The increase in social media use has impacted millions of lives, especially teens. Social media has impacted how the younger generation thinks and acts.
“I think it’s good and I think it’s also helped me connect with people, even though it distracts me sometimes,” sophomore Josephine Weiser said.
As much as social media can be viewed as a negative thing, there are still positive sides to it. Social media can be a positive source allowing teens to meet and connect with new people.
“I enjoyed it and didn’t feel the negative outcome,” English teacher Michael Botta said. “This means I never had that sense of a digital persona or thought about how others literally viewed me.”
With that said, other students and teachers say social media has a more negative effect. Finding the positives within social media relies on not letting other people personally affect you.
“If I’m honest, the times students mention social media are negative and typically connected to anxiety and negative news cycles,” Botta said.
According to the Nation Center for Health Research, 32% of students ages 12-17 have reported having anxiety and depression due to social media.
Students have seen their friends act differently because they are on their phones more.
“Some of my friends know everything that’s going on on social media and it’s kind of scary and it’s consuming them,” Weiser said.
With the amount of rumors and drama going on through phones, there is a desire for people to want to check their phone, which can lead to a phone addiction.
Freshman math teacher Leland Lockhart has seen an increase in students’ productivity with checking their phones.
“I see that they are on their phones more often checking their social media,” Lockhart said. “You have to train to keep them engaged and focused all the time.”
The urge students feel to check their phone during class causes less focus on classroom content and more on social media.
“I’ve seen lots of people posting about other girls, making fun of them, putting them down and lots of people who don’t even know them agreeing,” freshman Meera Khurshid said.
Given the opportunity to post whatever and whenever, students are spreading more negativity through social media.
This has affected people’s self image of themselves, becoming a form of cyberbullying.
“I believe research has found strong links to anxiety, self-harm and varied negative mental-health disorders,” Botta said. “From my reading, I think it impacts self and body image for girls and political extremism for boys.”
Social media has a great impact on people’s lives today. It is important to use it wisely because whyIt can bring negativity to the world, it also brings people together.
Data from the National Center for Health Research
https://www.center4research.org/social-media-affects-mental-health/#:~:text=Almost%2025%25%20of%20adolescents%20believe,a%20concern%20for%20adolescent%20health.
