Sociology (Social Media effects on people)

Shirokova, Ulyana

Paper #1: Hot Topics

Teens and social media.

My research question is. What are the benefits and drawbacks of online social networking for children?

The reason why I was interested in this topic is because I have been looking at my younger cousins and just regular kids outside, and how much they use their phones and social media accounts. It honestly scares me. My childhood was the furthest thing from this, I did not have a phone till I was about 13 years old, and the phone had absolutely no social media. I was hanging out with my friends, interacting with people, and learning. But I think this new generation is not interacting with people enough, which is going to be a huge problem in the future . I am studying teenagers because they are our future.

The approach that I will be looking at is Symbolic-Interaction Approach. Which level of analysis is micro level. And it answers questions like: How do individuals experience everyday life? How do individuals shape or construct reality based on their experience? And, how do these behaviors and meanings change from person to person?

There are a lot of reasons why teens shouldn't use social media as much as they do these days, but this is one of the most important reasons why. Socialization between teens. Children’s relationship with their peers is one of the most important things about growing up, if they do not get that connection with their peers it gets harder and harder to communicate with people in their future lives, when they will be trying to get into the school they want or get their dream job. According to Kyoung Min Shin, who talks about childhood peer relationships on adolescent mental health , those future adults are more likely to become more vulnerable to emotional problems and social adjustment.

Following bad socialization, comes social anxiety and depression . Teens spend too much time online worrying what everyone else thinks of them, and if they get a couple of negative feedback comments, they get extremely stressed out, and after that we see the results. And that is how and why we lose so many lives, young lives, to depression.

Why is this topic important in the society? We really need to focus on this rising problem, because it is the future generation of people that we are talking about, and if everyone is going to start getting social anxieties and depressions because of Instagram our future is going to fall.

Shirokova, Ulyana

Paper #1: Hot Topics

Teens and social media.

We need to focus on kids, their phones, and mental awareness. We really need to be aware of this. I am from Russia, and no one truly talks about these problems there, so when I came to America I was happily surprised to see how much attention the pay on mental issues of teens, even though Americans might not realize it.

Of course, there are always positives. I would like to address three of those positives. Learn essential job skills, communication, mental health awareness.

My dream is to become a web developer, and it became my dream after I read about it on social media, where they explained how it works and why it is important for the future. It caught my eye, because I did not really know how programming worked, and if I am smart enough to become a programmer. So without it would not be possible.

Communication, is a huge positive about social media. I am a tennis player, and tennis tournaments are all around the world, so I had to travel to a lot of places. Which made me have a lot of friends from other countries, who i might never see again, this gives me a chance to stay in touch with them.

And honestly, for me this is the most important thing. Mental awareness. Now in this generation where it is so easy to hurt someone anonymously, people can not stop doing that. Can not stop spreading negativity, which causes mental illnesses. I have felt that way, and I saw my friends go through depression, and it is a very hard thing to go through without help. At first, it is very hard to go to a person in real life and tell the how you feel. So here is where you use social media, to reach out to people online who provide their help anonymously. It helps people to open up to them, because they do not have to know who they are.

To wrap it all up, this topic is very important to society because we want people to be happy and learn new things everyday. Social media sometimes does not let us do that. I would solve this problem with my child just by controlling the time they spend on their phones a day, and teach them things about life everyday, so they become a full-grown person without mental illnesses.

Shirokova, Ulyana

Paper #1: Hot Topics

Teens and social media.

Citation:

Shin, Kyoung Min, et al. “Effects of Early Childhood Peer Relationships on Adolescent Mental Health: A 6- to 8-Year Follow-Up Study in South Korea.” Psychiatry Investigation, Korean Neuropsychiatric Association, July 2016, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4965647/.