Adverse Effects of Social Media on Adolescents
Adolescents that grew up in the first decade of the new millennium came of age during the digital revolution. Older media of television, movies, radio, and magazines were all changing and being swapped for new media such as social networking sites. Research patterns of use and effect on adolescents’ health and well-being have not been able to keep up in this new age of social media and technology (Bobkowski and Brown 2011). Everyone now uses social media at all times, but adolescents are the ones that use it the most. Constantly being connected and using social media can have an adverse effect on the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development of adolescents. For many social media sites, you need to be a certain age to be able to make an account or use them, but children can still make an account and simply change their birthday to make them old enough. Facebook, Instagram, and others have no way of regulating this, meaning that young children are able to access these sites. It is important to emphasize the risks and possible harm that can occur through the use of social media if a child is too young to be using it. “The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a law that was passed in 1998 that protects every child under the age of 13 from having their personal information collected, and the operators of the websites and online services must provide notice and permission from parents if it was going to occur (Garber, 2014)” (Bryant 2018). If children under the age of thirteen are still continuing to access social media, then they are at risk of having their information leaked. This can cause numerous ethical issues since private information is more available to the internet, not to mention the companies can be liable themselves if anything happens.
Media is able to influence children physically, cognitively, and socially in their development because it changes how people communicate with each other and allows them to be connected at any part of the day (Bryant 2018). Adolescents can go from talking with their friends at school to going home and continuing the conversation on any forms of social media. Constant use of social media use seems to be wonderful — you can stay connected to all your friends and at all times — but the constant use and psychological harm can make it dangerous. For example, if you are being bullied at school, the bullying can continue even when you are at home or someplace other than school because of social media. Bullying through social media has been taken to a whole new level where “it is impossible to quantify how many deaths have been caused or contributed to in this country by the negative elements of social media” (Bohan 2013). Children are constantly being harassed because of social media, and there is no escape anymore making suicide a more prevalent option for many to escape the torment.
Works Cited
Bohan, Christine. “TD says social media bullying has contributed to deaths.” Thejournal.ie. TheDailyEdge. 6 Jan. 2013, https://www.thejournal.ie/social-media-bullying-political-parties-743140-Jan2013/.
Brown, Jane and Bobkowski, Piotr. “Older and Newer Media: Patterns of Use and Effects on Adolescents’ Health and Well-Being.” Journal of Research on Adolescence. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 15 Feb. 2011, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00717.x.
Bryant, Aaron. “The Effect of Social Media on the Physical, Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Development of Adolescents”. Honors Senior Capstone Projects. Merrimack ScholarWorks. Spring 2018, https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=honors_capstones.
