Ehmke, Rachel. “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers.” Child Mind Institute, Child
Mind Institute, 23 Oct.2018,
childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/.
Rachel Ehmke begins this article by citing a survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health in which it asked 14-24 year olds in the UK how social media platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all led to an increase in feelings of depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and loneliness. She then states how an increase in social media has caused teenagers to lose social skills and their indirect communication such as body language, facial expression, and other small reactions are being lost due to the lack of human contact. She then explains that making friends is part of life and communicating face to face is important for personal connections as well as relating to others. As people grow older there will be more complicated relationships and it will be more difficult to navigate through these engagements without social skills. Ehmke then states that through social media it is easier to say things to others that kids would never say in person and because of that cyberbullying is becoming more and more common. Cyberbullying causes kids to have lower self esteem and it makes them have to live up to unrealistic expectations instead of accepting themselves for who they are. Ehmke wraps it up by stating that parents should set a good example for kids and show them what a healthy amount of technology is like as well as giving them the most human connection possible such as talking during car rides or talking once they get home from work instead of immediately checking their emails or social medias.
This article is useful because it explains the psychological effects that social media can have on younger generations and how they are affecting their social interactions. It also gives comparisons on how technologies have changed the youth today versus generations in the past.
Throughout the entire article Ehmke uses quotes from multiple Doctors such as Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. Donna Wick, a clinical and developmental psychologist. Also, this website Child Mind Institute national nonprofit organization that has collected and researched brain and body scans from 10,000 children which is the largest sample ever collected.
Gordon, Sherri, and Richard N. Fogoros. “Social Media and Its Effect on the Teen
Brain.” Verywell Family, Verywellfamily, 19 Sept. 2018,
www.verywellfamily.com/ways-social-media-affects-teen-mental-health-4144769.
Sherry Gordon begins this article by explaining that the teen brain views “likes” on social media similar to winning money due to a region in the brain that is more sensitive during teenage years which explains why teenagers are drawn to social media and are much more dependant of it than adults. The author then begins to explain the most common mental health issues teenagers experience from too much social media use is depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, envy, and communication issues. Social media, though not a direct correlation to depression, has been associated with the intensification of the symptoms of depression such as a decrease in social activity and an increase in loneliness. Social media can be a source of anxiety in teens whenever they feel pressure to post perfect photos, well-written posts, or when cyberbullying or slut-shaming occurs. Sleep deprivation is a result of teenagers staying up late at night or waking up in the middle of the night to check their social media, this can result in moodiness, lower grades, overeating, and can increase symptoms in depression as well as anxiety. Social media also creates relationships that are not authentic which can get in the way of real interactions with people and can damage friendships.
This article is useful because it gives insight of teen and social media culture and how that affects the brain of teenagers. It does not solely rely on data and analytics, but it tries to make sense of the realistic use of social media among teens and how that affects them as well as implementing relevant analytics.
This entire article has been reviewed by Richard N. Fogoros, MD, who is a former professor of medicine, Chief Medical advisor, and received his doctorate from Ohio State University. This article was also created in September of 2018 therefore it is relevant as well as credible.
Guinta, Maggie R. “Social Media and Adolescent Health.” Pediatric Nursing, vol. 44, no.
4, July 2018, pp. 196–201. EBSCOhost, library.collin.edu/login?url=http://search.
ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccmAN=131366570&site=ehost-live.
Maggie Guinta, a pediatric nurse, writes in her article of both the positive and negative effects of social media use. She begins by stating the negative consequences such as cyber bullying, lack of academic performance, mental health issues such as depression, and privacy risks. She then begins to state the benefits such as collaboration and tolerance, access to social support networks, and self esteem. Then she states the role in which nurses and parents can help teenagers maximize the benefits of social media while minimizing the consequences through educating them as well as creating a “Media use plan” where parents can limit the amount of screen time teenagers see.
This article is useful because it gives a medical practitioner or nurse’s perspective on how to deal with the growing popularity of social medias among adolescents. She also gives different solutions to the problem unlike any other article I have read and gives anecdotal evidence on certain issues pertaining social media’s effect on young teens.
Maggie R. Guinta is a Nurse Practitioner from the Columbia University School of Nursing and uses multiple citations and studies to back up her claims of social media, both positive and negative. This article was written in July of 2018 therefore all statistics that she was using were relevant and current. Rita M. John was also the co-author to this article and she is an Associate Professor of Nursing at the Columbia University School of Nursing.
McHugh, Bridget Christine, et al. “When Social Media Traumatizes Teens.” Internet
Research, vol. 28, no.5, Nov. 2018, pp. 1169–1188. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1108/IntR-02-2017-0077.
This article written by Christine McHugh, an affiliate of the Department of Psychology and computer science at the University of Central Florida, explains a study on how negative online experiences such as explicit content exposure, cyberbullying, sexual solicitations, and information breaches can cause post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in adolescents. The study tried to research whether teens’ short-term coping responses serve to reduce PTSD or rather act as a response to stress from online situations. The study found that explicit content exposure, sexual solicitations, and cyberbullying translated into symptoms of PTSD for the teens. Though the author found that the teens who took active measures to cope with the online situations have shown enhanced adolescent resilience and reduced long-term negative effects of exposure to social media. Only if there are signs of early coping behaviors can social media platforms be able to help support healthy coping processes that can protect teens against other online risks.
This article is useful because it gives a perspective of the social media that gives both positive light and negative light. It explains how social media indeed can have negative effects though the negative experiences can, in the long run, help teens cope with other negativity that they may encounter on the internet. The author gives an unbiased view on this issue and solely makes statement on the empirical evidence that they gathered.
This author is affiliated with the Department of Psychology, and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida as well as the College of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University, therefore they are more reputable than most in the topic of social media and their effects on teenagers. Also the author does not state anything outside of their research; they make statements that are backed from the study they conducted.
Wang, Qingya, et al. “The Effects of Social Media on College Students.”
ScholarsArchive@JWU, 19 Dec. 2011, scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/mba_student/5/.
This research paper by Qingya Wang, Wei Chen, and Yu Liang of Johnson & Wales University – Providence explains the impact of social media and the learning efficiency of students at their university. They were trying to research the advantages and disadvantages of social media towards grades and GPA. These group of students conducted a research study on a random sample of students and gave them questionnaires on how much they use social media. The results revealed that almost half of the students, 45%, spend 6-8 hours per day on social media and almost a quarter, 23%, spend more than 8 hours. They concluded that social media does have a positive effect among student in that it relieves stress as well as keep students more interconnected, but the down side was that students did not find a balance between school work and social media therefore their grades suffered. Learning efficiency suffered the more students were using social medias such as Facebook and Twitter.
This research paper is useful in that it finds the correlation between social medias and grades rather than my previous articles which viewed the mental and emotional health of teenagers. This research uses a strictly quantitative view on how social media affects teen. They do not implement factors such as culture or other types of immeasurable factors.
The research paper strictly makes conclusions based on the data that was gathered, these student did not use their own previous knowledge for their conclusion. Any other kind of information that was stated was cited by them such as data from Jacobsen & Forste, or a study from the Ohio State University, or a study from Aryn Karpinski. They cited all sources used.
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