Nowadays every child, teenager, or even adults have social media accounts, and it can be very useful, but very distracting. Although it is useful for communicating, is it really necessary? These apps distract teenagers to the real world. Studies according to A kaiser family foundation study from The Washington Post has shown that kids between 8-12 years old spend about 6 hours per day and teenagers spend at least 9 hours on average. “Social media is addictive precisely because it gives us something which the real world lacks: it gives us immediacy, direction, and value as an individual.” -David Amerland

Social moment, Toronto by VV nincic via (CC BY 2.0)

Social media causes many problems like lack of verbal communication, cyberbullying, low self-esteem, or depression. Personally, I think a big problem for girls is being insecure of your body and wanting to compare it to others on Instagram or Facebook. Teenagers would want to get more likes on their photos and posts. Researchers at UCLA did an experiment on the brain activity of a teenager when they see a certain amount of likes on their social media page. The research showed that the teenagers were highly influenced by the number of likes the photo had, and a part of the brain that was active was linked to visual attention.

Overall I think teenagers like me shouldn’t be so focused on the media because there is a lot of quality of daily life that can’t be learned by social media. There are also good things about social media like how it can help you meet new people, or help you communicate with friends.

Social-Media-Roadmap 750×280 by Yoel Ben Avraham (CC BY-ND 2.0)