Caitlyn Whitaker Ms.Lehmann English 2-1B 7 February 2020 Social Media’s Effects on Teens Dave Willis once said, “Don’t use social media to impress people; use it to impact people.”Today people are more focused on how social media impacts teens, rather than how teens impact social media. Teens should be responsible users of social media because social media impacts 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 allowsthem 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 lifesatisfaction,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. Social media presents the good things in 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. Social media’s impact on face-to-face interaction and connectedness iscomplicated.It is complicated because social media affects teens both positively and negatively. The survey conducted by Common Sense Media showed that it is a young adult’s personality that determines social media’s impact. “The 17 percent who scored in the low-SEWB group were the most impacted by social media interactions, suggesting that the child’s personality- not the platform is the more important factor when determining the influence of social media” (K.Y.18). Everyone has a different personality, and we can’t always know how social media affects everyone; it depends on the person. Social media can help young adults feel less lonely. It can also make them feel sad about themselves when they see other people on the internet living a great life. “Social media is very important to them, helping many of them to feel less lonely, more confident, and more connected. But social media is also more likely to affect them negatively than it is for other teens-to make them feel left out, or worse about themselves”(K.Y.18). Thisshows us that social mediais important to teens and can affect them in both positive and negative ways. 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 screen time. “Academic performance is directly related to sleep time and inversely related to overall sedentary SMU[screen media use] among students who participated in this study” (Peiró-Velert et al 5). 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 can minimize its impact on their health, connections with others, and success in school. Being aware of how they use social media can minimize the impact on teens’ well-being.Social media’s impact on teens can be connected to their personality and how they use it.The amount of time teens spends on social media hasan indirect impact on their academic achievement. Social media’s impact has gone so far to cause death, making it crucial that teens learn how to use it responsibly.
Work Cited James, Carrie, Katie Davis, Linda Charmaraman, Sara Konrath, Petr Slovak, Emily Weinstein, and Lara 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. Academic Search Premier. Accessed 21 January 2020.
Peirô-Velert, Carmen, Alexandra Valencia-peris, Luis M. Gonzalez, Xavier Garcia- Massó, Pilar Serra- Añó, José Devís-Devís. “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: 10.137/journal.pone.0099478. Accessed 10 February 2020.
Research Paper Reflection 1. Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific. - First I had to write down everything I could think of under the categories of hobbies, trends, controversies, technologies, habits, and travel. Then I had to circle 5 things that interested me the most. Next, I had to write down as many questions as I could think of for them. I circled my top 5 questions and then decided what one was going to be my topic. After that I read many articles about what I was writing about and I applied them to my research paper.
2. What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them? - I had a thesis and I had quotes that supported my argument. Also, I gave evidence and had a rebuttal.
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 you have to have a good argument and you have to give lots of evidence to support why you think you are right and that you also have to include why the other side of the argument is wrong.