Social media is a big part of our lives nowadays, especially for teenagers. It impacts them in many ways but mostly bad!

Teenagers spend lots of time on their phones and even more time on social media. A survey done by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit research organization, shows that teens spend almost 8 hours each day on social media. That may not seem like a lot but take away your typical 8-hour day of school and at least 6 hours of sleep that’s the rest of the day. Teens consider this their downtime which is spent laying around staring at a screen. It’s good for teens to get down time and “me time” but it can be spent doing better things such as going on a walk, hanging out with friends, studying, or spending time with family! The University of Michigan did a study asking people how they felt when they were outside, 52 percent responded saying they “feel calm” when they’re outside 22% stated that it “reduces anxiety”. Spending so much time on social media can introduce teenagers to drugs, alcohol, and violence. Social media apps such as Instagram and TikTok can damage the way both teenage girls and boys think about their bodies and not so much in a good way, when they are staring at these pictures that people crop and edit they’re only seeing what the people want them to and not what’s going on.

Social media is a fast way for people to interact with one another, it’s become so easy just to hop online and text a friend that people rarely have personal interactions unless necessary. Cari Macabee who teaches grade 11 English in North Carolina says, “Social media has crippled my students when it comes to interacting with one another in person. Their ability to communicate is deteriorating”. This affects teenagers’ futures because you’re not always going to have a job that consists of sitting behind a computer and emailing people. When it comes to jobs where teamwork and communication are involved they aren’t going to know how to talk to one another!

 Social media, however, can be beneficial for teens. They can express themselves in ways they might not be able to do in person and they can feel comfortable about themselves, and they can make friends and talk to people from places all around the world! Social media allows teenagers to keep up with the latest news about the world and their favorite celebrities! 

Most teenagers’ parents believe social media is the reason that their children and teenagers are disrespectful and don’t do well in school. Teenagers are seeing videos of their peers and others their age who don’t have parental influence to let them know right from wrong so they are doing these rude things to people and not taking responsibility for their school work and this becomes popular. These videos and things are influencing teenagers and telling them that this is ok or this is cool so they want to follow these so-called trends and be rude and disrespectful and not care about school because they think that makes them cool and others will want to be their friends and be like them so it’s a never-ending cycle. Social media becomes so addicting that teenagers just want to be on their phones in class and so they think they can be. While being on their phones they aren’t processing they aren’t doing their work or not paying attention to the teacher so they are not gonna know what they’re doing then they won’t ask for help because they are “too cool” and their grades are just dropping!

In general Social Media is bad for teenagers while they are still in their growing and developing stages, it affects the way they think about themselves and others, the way they concentrate on school, and take responsibility for their actions