media. New posts of Cara Delevingne and her unique looks or maybe looking through Kendall Jenner’s Instagram account. No matter what person you wish you could look like, we all think about it. Going to bed becomes a struggle and it’s as if the phone sits on your bed just taunting you to pick it up and continue the searching. “Increase of vulnerability for the onset of depression and anxiety, and poor sleep quality may contribute to this,” Cleland Woods said. Lack of sleep because of social media can make teens depressed and more sensitive to things, such as how they look. The study, from British Psychological Society showed that nighttime social media use relates to poorer sleep quality. It also results to higher anxiety and depression.

        Being self-conscious about yourself can lead to way more then wanting new clothes. Personality changes and mood swings are some of the many emotional things that can happen. Growing up can be hard enough, but when jealousy of girls, models, or actresses come into place, it makes it even harder when you are still figuring out who you are. Girls may become intimidated by other women, who are on television shows, or are famous. Teenagers may treat others in a rude manner because of the influence they hear through the internet or through media. The Huffington Post said “25 percent admitted to difficulties in relationships because of social media". Sadly, anxiety squirms into teens head and in some cases, it can become so difficult that they become very depressed.

        Overall, social media and the false body image it puts out, creates too many unnecessary problems for teens. It causes anxiety, depression and insecurity. Teenagers are already experiencing changes and figuring out who they really are, but when social media comes into place, it makes it very difficult for teens. Teens are so emotionally attached to social media these days that it can hurt relationships and how you feel about yourself. On the other hand, social media can provide a rich source of information and help people stay connected. Teenagers need to be responsible and learn how to manage how much screen time they have. But, how much teens are hurt, needs to stop.

Social Media Causing Insecurities in Body Image

We’ve all known that feeling when you see someone on Instagram with that gorgeous new handbag or that makeup someone is wearing. You want it. You aspire to be like them, and that's fine, until you realise that you can’t be like them and that’s where the problem begins. Social media was designed so that you could see what everyone is doing every second of the day. But do we really need to know what everyone is doing every second of the day? If you think about it that way it sounds just that bit creepier.

Some people might argue that social media can be good helping to create connections, keep in contact and motivate you to be better and more like the people you see on social media. Whether or not teenagers should use social media is a complicated issue because although there are many benefits of social media such as keeping in contact with people, sharing job opportunities and resources. As well as helping find criminals, it can also raise money and awareness. But this argument is misguided because the average teenager doesn’t actually need to do any of this. What tends to happen is teenagers end up wasting time and using social media for things that aren’t so good. If social media was used responsibly these problems wouldn’t come up so much. The actual topic that should be discussed is that social media really affects the way teenagers think of themselves. Social Media can cause depression, anxiety and self esteem issues such as bullying as well as body image problems. This promotes teenagers to do unhealthy things to themselves in order to appear ‘ideal’ to society. To much social media can be bad for teenagers and people should promote less time spent using social media. Except when teens are using social media to help them stay in touch or if it is keeping them from doing other harmful things.There are many benefits to using social media however social media can be bad especially for teenagers who are vulnerable to depression and self esteem issues.

Social media can cause insecurity in teenagers. Now of days teenagers are using far too much social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. I’m not saying that they are bad but that we should be cautious of how much we use them and what we use them for. Social media leads teenagers into false impressions seeing a post and thinking that is what I should look like causing them to become insecure of themselves. Something on social media, a post of a beautiful girl (probably photoshopped and edited). Leaves you thinking that you are not ‘ideal to society’. According to an article on Teen Health and the Media, “One study reports that at age 13, 53 percent of American girls are ‘unhappy with their bodies.’ This grows to 78 percent by the time girls reach 17.” This is significant as that is a lot of girls who don’t feel good in their own body. Feeling confident in your own body is really important as so much is going on in your life that you don’t need to be worrying about what you look like. Now of days people spend way too much time worrying about things that they don’t need anything else to worry about. According to Clean Cut Media “Almost across the nation 50% of young girls are engaged in negative activities such as injuring and cutting themselves or engaging in unhealthy eating habits and disorders due to self-esteem and self-image issues.” (2009).

Don’t you wonder why they do this? The cause is low self esteem that has been caused by social media. Social media is away to brag about your life and if you are already insecure enough the pressure can just be too much. You should never feel the need to injure yourself or do unhealthy things. I have known people to be upset and insecure about themselves and it has been related to social media. Social media causes many problems and insecurity is a big one especially in teenagers where they are most vulnerable to being insecure of their bodys. Especially when all those beautiful edited photos are posted. Body image is very important to many people and I understand that. Especially now in this time and age where it has become ‘normal’ to try and be ideal and have the perfect image. Did you know that in America 57% of girls have mothers who criticizes her looks. (Girl Self-Esteem & Image Issues & Parents, 2009). How would you feel if your parents or children criticized you on how you looked? Parents aren’t supposed to make their children feel insecure. Children already have enough of that at school and that is the last thing they need. 

Social media provides another place for bullies to hurt people. On social media things can be done anonymously and for some reason people think that it is different than face to face bullying. Let me tell you this there is no difference. While many people feel that bullying on social media is a problem. How many are actually trying to stop it? According to Social Networking ProCon “49.5% of students reported being the victims of bullying online and 33.7% reported committing bullying behavior online. [110] 800,000 minors were harassed or cyber bullied on Facebook according to a June 2012 Consumer Reports survey.” (Networking ProCon, 2015) Bullying is not nice and can make people feel insecure and have anxiety. No one wants to be bullied but often the bullies are the ones who are insecure. Everyone remembers when QuizYourFriends was popular. Someone who was obviously insecure took my quiz and said some really horrible things to me. Probably trying to make themselves feel better by taking pride in making someone else feel insecure. Social media offers just the place to do this. Cyberbullying is linked with depression. "There were consistent associations between exposure to cyberbullying and increased likelihood of depression," Hamm told Livescience.(Pappas, 2015). Bullying makes people upset and depressed and insecure. It’s all a vicious circle. "Kids really are hesitant to tell anyone when cyberbullying occurs," Hamm said. "There seems to be a common fear that if they tell their parents, for example, they'll lose their Internet access." Kids shouldn’t have to be scared to report bullying, parents are supposed to help in these situations. But it also provides a way of communication. According to Top Ten Social Media “Statistics show that 70% of adults have used social media sites to connect with relatives in other states, and 57% of teens have reported making new friendships on social media sites.” Social media is a lot quicker then sending an email and if your followers are people you want to keep in contact as soon as you post they get notified. It’s way easier. I use social media and don’t see a problem as long as you use it responsibly. The problem is that some people don’t.

Overall social media can be good helping people to stay connected, but people can waste lots of time on it. Social media can be bad causing teenagers to feel insecure, depressed and have self esteem issues such as not being confident in their body image. If people spent less time on social media there would be less of this trouble. Although social media can be good in some cases. It affects teenagers and how they think of themselves but in the end everyone uses it and it is the individual's responsibility to use it wisely. I hope that you can see how much social media can affect you and the way you think about your body. Please understand that social media causes many problems that you just don’t need especially in your teenage years.

Bibliography:

Pappas, Stephanie. "Cyberbullying on Social Media Linked to Teen Depression." Live Science. Live Science, 22 June 2015. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.


O'Brien, Shaelyn, and Camryn Reid. "Social Media: A New Source of Insecurities." The Highlander Online. Highlander Online, 18 Nov. 2014. Web. 08 Mar. 2016.

"Social Networking ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. ProCon.ORG, 24 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.

TopTenSM. "10 Pros and Cons of Social Media." Top Ten Social Media. Top 10 SM, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.