Eli Kimmel Ms. Lehmann English 2-1B 11 March 2020 Social Media
“Each day, 11 teens die in crashes caused by texting and driving. 2.35 million people in the US are injured or disabled by car crashes every year. More than 330,000 of these crashes that cause severe injury are caused by texting and driving”, (Teeensafe.com). This is why social media impacts teens in good and bad ways, in which scenarios and examples this paper will explain. Teens should be responsible users of social media because social media impacts teens’ well-being, social connectedness and academic achievement. 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 good and bad impacts on teens’ 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 impacts 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 thingsin 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. In many ways that we bot realize and don’t realize, social media also impacts our connectedness positively and negatively. “A majority of teenagers indicate that social media ‘mainly helps’ relationships with friends. Teenagers use social media, video chat, texting, and instant message to socialize, make plans, provide support, and collaborate on homework” (James et al 72). This quote shows how social media can be used to be used to keep in touch withdistant family or friends, therefore building a stronger connection with those people. Although there are certainly positives, there can be drawbacks, too.“A third of teenagers at least ‘somewhat’ agreed that using social media detracts from time they could be spending with people face-to-face, and 44% at least ‘somewhat’ agreed that using social media often distracts them from people they are with in person”(73). The quote explains that social media distracts people from having face to face interactions with other people around them, making them disconnected from the people they are with. This all goes to show that social media’s impacts are complex and should be monitored by users.
Some argue that the dangers of social media have been overexaggerated. 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 connectedness. Success in school has also been impacted by screentime.“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-Velertet al5). 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 minimize its impact on their health, connections with others, and success in school.Being aware of how they use social media can help minimize the impact of social media on teens’ well-being. Restricting the amount of time on social media can help teens’ connectedness with friends and help them to be less distracted. Social media affects teens’ school success because teens take time out of their sleep time to be on social media, effecting their sleep, and their grades. Social media’s impact has even gone so far as to cause death, making it crucial that teens learn to use it responsibly.
Works cited
James, Carrie, Katie Davis, Linda Charmaraman, Sara Konrath, Petr 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 Search Premier, doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1785F. Accessed 21 January 2020.
K.Y. “Social Media and Teens.” School Library Journal, vol. 64, no. 10, October 2018, pp. 18-18. 1 graph. Academic Search Premier, Accessed 21 January 2020 Peiró-Velert, Carmen, Alexandria Valenica-peris, Luis M. González, Xavier Garcia-Massó, Pilar Serra Añó, and José Davís- Davís. “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 2020.
Reflection 1. Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific. I decided what I wanted to write this paper on, then researched it, and typed it.
2. What qualifies this paper as a research paper? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them? It has research, peer reviewed articles which are quoted, and a bibliography and a works cited page. 3. Explain one thing you learned about reading research or taking notes on research that you can apply to your next research paper. I learned that I should learn to not procrastinate as much.