Junchen Liu

English 11000
Instructor Lisa Diomande
Research Paper
Nowadays, as the technology is getting more and more advanced, the uses of social
media has become widespread. Social media refers to online websites or apps which allows
people to communicate or share information with each other. But does social media
advance or hinder teenagers development? The topic over the positive and negative
influences of social media is an controversial debates. Some people believed that social
media advances teenagers development because it has the capacity to advance the
communication between one another. However, one primary argument espoused by
opponents is that social media might be a new environment for potential deceiver which
will inevitably hinder the development of individual. This paper describes selected issues
related to the use of social media with a focus on the impacts of social media brings to
teenagers and concludes with the implication of that social media should be used by the
teenagers.
Social networks are computer-mediated tools that enables people to communicate with
each other within long distances. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ect. Those are the social
medias that one can see most often and use them a lot of times in modern day. Even though
social media may seem to be a new trend, new styles of communication such as Facebook
are actually the outcomes of many centuries of development. The earliest methods of
communicating across great distances used written correspondence delivered by hand from
one person to another. In other words, letters. The earliest form of postal service dates back

to 550 B.C. Communication continued to evolve as times goes on. In 1792, the
telegraph was invented, this allow delivered message way faster than a horse rider. In
1865, people created a pneumatic post utilize underground pressure air tube to carry
capsules from one area to another. In 1890, the telephone invented and the radio in 1891.
The telephone helps people communicate across great distance. Technology began to
change very rapidly in 20th century. After the first super computers were created in the
1940s. Scientists began to work on web design. ( The Complete History Of Social Media:

Then and Now. Web).

Email was one of the most early invention of social media started with technology. It
allows people to send mails online in a very fast speed, in order for a person to receive
messages from the other side, it only takes a few seconds to achieve which makes
communication so much easier. Then more advanced and well-developed tools such as
Facebook come out, they have features that make communication easier and even more
faster than email . In modern day, researchers have shown that more than 67% of American
are using the social media daily, and this number is constantly increasing as more and more
people get into touch with the social media. However, within this large percentage of social
media users in U.S , most of them are made up of teenagers. According to the new report
that was recently out, 95% of of teens age form 12-17 use internet , and 81% of them use
social network. All of these data show how social media has become part of nearly every
teenagers daily life, therefore social media will inevitably affect teenagers development
more or less in some way.
Does social media advance or hinder the childrens development? Does social media

do more goods to the children than the bad? Some people might argue that social media
hinders individuals development, but the truth is that social media does more good to
individuals development than the bad.
Social media creates a brand new style of social communication that is beyond of the
real society. It has the capacity to advance the communication between one and another,
that is to say, social media encourages ones greater communication with friends and
family. In the article The Impact Of Social Media On Children, Adolescent, And Family.
by GS OKeeffe and K Clarke-Pearson, they look at the benefits that social media brings to the
development of teenagers. Social media sites allow teens to accomplish online many of the

tasks that are important to them offline: staying connected with friends and family, making
new friends, sharing pictures, and exchanging ideas. Social media participation also can
offer adolescents deeper benefits that extend into their view of self, community, and the
world. Therefore, from this statement one can clear see the benefits of social media to the
teenagers. By enhancing the communication with each other, social media allows the
teenagers to make friends from all over the world, broadens their horizons by sharing ideas
with one another. Social media also lets them to have better experiences with the outside
world because teenagers using social media are able to keep up with everyday news and
not be left out. To support their statement , the authors of the article The Impact Of
Social Media On Children, Adolescent, And Family. also bring out the evidence that
Some schools successfully use blogs as teaching tools, which has the benefit of
reinforcing skills in English, written expression and creativity. therefore, social media
offers teenagers greater learning opportunity. On the internet, teenagers can easily obtain

the information of what is happening in the world and gain experiences using different
social media sites. The article The Impact Of Social Media On Children, Adolescent, And
Family. also gives another statement to support the idea of how social media benefits the
development of individual. opportunities for community engagement through raising
money for charity and volunteering for local events, including political and philanthropic
events. Therefore, this evidence tells people how social media if used wisely, can
become a potential places for promoting and implementing charity. By doing that, the act
of charity has the ability to cultivate childrens benevolence and the ability to take care of
each other. It will not only affect childrens development positively, but also will teach
them how to morally behave. Therefore, increases the overall standard of social morality
and teaches teenagers more about the healthy information. According to the Pew Internet
study, 31% of teens go online to search for health information. Seeking information
online provide youth the opportunity to learn more about sensitive topic, such as sexual
health, drug use, or mental health issues, that are often difficult to discuss with adults or
peers.(Digital Native And Social Media Behaviors. Web) Therefore, teenagers are exposed
to an healthy environment and can easily obtains healthy information that they are usually
too embarrassed to ask of. Sometimes, teenagers can have private problems that are too
awkward to discuss with the doctor or their parents, but now with the uses of social media,
they can freely access to those information online. For example, teenagers that have
problems related to their development, they can just get the information online easily,
helping them to deal with the problem correctly.
One may argue that social media should not be used by teenagers because it can

causes the excessive addictions of teenagers toward the social media. According to the
article Something to talk about by Jones and Ashley. 55% of the online teens age 1217 have a profile on social networking site., that is, everyday, teenagers tend to log into
social media site excessively due to their lack of self-regulation. But the reality is that the
social media should be used by the teenagers because there are actually many tools
invented to solve this problem of social media addiction . For example, tools that are able to
scan over the ages of each of its users, and limited the time allowed to use for the users that
do not meet certain requirement. In some social media websites such as the Chinese
communication tool QQ , there are time restrictions set for the teenagers that are under
certain ages range. Therefore , it not only allows teenagers to use the social media so that
they can be connected to the real world and with each, but also solve the problem of
addiction.
The article that comes from the website Pediatric The Impact Of Social Media On
Children, Adolescent, And Family. further proves the idea of social media advance
individuals development by pointing out the benefits of social media enhancement of
individual and collective creativity through development and sharing of artistic and musical endeavors;
growth of ideas from the creation of blogs, podcasts, videos, and gaming sites;. That is, social media
sites such as blogs, videos, and gaming are all places for teenagers to share common interests. When
they are interested, they are inspired to explore more, and this will help them to develop their ability of
creative thinking. The article Something to talk about by Jones, Ashley also supports the idea of social
media helps evoke teenagers creativity. According to the statistical data given by the article 64% of

online teenagers have participated in a content-creating activity on the internet. Therefore,

by creating such an environment where all the teenagers can be connected together and do works, social
media

encourages

teenagers

to

think

outside

of

the

box

and

be

more

creative.

Social networking giants such as Facebook helps teenagers nowadays to connect with each

other more often than ever. The articles The Impact of Social Media On Children,
Adolescent, And Family explains how social media works to gather all the teenagers
together expansion of one's online connections through shared interests to include others from more
diverse backgrounds (such communication is an important step for all adolescents and affords the
opportunity for respect, tolerance, and increased discourse about personal and global issues); and
fostering of one's individual identity and unique social skills. Social media allows teens with different
backgrounds connect together. Even though from different countries, teens can have more opportunities
of transnational exchanges online, allows them to make friends from all nations and get to know the
cultures in different places through sharing information.
One of the primary arguments held by the opponents of the social media is how deception can be
easily achieved through the uses of social media. According to Online Deception Of Social Media ,
Social media provide an environment in which assessment signal are neither required nor

the norm,making deception easy; for instance, gender switching online may require only a
name change. Therefore, the author gives an example about how deception is achieved in
social medias, he states that deceivers can easily alter the contents of their online
information. However, many of the social medias nowadays are helping its users to protect
their privacy through all kinds of approaches. For example, email notifications will usually
be sent if the users accounts were found to be logged in on a different location. Social
medias such as Facebook also make the online accounts of its users to be safer by making

the security questions so that the deceivers can not easily gain the information they want.
Another arguments against social media states about how the lack of self-regulation of
teenagers online can be causing risks of social media. According to the article The Impact
of Social Media On Children, Adolescent, And Family, social media that have
introduced problems such as cyberbullying, privacy issues, and sexting(that have
introduced problems such as cyberbullying, privacy issues, and sexting), even though
many problems have occurred due to the uses of social media, many new steps have taken
to make the social media to be better used, therefore, social media have more positive
impacts to the teenagers than the negative impacts.

Work Cited
1. Lusk, Brooke. "Digital Natives and Social Media Behaviors: An Overview." Prevention
Researcher. Dec. 2010: 3-6. SIRS Issues Researcher.Web. 04 May 2015.

2. Jones, Ashley. "Something To Talk About." Econtent 31.2 (2008): 10-11. Applied

Science & Technology Abstracts (H.W. Wilson). Web. 5 May. 2015.

3.

Tsikerdekis,Michail1,Tsikerdekis@Uky.Edu,AndSherali2,Szeadally@Uky.Edu

Zeadally. "Online Deception In Social Media." Communications Of The Acm 57.9 (2014):
72-80.Applied Science & Technology Abstracts (h.w. Wilson). Web. 5 May. 2015.
4. GS OKeeffe and K Clarke-Pearson. The Impact of Social Media on Children Pediatrics
Journey. Web. 5 May. 2015.