The Effect of Evolving Social Media Platforms on Youth

Access to the internet has led to the development of social media platforms. Social media refers to the means of communication with people through apps that allow us to create, like and share our most personal moments. It enables us to find love online, relate to each other through discussions, find entertainment and most apparently communicate with others. Social networking acts as an escapism from personal commitments and responsibilities – the most popular platforms being Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.

Unquestionably, social media has become more than just a platform for communication between peers, it has become a base for people to express their identity. Teenagers create their own profiles which enables them to construct their identity through posting statuses reflecting their ‘mood’ and videos and images of themselves. Austin states that ‘reportedly, many teens spend an average of 8 hours online everyday’ (Austin, 2016) and ‘90% of young people use social media – more than any other age group’ (Instagram ‘worst for young mental health’, 2017). This implies that social media is very popular amongst youth, they’re user friendly, easy to navigate and offer a more efficient and fun way of connecting rather than text messaging.

However, the addiction of social networking for teenagers can have a negative effect on specifically teenage girls. Social media promotes physical ideals and can cause confidence issues. Time Magazine presents the idea that ‘visual platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat deliver the tools that allow teens to earn approval for their appearance and compare themselves to others’ (Simmons, 2016). This highlights that social media centres around pictures and videos of users, features such as the ‘like’ button and ‘comment’ section provoke responses from peers whether it’s complimentary or not. Also, this reinforces the idea that appearance has almost become a vital necessity for obtaining a popular and active profile.

Arguably, social networking could be said to implicate an unnatural obsession with the self in teenage girls. It enforces ‘an illusion of control: if I send more time and really work at it, I can improve at being beautiful’ (Simmons, 2016). Significantly, this emphasises that evolving social media platforms like Instagram, have a negative effect on girls because it forces them to become very critical of themselves and the pictures they choose to upload – they must suit the ‘thin ideal’ social media advertises as what is considered attractive. Instagram features like the explore page include attractive images of girls that have gone viral, this has an impact on teenage girls that can be damaging to the self because it suggests that to be at the top of the page you must be desirable and have a huge following that causes discussion amongst people.

On the other hand, social media is a great platform for people to express their opinions and raise awareness. ‘Social media can be used as a voice of reason in society. Various social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are being used… to create a voice for the voiceless’ (Austin, 2016). Twitter hashtags have been used in many productive ways for the promotion and the spread of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign and suicide awareness – this has a positive impact on youth because it educates them about political issues in society.

Moreover, young people can invest so much time into social networking that it distracts them from real life obligations. Paul Miller, an American Technology Journalist states that ‘I wasn’t accomplishing thins when I was clicking on links, when I was tweeting..’ (TED, 2013). This suggests that online social interaction has a harmful effect on youth because they prioritise posting pictures, tweeting or sharing things online over education – creating a barrier between social media and personal achievements. Alternatively, social media can cause a young person to isolate themselves from reality, they’re ‘not really 100% available’ (TED, 2013). Perhaps this refers to youth being more unaware and oblivious to the world around them, they could develop an incapability to confidently communicate with people outside of their social media profiles.

To conclude, social media has had a disapproving effect on youth because it has evolved into a platform that focuses on appearance, also young people are disconnected from reality because of social networking. Although, it has had an optimistic impact on youth because they are able to express and explore their identity. The methodology I would use to support my ideas would be a questionnaire, including questions that relate to popular social networks.

References

Austin, K. (2016) Positive Effects of Social Media. Teen Shield. [blog] 28^th June. Available at: http://www.teenshield.com/blog/2016/06/28/positive-effects-of-social-media/ [Accessed 14^th November 2017].

BBC News (2017) Instagram ‘worst for young mental health’, 19^th May. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39955295 [Accessed 15th November 2017].

Simmons, R. (2016) How Social Media is a Toxic Mirror. TIME, 19^th August. Available at: http://time.com/4459153/social-media-body-image/ [Accessed 13^th November 2017].

TED. (2013) A year offline, what I have learned | Paul Miller | TEDxEutropolis [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trVzyG4zFMU [Accessed 25 February]