Social Media Is Not Good for Teenagers - Argumentative Essay

Vrunda Patel

Argumentative essay  

April 4, 2016

Ms. Sujata Mulloth

Social Media is Not Good for Teenagers

As a result of an extensive amount of social media sites available for free use, a lot of people are using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and so on. Since the Internet has circulated quickly, social media has progressed a lot. The generalization of the internet makes people live conveniently and fast. People are always using devices in their daily lives which can access the internet, for example, smartphones, i-phones, laptops, and computers. These electronic devices easily connect with social networks. They help people contact their friends, family, and other people even though they live far away. However, it can be abused if people don’t use it properly, especially for teenagers.  It is important that teenagers understand and are regulated in the use of social media. So, the youngster has needed some rules and restrictions on social media use.

Social media is a very addicting for young people. The most popular social media site that is used by youths today is Facebook, with over 94% of teenagers aged 12-17 using Facebook as a form of communication (Kaiser, 2013).  People would think that drug or alcohol is more addicting than social media, and social media addiction is not a big problem, but that is not true. Now, this is the biggest issue for parents with young children. Facebook not only shows so much about an individual; but it also shares one's personal information about their whereabouts, who they are communicating with and photos of themselves. Young people in today's society don’t feel the need to keep anything private as there is no education on the way the internet works.

           Using social media regularly has caused many serious, negative health effects. Youngsters can get mental and physical disorders. They might think social media does not cause disorders, and they might argue that the social media is good for mental diseases because social media helps express their feelings or thoughts easily. Also, through social media, they can be connected with each other more often. However, social media just offer limited meetings. They just meet on websites, not a physical meeting which is different than face-to-face interaction with other people and does not make a deep relationship. Consequently, this leads to major health problems such as mental depression, sleeplessness, and loneliness. Also, when they are using social media, they do not need to move a lot. As a result, it leads to physical disorders such as obesity.

Although there are many negative effects caused by teenagers using social media as their number one form of communication, social media does bring some positive reinforcement to teenagers’ lives. It allows them to connect with friends and meet new people from different countries. It allows their self-confidence to be raised and helps promote individuality. Sometimes teenagers who are connected through Facebook with friends from school help each other with their assignments and give advice to each other on how to complete complicated work and difficult assignment questions. This has helped make youths more intelligent as they feel more comfortable communicating with a person of their own age rather than asking for the assistance of teachers.

Often social media has been shown to help teenagers grow as a person and become who they are today. Teenagers who are shy and have no people skills tend to develop good communication skills through being a regular social media user. It has given many teenagers the confidence in themselves and has helped people develop lifelong friendships that may not have happened if they didn’t have an account on social sites. Many students look up help on academic, medical or work-related topics through social media. On the other hand, if students are not good at those things and if they spend the time on social media, it would be hard for them to use their talents. So, social media has several good and bad traits but the negative health issues that can occur from the extensive use of social media outweigh the positives.