Social Media in Everyday Life

In most cultures around the world, there has been a huge increase in the use of technology and media by children and adolescents. We now live in a world that is dominated by technology. The lives of youths now revolve around the internet and their cellphones. From computers and the internet, to the digitally mediated social environment, adolescents are engaging in media like never before. There are likely both positive and negative aspects to how media and technology are affecting adolescent’s developing.

Media

Accordig to Santrock, the amount of time spent in an activity indicates the importance (Santrock, p. 580). With this in mind, mass media plays a huge role in the lives of adolescents. One study found that in a servey of more than 2,000 children and adolescents from 8 years old through 18 years of age confirmed that they use social media heavily. This study also showed that the average adolescent sent more than 44 hours a week with electronic media. (Webb, p.

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724). Social media offers new opportunities and challenges for adolescents more today as a generation than ever before. Issues regarding body image, academic achievement, and self-esteem and the connection to social media usage is reported.

Physical Development

The physical development of adolescents is so important and crucial. Media does influence an adolescents physical development. One negeative impact of media comes with television. Studies have shown that television not only teaches children stereotypes, but it also can impact their health. Studies have shown that a high level of TV-viewing is linked to a greater change of obesity in adolescents (Santrock, p.

582). Body image also is important to note in the development of adolescents. Adolescence is a vulnerable time due to a lot of changes like puberty. These physical changes will easily allow perceptions of the body to impact confidence and self-esteem.

Body dissatisfaction can lead to terrible health conditions that will take a toll on an adolescent’s well-being. Social media is a tool where boys and girls can learn about beauty and body standards and ideals, especially ones within a certain culture, which can impact body image. Studies have shown that media body comparison is associated with body dissatisfaction in adolescent females, which also acts as a mediator between self-esteem, depressive mood, body mass index, and body dissatisfaction (Webb, p. 731). For males, depressive mood, certain types of message exposure, and weight teasing were associated with media body comparison.

Cognitive Development

Another domain that social media can affect would be cognitive development in adolescence. Academic achievement can be very individualistic in adolescence, since some strive for the best grades, while others just slide on through middle and high school hoping that their grades are good enough. Since adolescent thinking is becoming more abstract and logical, the work that an adolescent must accomplish becomes more challenging as well (Uhls, 2017). Social media can get in the way of an adolescent’s learning and impact their academic achievement.

There is less research on the effect of social media and academic achievement when compared to other aspects, such as psychological well-being. This is likely due to the fact that social media was not readily available to adolescents until recently. Additionally, the studies that do exist show conflicting data (Uhls, 2017). Thus, more work is needed to determine the role social media plays on children’s academic achievement.

Social-emotional Development

The last dimension of adolescent development that will be discussed in this paper is social development. Social development in adolescence is best described in the contexts in which occurs. Social development occurs in relation to peers, family, school, work, and the community (Webb p. 720). The relationships that adolescents form during this time is very important, and if anything negative happens it can severely impact social development. The negative impacts can lead to issues regarding self-esteem, peer pressure, and cyberbullying, which can possibly lead to depression and suicide (Nakkula, 2016).

Negative feedback through social media is likely to occur, which can have negative effects on adolescent social development, since social acceptance and approval in a peer group is crucial in the development of an adolescent’s self-concept (Santrock, p. 583). Negative feedback and victimization are only a few of the negative consequences that social media can have on an adolescent’s social emotional development (Uhls, 2017). Adolescents are being taught to use social media as a platform to treat individuals as bodies instead of individual personalities leading to objectification of not only that person, but of the self as well (Nakkula, 2016). If adolescents continue to see this objectification, then as they begin to develop identities, small changes in their levels of self-objectification and body surveillance may lead to the development of a more objectified identity.

Conclusion

Social media has become a part of everyday life. There are many advantages to its use and people utilize the functions each and every day. Society has become so fixated on social media that they do not fully understand what they are opening themselves up to. Parents, educators, and everyday social media users must understand and be aware of the positive and negative connotations of social media usage in order to promote the healthy development of the youth in society (Webb, p. 720). Social media can have many positive aspects that keep users engaged and stimulated, but there can be many negative aspects as well that affect major dimensions of adolescent development, and it is very important to look at both in order to stay informed and aware of what can possibly happen.