Tatiana Pino

English 101
Professor: Cindy Casper
April 12, 2017

A Threat to Our Youth

Social Media has become a daily part of our lives with many benefits for how to get

access to information and communication. We cant deny that social media is making our lives

much easier; however, in the following essay I will prove some negative facts about it. Teens

spend many hours a week interacting on Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, games

and much more. Family values seem to disappear for our youth as social media through

technology becomes deeply incorporated in our lives. In todays life, we dont have the necessity

of going to places like the movies to interact with our friends or relatives, or the gym to perform

exercises because we can find them in games that can be performed with a Wii or Xbox console,

like Zumba, or just playing any game with sports that can give us some exercising; all of this is

all online. After thorough research, I found that negative consequences are more common than

positive ones. Therefore, I am sure that social media advances the impact of isolation, obesity,

depression, and sleep deprivation. It takes away face-to-face interaction with family connections,

and even worse, health, leaving our youth isolated.

 Being without a phone can be hard for

adolescents and children because of this new era with

technology they depend on their devices and as usual

they dont realize they are isolating themselves more

and more. One of the biggest phenomena among teens

is texting; we know that a big percentage of them own a smartphone and this device can help

them to become isolated. A recent report found that teens text their friends daily, on average,

54% more than interacting with them face-to-face (Ling). This proves one more time how teens

are becoming less social in humans development, it is essential to have verbal communication;

if we dont have face-to-face communication, we will lose the ability to socialize with one

another; as humans, we crave for interaction and this cant be replaced by technology. At this

rate, teens have their friends always available for texting or chatting instead of socializing.

Adolescents and children spend most of the time in a device that provides them with technology,

social media, or any other way of connection. If we think for a moment, about 30 years back,

how adolescents and children were. I can clearly remember my adolescent days. We never

carried a cell phone because it wasnt important to us. Nevertheless, we didnt have to check

every minute of the day for posts of what our friend, relatives, or the world was doing. Instead,

we had social interactions face-to-face; we used to hang out with friends, walk with them, etc. In

modern days, social media leaves our adolescents and children isolated, even in their schools.

Youngsters meet not one of their ages group, even though they cohabit with them in classes,

breaks, hallways, cafeteria because most of the time they spend their time in their devices instead

of learning to know each other. This brings them to feel lonely most of the time, because they

dont have the time to concentrate on a better way of interaction with their peers than social
media, leaving them with the idea that they are really social and popular among them. Instead,

this is leaving them to their own isolation. What Happens When Teens Try to Disconnect from

Tech for Three Days by Katrina Schwartz, she mentions the Tech Timeout Academic

Challenge where the boys volunteered to abstain from using not just their phones but all digital

devices for three days, to better understand the role of technology in their lives. The following

link explains about this program for schools. http://techtimeout.com/academicchallenge/

Every kid suffered in diverse ways, they said, however some of them noticed that the first

day was hard, but by the third day, they found themselves feeling more freedom and enjoying

life. They went to surf, they bounced on the trampoline, and they even took walks. One that

impacted me the most was the story of Namara, where he mentions that he became more

dependent to his parents; he engaged with his mother, he needed help looking up for a topic for

his class, but he couldnt because of the challenge he was in. However, he asked his mother and

from there they went from one conversation to another, and even his father joined them. That

never would have happened normally, Namara said (Schwartz). We definitely see that social

media brings isolation in our youth; in this study, they even interact with each other at lunch

time, something they had forgotten how to do. The following video shows an example of the

experiences of these young boys. https://soundcloud.com/mindshiftkqed/riley-aceret

On the other hand, if we look back 30 years

in our society, we had many of the same parks that we have now, but there is one big, noticeable

problem; they are empty most of the time. Therefore, our youth is engaging in less physical

activity which is increasing obesity among them. Before, we didnt have to think of exercising as

mandatory routine; it just came within us as children and adolescents. We had the quality time to

interact face-to-face with our friends, families, and neighbors. We did things like playing catch,
and hide-and-seek, bringing us to have more physical activity. I believe that in this way, we were

healthier than now. According to the expert For every

minute of tech use there should be an equivalent five

minutes of time spent doing something else including

talking to people, interacting with toys that promote

creativity and doing activities that calm on overactive

brain (Hampton). The Center for U.S. Disease Control and Prevention reported that

approximately 10% of preschool kids, and 15% of children ages 6-17, are considered obese, with

many others close to becoming overweight (Hampton), and this is why. In my opinion, the

concept of wellness includes physical, mental, social and spiritual components, and social media

interactions may influence a persons weight. If we think of the many hours youngsters spent in

socializing on social media, or playing games online, it is indeed much more than time spent on

physical activities and this is not necessarily exercising; we can increase our way of living with

simple steps, doing things like walking, cleaning the house, raking leaves, playing having fun, or

biking. These are normal things to do, and they dont require much of a big challenge, but for our

teens and children, this means that they must leave their devices on hold and that is impossible

for them nowadays because their lives will be on hold too. All this causes obesity among our

teens and children, making them feel embarrassed, like theyre trapped in a body in which they

dont belong; they struggle to try to get fit, but it is not that simple because they are in the same

technological environment leaving them vulnerable in many ways.

Adolescents and children are becoming more vulnerable in many ways, but one that is

impacting them throughout social media is depression among youth. According to AJ Agrawal,

questions are being raised on the severe impact of social networking on teens and their health.
 Research shows that social media is indeed causing

loneliness and depression in teenagers. Therefore,

herbal remedies and supplements are becoming

popular in their lives (Agrawal). Once again, in this

modern world that we live in, we continue to find that

social media keeps making our youth struggle. If we

think just for a minute, about our younger days, did we know what Facebook Depression was,

or even just depression? I think not. We used to play, hang out with friends, plan trips, and much

more. Having this many activities didnt give us an option to be depressed, we didnt know what

this was until social media through technology came aboard. We were always waiting for the

time when we could go out and meet our friends or do anything with our parents, so this gave us

different skills than what the youth have now. There is no doubt that they have many skills, and

in a right way they can be wonderful, but most of the time are harmful because of their

immaturity with this kind of technology, throughout social media. As per example, they lack

understanding of online privacy issues or outside influences of third-party groups, which can be

devastating for them. Adolescents and children are getting trapped in social media, and they

dont realize their behavior. They want instant answers back when you chat with them, or have

any social media communication, but we know that some of these sites, like Messenger, allows

people to see if their message has been read or not. This can leave them lonely, depressed, and

even anxious. There are many websites devoted to feelings of depression and loneliness,

reinforcing negative thoughts like Tumblr, a place where teens can go to share their depressions

(Agrawal). Is this website helpful? I think not. How can this be of help for youngsters with

depression through social media, if the only thing theyre going to find there is more depression
stories about hundreds of youngsters like them? Instead I think they should engage with different

thoughts and people that gives them positive vibes.

While our teens are fighting these fears around

them, we can see one more of the associations with

social media is sleep deprivation. As social media

increases in our society, youngsters decrease in sleep.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, addresses how

social media is promoting a lack of sleep in the youth, which affects them in their daily

academics (Schurgin OKeeffe and Clarke-Pearson). During the last 5 years, the number of

preadolescents and adolescents using sites such as Facebook and Myspace has increased

dramatically. Twenty-two percent of teenagers log on to their favorite social media site more

than 10 times a day, and more than half of adolescents log on to a social media site more than

once a day. Seventy-five percent of teenagers now own cell phones; 25% use them for social

media, 54% use them for texting, and 24% use them for instant messaging (Schurgin OKeeffe

and Clarke-Pearson). However, it has been proven that our youngsters spend more time

consuming a digit diet such as watching television, listening to music, interacting on social

media, playing video games, etc. than sleeping. According to Malcore, on a daily basis, teens

sleep about 7 hours or less. Because of peer pressure, children and adolescents are at some risk

as they navigate social media with sleep deprivation. At this rate, adolescents and children will

struggle more and more in their academics, like testing long exams, writing skills, because they

have their own language in social media. For more details read the following link

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/03/28/peds.2011-0054
 In an adolescents life, all they want to do is spread their wings and take off to their

dreams. Its important for parents, caregivers, foster parents, or any adult taking care of them to

be part of this process in their lives. With this I mean, we need to talk to our adolescents and

children to be responsible with this new tool and re-enforce with them to always read and trust us

with any questions they come across before entering or creating website accounts. It is important

that parents be aware and monitor their profiles. After all, if our adolescents and children trust us,

we must be doing our parenting right. However, in all the research I encountered, even though

there is a bigger concern about social media in affecting our youth, there are a few positive sides

of the technology. Perhaps, as education is a great tool for the youth, they can find many sources

to help them succeed academically using technology. There are many programs where they can

find help and support, like Khan Academy, so they can tutor themselves or documentaries in a

variety of topics that can help in many assignments.

In my own opinion, we should understand and regulate the use of social media in young

children and adolescents, because overusing social media can lead to compulsive behavior,

strong addictions, and the wasting of time. Our young generation is especially easy prey for

corrupted environments used in social media. Social media is regarded as an addiction for many

people, and it is growing in adults. So, my questions are: What are we doing with 3000 friends

on the internet? Why are we texting all the time? Because it seems to me like a big waste of time.

We should spend more time together with our friends and learn more about them. Lets make the

relationships that count forever, and not rely on technology or social media to do the job for us

because we can do it. After all, humans create technology so, we must be better, right?
 Works Cited

Agrawal, AJ. "Are Social Networks Causing Loneliness Among Teens?" The Huffington Post.

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 07 Oct. 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.

Hampton, Morgan. "Technology: Is It Making Kids Anti-social?" The Daily Universe. Brigham

Young University, 22 Aug. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.

Ling, Rich. "Teens, Texting, and Social Isolation." Pew Research Center: Internet, Science &

Tech. N.p., 02 May 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.

O'Keeffe, Gwenn Schurgin, Kathleen Clarke-Pearson, and Council On Communications And

Media. "Clinical Report-The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and

Families." Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics, 22 Mar. 2011. Web. 13 Apr. 2017

Malcore, Paul. "The Digital Diet of the American Teen [Infographic]." Rawhide. N.p., 20 Jan.

2017. Web. 19 Apr. 2017

Schwartz, Katrina. "What Happens When Teens Try to Disconnect From Tech For Three Days."

MindShift. N.p., 6 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.