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The Impacts of Social Media on the Development of High School Students
JeQuavius Render
School of Education, Liberty University
Author Note
JeQuavius Render
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to JeQuavius Render.
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract
Social media has impacted and continues to impact the development of high school students.
This piece of writing focuses on the negative and positive impacts that social media use has on
these students. High school students are impressionable due to their youth and their environment.
In addition, social media has caused some of the students to adopt habits that are not normally a
part of their characteristics. This course project focuses on students dealing with cyberbullying,
sleep disruption, depression, anxiety, body image issues, social comparison, and identity
formation due to things that the students watch on social media. High school students sometimes
mimic the characteristics, voices, and actions that they learn on the internet. This project also
focuses on how social media has led students to develop leadership qualities and to carry out
positive change in their communities. In addition, it highlights the impacts that excessive social
media use has on the development of high school students. Many high school students suffer
from sleep deprivation because they spend too much time using social media applications. This
project will bring awareness to a cause that needs a lot of attention.
Keywords: Cyberbullying, social comparison, sleep disruption, depression, anxiety, body
image, problematic use, identity formation
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The Impacts of Social Media on Youth Development (High School Students)
High school teens use social media for many different reasons. Some of these reasons
include establishing connections with new people, maintaining communication with current
connections, sharing life experiences, learning new things, and sharing different photos
(Bautista, 2024). Others may use social media for cyberbullying, stalking, and judging the lives
of others. Although there are some positive and negative impacts that come with the use of social
media, it is evident that high school students use social media more than other age groups
(Zewude A et al., 2025). This is a period in their lives where they are in the midst of finding
themselves. Therefore, social media plays a major influence when it comes to the development
of high school students.
There are many platforms that teens are using in order to engage with the public. Some of
these applications include TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, Facebook, and Snapchat. These
applications give high school students an outlet to express themselves in the cases where they
feel that they do not have a voice. Social media has brought teens some ups and downs over the
years. Many teens admit that their use of social media can be excessive at times. In addition,
some teens have expressed that the negative impacts of social media take a toll on them
(Thompson & Joseph, 2020). With that being said, social media is impacting the academic
success of high school students.
Teachers have complained about how social media usage affects the classroom setting.
On the other hand, some teachers tend to embrace the positive impacts that social media brings
into their classrooms (Sun & Chao, 2024). In order to tackle issues dealing with social media,
there are some ideas that should be implemented. Some of these ideas include monitoring the
amount of social media usage of the teens and not allowing mobile devices in the classrooms. As
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a high school student, it is possible to be influenced by the things that you see on social media. It
is important to bring awareness to the impacts that social media use have on the development of
high school students because it can help to mitigate the effects. For example, awareness can help
when it comes to identifying and implementing different solutions to this issue that is impacting
the academic studies of the students.
Definition of Key Terms
1. Cyberbullying - A person or group using technology in order to threaten, harass, or
embarrass intended targets (Englander, 2021).
2. Social Comparison - The process of evaluating yourself and/or livelihood in
comparison to another person (Vankerckhoven, 2023).
3. Sleep Disruption - A condition that is characterized by sleep insufficiency and/or
interruptions to one’s sleep schedule (Sun & Chao, 2024).
4. Depression - A mental health state where you have periods of sadness, a lack of
interest in different things, and feelings of hopelessness (Englander, 2021).
5. Anxiety - Emotions that can be explained by having feelings of worry, fear,
uneasiness, nervousness, and tension (Englander, 2021).
6. Body Image - A mental image of the way that a person views their own body
(Vankerckhoven, 2023).
7. Problematic Use - The inability to control one’s social media usage, resulting in
periods of withdrawal (Sun & Chao, 2024).
8. Identity Formation - The process in which individuals begin to develop
characteristics that make them who they are (Vankerckhoven, 2023).
Related Literature
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Many factors influence the different impacts that the use of social media has on the
development of high school students. Some of these factors include how much time teens are
spending on social media, their different experiences on the applications, and the different ways
that the students are using their social media profiles. For example, some people experience that
light side of social media where videos and connecting with friends bring them joy. On the other
hand, some people experience the bad side of social media due to being bullied, harassed, and
threatened. In addition, some students use social media as a tool to tutor themselves and to help
their peers with homework assignments. While other students may use it to engage with their
following in hopes of becoming a social media influencer. With that being said, this means that
each student has their own experience when it comes to the impacts of social media. This section
will address the different things that high school students face because of their desire to utilize
these public platforms.
Social Media Impacting Mental Health
At some point in their high school life, many teens have either experienced, participated
in, or witnessed high school students being cyberbullied (Thompson & Joseph, 2020). In order to
address this issue, it is important to determine the root causes of the problem. Many teens bully
others so that they can fit in with a popular group at school (Englander, 2021). By dimming the
light of others, many teens feel that it will make them superior to other students. This tends to
derive from a place of internal and external issues that the individual may be battling themselves.
Some people may bully others in as a tool to strike fear into their peers for their own
entertaining.
There can be long-lasting effects associated with cyberbullying. Some of these issues are
depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideations. At a young age, teens should not be focused on
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battling these mental health issues. Instead, they should be focused on their academic studies.
These mental health conditions can impact the classroom setting. For example, depression and
anxiety can cause students to not engage in classroom participation (Kamal, 2021). Instead, they
remain quiet the entire time and then refuse to raise their hand in case they are confused as to
what they are learning. This has a negative impact on academic development in education
because it can cause students to miss some important educational topics.
Suicidal ideation is a major concern for students who are experiencing things such as
bullying on the internet (Jayman & Knightsmith, 2021). There are many cases around the world
where students have taken their own lives in order to rid themselves of the impacts of bullying.
According to a book published by the WildBlue Press, a teen by the name of Sherokee Harriman
experienced cyberbullying from some teens at her school (Yates, 2018). Feeling boxed in with
no outlet to express her frustrations, she stabbed herself in the chest in front of the same peers
that she accused of bullying her. Although many questioned the validity of the reports because
suicide did not align with the personality of Sherokee, police officers ruled her death a suicide.
This shows that the actions and behaviors of the students on social media have real-life
consequences. This situation left the community seeking answers on who should be held
criminally responsible.
Excessive Use of Social Media
Many teens spend hours observing, mimicking, and learning different trends that they are
watching on social media. This can cause them to engage into excessive usage of social media.
There are some impacts associated with spending too much time on these platforms. One impact
is that it can cause sleep deprivation and sleep interruption. Sleep interruption can happen when
teens wake up in the middle of the night to check their social media pages for different updates.
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As a result, sleep interruption can lead to sleep deprivation by causing the students to have a lack
of adequate sleep (Harness et al., 2022). Depending of the severity, sleep deprivation and sleep
interruption can negatively impact the development of the youth. Parents have the right and the
duty to monitor the amount of social media use and the social media pages of their children. This
is preferred and beneficial because it can influence the impacts of the experiences that your kids
are having online.
When high school students experience inadequate sleep, this can affect their ability to
learn in the classrooms. The reason is because it can cause them to fall asleep in the middle of
different lessons. In addition, it can impact the students’ ability to retain the knowledge that they
are learning. Another impact is that excessive social media use can lead to social isolation. There
are teens that spend many hours in their rooms alone because they are scrolling through their
different social media pages. This can influence the development of social skills. The reason is
because although conversations through the internet are convenient, having the ability to
effectively convey yourself orally will assist the students with their academic studies and their
future endeavors.
Positive Impacts of Social Media Use
Many people tend to highlight the negative impacts of social media, but there are some
positive impacts of its use too. For example, social media has been used to bring awareness to
different issues in the community and around the world (Novelli, 2024). Due to social media, the
teens in this generation are more involved in community outreach activities like the program
Global Fund for Children. This program hosts meetings where they highlight the different
achievements due to youth activism. Teens view their social media platforms as a safe place to
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speak out on different issues and to initiate campaigns with the hope of creating positive change.
Social media has made it easier for teens to partner with community-based organizations.
Not only can social media empower the youth to develop leadership qualities needed to
lead community involvement events, but it can directly impact the academic studies of the
students. For example, there are different tools on social media that can be used to teach students
different topics. Social learning allows teens to learn by watching others performs certain tasks
of problems. Therefore, social media can be used by watching online tutoring profiles solve
similar problems that are assigned for homework. This one on one tutoring style can be effective
because there may be more time to break down the reasonings behind why something is done a
certain way. This can help to improve the academic grades and knowledge of the students.
Learning Theory Association
The social learning theory aligns perfectly with the topic about the impacts the social
media has on the youth development of high school students. This learning theory was created by
Albert Bandura in 1977. It focuses on the different ways that human learning and human
behavior are influenced different factors (Schunk, 2018). Some of these include environmental
and cognitive factors. Social learning deals with four key processes. They are attention,
retention, reproduction, and motivation. Attention focuses on the individuals observing different
behaviors. Retention focuses on the act of remembering the behaviors that were witnessed.
Reproduction is the process of attempting to repeat the behaviors. Motivation is the fuel that
gives a reason to want to carry out the different processes. The use of social media fits this
theory because high school students tend to mimic things that they witness on different
applications.
This theory is used to highlight the relationship between personal factors, different
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behaviors, and the environments that individuals are in. It focuses on the ability of people to
learn by watching other people. In addition, it places an emphasis on attention, memory, and
motivation when it pertains to cognitive processes. Overall, social theory discusses how social
behavior can be learned through observing others and imitating their actions. The one criticism
of this theory is that it neglects the impact that internal factors have on social learning. An
example of social learning is that a high school student may learn to complete a math problem by
watching someone complete a similar math problem on their social media platform.
The youth spends of lot of their time mimicking what they see on social media. For
example, high school students have repeat different trends and dances that they observe on social
media. One of the most influential trends that high school students tend to mimic focuses on the
clothes that they wear. The students are referring to different social media influences for their
next look. This kind of influence is reflected in the styles that students showcase each day when
they attend school. Another thing is that teens tend to pick up on a lot of trends that involve
acting out different behaviors. These behaviors can even come introduce new catch phrases that
are repetitive and catchy.
Gaps in Research
There are some gaps in the research when it comes to understanding the full effects of
this topic. For example, there is very little research the contains surveys taken by high school
students about their social media usage. This is important because in order to address the impacts
that social media has on the youth development of high school students, it is beneficial to know
the average amount of hours they teens spend on it. Most articles reference that many teens
participate in excessive use of social media. The thing that is not being displayed is numerical
data that shows the extent of the issue. In order to highlight the true impacts of this topic there
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must be a study conducted that compares schools that allow students to bring their phones into
the classrooms, to the schools that require them to leave their phones in a locker (Gajdics &
Jagodics, 2022). Even this research will leave out some other data that is needed. There are so
many internal and external factors that are involved because students use their phones at home
and at school.
To address the influence behind social media, researchers must know that experiences of
the teens while engaging in its use. With that being said, it would be beneficial for teens to take
surveys during the middle of each school year about the things that they have witnessed,
participated in, learned, and experienced due to their use of the applications (Kalinin & Edguer,
2023). This will give a realistic assessment into the different things that teens are encountering.
This is helpful because it gives educators, parents, and students the opportunity to identify,
address, and provide solutions to the negative impacts that social media has on the development
of the students. There should be a question that identifies whether teens feel that they have the
appropriate resources and support available to report issues that are taking place online. This
future research is needed in order to make a true assessment of social media’s impacts.
Biblical Worldview
As young teenagers that is approaching adulthood, high school students tend to forget
that they will not be in secondary school forever. This is important to highlight because the
decisions that they make now in life can impact their future. For example, students have been
expelled for bullying other students. There are even some students who have committed suicide
due to the negative impacts that the use of social media had on them (LaRoe & Corrales, 2019).
In the viewpoint of Christian beliefs, these things are said to be sins according to the teachings in
the Scriptures. Therefore, it is imperative that these students realize that their choices have
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consequences. Ecclesiastes says to, “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer
thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes:
but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore, remove
sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity
(King James Bible, 1769/2017, Ecclesiastes 11:9-10).” This scripture tells the youth that
although it is perfectly normal for them to enjoy their lives, they must understand that the
decisions that they make will impact their present and future. Therefore, it is best to consult the
words of Christ in order to choose the appropriate paths when it is time to make decisions.
There are so many other teachings that align with that Scripture. Another teaching is that
this scripture highlights the importance of accountability. Accountability is important because
forces the students to be responsible for their own actions. This scripture influences children to
live with a purpose. Living with a purpose does not mean that students will not make mistakes, it
means that you are making decisions with good intentions. The text places a focus on the long-
term impacts that different choices have on the lives of children. In order to navigate the
different challenges that are soon to come, it is imperative that teens seek God’s wisdom and
guidance.
Conclusion
Social media can negatively or positively impact development of high school students. In
addition, social media can impact the academic success of students. During their use of social
media, students are faced with different kinds of experiences and observations. Some students
have experienced cyberbullying, feelings of depression, and anxiety over things that have taken
place over the internet. Teachers have reported that these issues have affected student
performance, behaviors in the classroom setting, and academic success. Issues from social media
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are sometimes brought into the school because this is the common place where many of them
share together. In order to address the issues that are happening on social media, it is going to
take a collaborative approach from the students, teachers, parents, and school administrators.
Although there are many negative impacts that come with the use of social media,
teachers and students both benefit from the positive aspects. For example, social media can be
used as a platform for tutoring peers. In addition, some teachers use their social media platforms
not only to tutor some students, but to have collaborative conversations about educational topics.
The reason is that adjusting to the current climate of the dependency that students have on
technology, can assist educators with increasing classroom participation. Lastly, it is beneficial
for parents to monitor the social media use of their children. This will bring awareness to the
reality that their kids are experiencing on the internet.
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