Social Networking and its Negative Effects on Teenagers

For many teens, social networking has been a prominent part of their lives. Though there are many positive effects that are brought about from social networking, there are also negative effects as well on the youth. There are some positive attributes to social networking that are great for teenagers, such as using it as a professional tool or being able to keep in contact with far away friends. When it comes to the negative aspects, they should be considered as well. Especially if the negative effects of social networking outweigh the positive effects, this will be an indicator that perhaps social networking on the Internet may not be the best idea.

To start, there are a lot of risks of cyber bullying that occurs over the internet. It is becoming increasingly common for teens to experience cyber bulling with social media in the form of intimidating or threatening messages. In addition, many young people tend to be too open with their personal information to the public. This poses further risk to identity theft that may put teens at risk. In addition, hackers are becoming more and more common which further puts young users at risk on their social media platform. Another negative risk that can be brought about by young media users is that it may influence an individual to spend more money. This may be achieved through the advertisements that are displayed on the corner of the screen. Even if these links are not clicked on, it may serve as a subliminal advertising that may subconsciously pressure and individual to buy a certain product or service. There is new research that suggests that heavy social media users my be correlated with lower self control, which may lead to overall higher spending.

Social media has become such an integral part of teenagers lives that it may be extremely influential as well. Many lives may change to fit the mold of social media, and it may be consuming to the extent that one would miss out on real life scenarios in their immediate surroundings. It is important to consider that social media can make society inept and may cause negative circumstances as well. If the negatives of using social networking outweigh the positives, perhaps it is time to take a step back and consider the reasons why one engages in social networking in order to evaluate if it is time well spent.