Do Social Media Negatively Impact Teen Girls?Free

The Effect of Technology on Face-to-face Communication

The Internet spreads like a wildfire on a windy day. In the 21^st century, it has affected all areas of our lives. The emergence of social networks, online shops, email, and new opportunities had a positive effect on humanity as a whole. This miracle of technology has changed the world. However, fragile minds of teen girls weren’t prepared for such gift. Teen girls haven’t learned how to moderately use the Internet. Over the years the miracle of technology turned into a dangerous beast.

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This research paper will shed a light on the issue of the adverse effect of social networks on teen girls. Scientists continue to research this issue. In the course of research, experts figured out that teen girls spend too much time on social networks. The study of the Pew Research Center revealed that teens got addicted to their smartphones, tablets, iPads, laptops and other gadgets. Teen girls stare at the screens of their gadgets for nine hours per day. According to statistics, provided by Common Sense Media, kids between the ages of eight to twelve spend six hours in the Internet and social networks, while children older than twelve spend more than 9 hours in the global network.

The professor of pediatrics from the University of Southern California, Robert Lustig believes that social networks are modern drugs. Scientists claim that social media change teenager’s behavior for the worse. The co-founder of the Center on Human Technology, Tristan Harris has clarified how social media make teenagers addicted. Harris mentioned YouTube as an example. According to him, YouTube has been designed to make people forget about goals and watch funny videos. The Pew Research Center believes that teenagers know about their addiction but they didn’t know how to deal with this challenge. Teen girls want to feel accepted by others and social media give them this opportunity. The latest study revealed that girls are more exposed to social media addiction than boys. The results showed that 47% of teen girls spend plenty of time on social networks. By contrast, only 35% of boys spend equal time on the Internet. In the course of study, experts noticed that girls experience anxiety when they are deprived of gadgets or access to the global network (Anderson.J 2018).

Nowadays, social media have become an irreplaceable part of teenagers’ lives. Every day, when they wake up, the first thing they do is checking their smartphones for new messages. Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace enabled teen girls to find friends with common interests. Thus, their social and emotional development happens not in real life but in virtual. Fragile minds of teen girls haven’t learned how to control their emotions, which makes them more susceptible to criticism of peers.  Online communication is thoroughly soaked with bullying, sex promotion, and other important issues (The American Academy of Pediatrics 2011). All these issues negatively affect the psychological health of young girls and their social development. Teen girls share their pictures on social networks, text, surf the web and do many other things on the Internet. The virtual life has replaced them real. There is a lot of trash on the Internet such as inappropriate sex materials, video materials that contain violence and distorted information. Teenagers don’t have the necessary skills to filter information.

Teen girls are exposed to the risk of online harassment because there is an enormous amount of child molesters on the Internet. Child molesters disguise themselves as peers and lure young and inexperienced girls in their webs. The real case is worth to be mentioned here. A young man sent a friend request to a 14-year-old girl. The teen girl added him to the list of her friends. They started an online conversation and child molester made the teen girl fall in love with him. After that, a young man invited her to a real meeting. They had sex several times. Moreover, child molester drugged the teen girl and bought her alcohol. Besides, a young man took her nude pictures. Parents of this girl weren’t aware of her relationships. Having learned about this problem, they contacted the police. The teen girl was psychologically shattered. She gained alcohol and drug addiction. The teenager started to post her nude pictures on her social networks and meet new men and have sex with them (Wolak. J 2012).

Bullying is another danger for young girls. In the digital age, peers have become extremely cruel. Their cruelty often results in terrible consequences. Such consequences can be seen in the story of a 12-year-old girl, who committed suicide due to the cruelty of her classmates. Mallory Grossman received hurtful messages from her peers. It lasted months. Classmates called her loser in these messages. Peers sent her texts saying that no one wants to be friends with her. Mallory Grossman wasn’t emotionally and intellectually prepared for the online bullying and committed a suicide. This tragedy happened not so long ago. The fact that this story isn’t unique makes it even more tragic (Rosenblatt.K 2017). The results of online bullying aren’t always so dismal. Such kind of violence can cause psychological traumas, depressions, and anxiety.

Currently, the tendency to post nude photos and videos in social networks started to gain popularity among teen girls. Teenagers aren’t aware that such actions can be considered as a distribution of child pornography. Teen girls can be punished for a misdemeanor. School suspension will be the minor punishment. In this case, their emotional health will be most affected. According to researchers, social network such as Facebook can trigger depression. This can happen due to the high speed of online life. Teenagers can simply get tired of online life. This fatigue can provoke them to seek help on ambiguous websites. In turn, these websites can promote unsafe sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and self-destructive behaviors.

The Internet has mutated and now it can trace our habits. Advertisers learned how to manipulate us with our desires and teen girls are the easiest target.

By posting information about themselves, visiting certain websites, they give advertisers the leverage to sell their stuff. Teen girls aren’t aware of Internet surveillance and privacy tools (O’Keeffe. G, Pearson-Clarke. K 2011).

The development of social media has also negatively affected communication skills. Teenagers have forgotten how to communicate in real life. According to different surveys, the majority of people use their gadgets to communicate with friends, relatives and beloved. Many teenagers use their smartphones even when they talking with friends.  We have lost the art of face-to-face communication. Hiding behind tablets, laptops, smartphones, teen girls feel more comfortable while face-to-face communication makes them feel awkward (Drago.E 2013, p3). The digital world sucked teenagers and hinder them to build good relationships with friends, boys, and girls. The Scientific American claims that real-life conversation contributes to the improvement of well-being because we are social animals (Jones.K 2017). Face-to-face interactions make relationships stronger. Teenagers have become uninterested in face-to-face meetings and their conversations became shallow and meaningless (Bhamare. C 2018).

Young girls spend a plenty of time surfing the Internet and remains not enough time for sleep. The deprivation of sleep results in serious mental disorders. Psychologists have revealed that teen girls get dopamine for their brain by receiving likes. The professor from the New York University, Adam Alter explains that dopamine is like a drug for our brain. It causes a feeling of pleasure. When a teen girl receives likes on her Instagram or any other social network, she experiences this feeling (Yates.E 2017). People experience the same feeling when eating chocolate or win a huge pile of money.

The Director of Clinical Outreach at Newport Academy, Kristin Wilson believes that social media badly affect the development of teenagers’ minds. According to her, social media make teenagers vulnerable. Social media serve as a catalyst for mental illnesses. The more time teen girls spend on social media, the more frustrated they become (Newport Academy 2017). The overuse of social networks and the Internet in general lead to addiction. Moreover, psychologists revealed that self-esteem of teenagers, who are self-obsessed, can fall. It is an obvious fact that teenagers often compare themselves with others on social networks. There are young people, whose parents wealthier and have better living conditions. They post photographs in social networks what makes poorer children jealous.

The clinical psychologist Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair claims that modern teen girls do not receive useful social skills due to communication on the Internet. According to her, face-to-face communication can give them more than virtual. For example, they can learn body language and emotions of other people. It is harder for them to shape and express their thoughts in real time events because they get used to virtual communication (Dabarov. A 2018). More and more teen girls feel themselves awkwardly during real conversations. This anxiety can lead to further problems with employment and romantic relationships.

The spread of social media triggered the emergence of illiteracy. The British novelist and journalist, Howard Jacobson considered that Twitter and other social networks have replaced books for youth (Bulman. M 2017). The professor from the University College London, Yvonne Kelly believes that the level of literacy of modern children depends on how much time they spend on social networks. Actually, they just don’t have enough time for reading, doing homework and other tasks, which can develop their literacy. The availability of wise quotes impedes their ability to make own judgments. Teen girls and other users of social networks tend to use the Internet slang and short words in their messages. According to Dr. Cara Booker, this will result in illiteracy of young people (Hymas.C 2018).

Numerous studies revealed that teen girls feel alone, notwithstanding a huge number of friends in social networks. They don’t know how to make a real friend because the Internet deprived them of the ability to get social skills. Teenagers are unable to maintain friendship in real time. Social networks enable us to respond to messages whenever we want. Thus, teenagers understand when their online friends ignore them. People post only positive moments of their lives in social networks. Teenagers, who view this posts and photographs, start to feel themselves unhappy because their lives aren’t so colorful (Agrawal. 2017). Moreover, teen girls feel frustrated, when seeing the post about the cool event, knowing that they weren’t invited. The ROX Research and Training Institute conducted a survey of 10000 girls. In the course of this survey, the ROX planned to figure out the feelings of girls, who use social media. The research revealed that the majority of teen girls remove their posts if they don’t gain enough likes.

Social media teaches how to dress, look and act to be cool. Magazines, advertisements, and television set standards of femininity, success, and beauty. Teen girls are viewing these magazines, TV shows and try to meet standards. Girls start to compare themselves to their classmates, friends, movie stars and models. Their actions result in severe loss of self-esteem (Jacobson. R 2017). Girls became so obsessed with likes that they are ready to make erotic photos, wear provocative clothing and make-up. Teen girls are even ready to go on a diet to become pretty and meet the standards. Further, their actions will lead to eating disorders. There are a lot of forums, where girls discuss the perfect weight. Such forums seriously affect obese teenagers. Moreover, these websites and forums promote self-destructive behavior, claiming that it is cool to be thin and suffer from anorexia. The National Institute of Mental Health warns that anorexia kills a lot of young girls between the ages of 15-24 (Rojas.M 2014). Erin Gallagher, a 13-year-old girl hung herself in the house because online trolls teased her about weight. They sent her insulting messages on ask.fm. One can conclude that social media are not safe for teen girls. They are highly vulnerable to insulting comments and negative assessments. Unfortunately, her tragic story isn’t an isolated incident.

The Royal Society for Public Health has revealed that social media cause even more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes. Criticism is able to change the view of the world and self-esteem of teen girls (Yousra.Z 2017). Teen girls don’t think about consequences before posting photographs or ideas on social networks. They don’t know that this information can be used against them.

More importantly, social media promote hatred and violence. The television and social media propagate wrong values and intolerance. At the end of the 1980s, a five-year-old boy decided to set his bed on fire after watching cartoon Beavis and Butt-head. The cartoon characters convinced Austin Messner that fire is an excellent fun. Having watched this episode, a kid decided to set his bed on fire. As a result, his two-year-old sister, Jessica was burned alive. Three girls from Ohio watched the episode, where Beavis sets Butt-head’s hair on fire and decided to repeat the experiment. Fortunately, they set on fire only clothing in the bedroom (The Associated Press 1993).

The British scientist and writer, Susan Greenfield believe that teenagers, who live in the digital world, lose their ability to feel empathy. According to her perception, such teenagers cease to care about interlocutor, feel ashamed and build a real dialogue. Gender, age, social status, attractiveness and communication skills aren’t important for communication on social networks. However, our brain is designed to form an impression about the person on the basis of non-verbal information. It seems that we turn off our brain during communication on social networks. Teenagers raised by social media are unable to judge of character. Moreover, they can’t build a dialogue and talk with a due literacy. Children don’t even know the meaning of the word compassion. It seems that they are not ready for real life. However, it is not the tip of the iceberg. Teen girls and also boys do not feel responsible for their actions on the Internet. Anyone can imagine being whoever she or he wants. Girls can create fake profiles and add or remove friends. Teenagers, who live in the virtual world, no longer feel ashamed for insults because they do not see the tears and distress of a person (Rivett. G 2014).

The race for the number of friends, recklessness, and promiscuity result in terrible consequences. The violence can be promoted with a help of videos. The Internet is over-saturated with violent videos and movies. The U.S pediatricians revealed a correlation between the promotion of violence in the Internet and violent behavior of teenagers. They believe that violent videos on the Internet seriously affect the mental state of teens. Currently, teenagers visit popular website, containing videos of violent fights, shootings, and murderers. They become more aggressive and demonstrate violent behavior (The American Academy of Pediatrics). In 2014, two twelve-years-old girls stabbed their friend 19 times. They said that fictional supernatural character, Slenderman forced them to kill Payton Leutner to prove their loyalty. Girls wanted to live in Slenderman’s mansion. Slenderman was a popular Internet meme. It was created by Erik Knudsen, the participant of the forum Something Awful. Both girls were nice and quiet but believed in horror stories (Yamato. J 2016). Everyone can draw own conclusions about this terrible situation.

Social media also deprives teenagers of opportunity to experience real emotions. Modern teenagers are plunged into their gadgets and real-life conversation is no longer interesting for them. In addition, social media contributes to laziness. Entertainment, communication, shopping have become available on the Internet (Mitchell-Price. M 2014).

Teenagers overuse social media and this affects their sleep. The British study revealed that one-fifth of teen girls can’t fall asleep until check their social networks for new messages. According to medical researchers, their actions will lead to serious mental illnesses, including depression, deterioration of memory and feeling of constant fatigue.  The deprivation of sleep also negatively affects the immune system of teenagers (Gordon.S 2018). Scientists believe that social media can negatively affect the development of the brain and significantly reduce brain activity.

The National Academy of Sciences revealed that teenager, who abuse social networks, suffer from the deterioration of memory. It is hard for them to recall the events, which weren’t posted on the Internet. A large dose of the Internet can result in sudden irritability (Neal.B 2018). The professor from Columbia University, Keith Wilcox reported that frequent use of social media can lead to the reduction of self-control. As a result, over-reached advertisers will take advantage of this situation and sell teenagers a bag of trash. In particular, it can be junk food.

The majority of teenagers are trying to follow modern trends.  If the popular Instagram model or movie star advertise unhealthy food, they are more likely to buy it (Leasca.S 2018). Such nutrition habits will definitely lead to obesity. Furthermore, social media changes the way they think and their true nature. Teen girls are most susceptible to peer‘s pressure. So, the Internet kills their ability to think independently. Subsequently, it will be hard for them to make tough decisions (Beres.D 2017).

The Department of Education has conducted a study on the effect of social media on teenage girls. More than 30000 teenagers participated in this study. In the course of a study, researchers figured out that 37% of girls experience mental stress. According to scientists, interaction with other people helps teen girls to develop useful skills for later life. Before the advent of the Internet and social networks, they get these skills from communication with real friends, teachers, relatives, and other people. Nowadays, social networks have replaced real-life communication. All these lead to social and emotional degradation (Ramsden.P 2016).

The mental state of teen girls is so fragile that even minor shake-up can contribute to suicidal behavior (Luxton. D 2012). The Internet provides teenagers with previously unavailable information about suicide methods. Nowadays, it is very easy to get such information from the Internet. The World Health Organizations believes that all pro-suicide websites, forums, and other sources should be banned. The excessive use of social media causes serious problems with the mental health of teenagers. In summary, one can conclude that social media are dangerous for teen girls because their mental state is extremely fragile.

Works cited

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Anderson, Jenny. “Even teens are worried they spend too much time on phones.” Quartz. 2018.

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Hymas, Charles. “Children’s literacy levels fall as social media hits reading.” The Telegraph. 2018.

Jacobson, Rae. “Social media and self-doubt.” Child Mind Institute. 2017.

Jones, George. “How does social media slang affect learning.” 2016.

Rivett, Gary. “Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield warns young brains being re-wired by digital technology.” 2014.

Rosenblatt, Kalhan. “Cyberbullying tragedy: New Jersey family to sue after 12-year-old daughter’s suicide.” NBC News. 2017.

The American Academy of Pediatrics. “Clinical report – the impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families.” 2011.

The Associated Press. “Cartoon on MTV blamed for the fire.” 1993.

Wolak, Janis. “Online predators – myth versus reality.” Massachusetts family impact seminar. 2012.