Social Media and Teens

I am thrilled to have my son Andrew as a guest author on my blog today sharing with us about Social Media and Teens!  Andrew is a Sophomore in college and is majoring in Computer Science.  He wrote this for a public speaking class he has this semester.  I asked him if I could share his writing with my readers because of all the valuable statistics he researched and presented about the effects of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.  This is a very important parenting issue that we must learn to navigate successfully.   Andrew presents a very accurate picture of social media.  As a result of his essay, I made a few changes to my social media accounts and I hope you will too.

Social Media and Teens

1.49 billion.  That is how many monthly active Facebook users there are. (Smith, 2015) Twitter has 302 million active monthly users. (Quintaro, 2015) Social media is undeniably huge.  How many social media related accounts do you have? The answer is probably more than 1.  In our clearly “connected” society are we actually closer to each other, and is all of this media consumption good for us?  These are the questions I endeavor to answer with this paper.

Firstly, I would like to examine the psychological and relational effects of social media.  Stress is something we all have to deal with and social media can in some cases enhance it.  According to the University of Edinburgh Business School the more Facebook friends, someone has the more stressed they are about using Facebook. (Gutierrez, 2012) Also, in some cases, offline relational issues can develop and it can even escalate to physical harm in rare cases…  A 2012 Pew internet report, reported that 15% of adults using social media had a friendship end because of social media use, that 12% of adults had a face-to-face argument because of online experience, and 3% reported coming to blows over a social media experience. (Rainie et al, 2012)  A bounty of psychological issues seems to be correlated with social media usage.  Personality and brain disorders, like the inability to have conversations, a need for instant gratification, ADHD, and self-centered personalities, as well as addictive behaviors can all be linked to social media use. (Consumer Report, June 2012)   Face-to-face interactions have also decreased because of social media. 47% of 18-34-year-olds say that they access social media or text during meals with their family instead of talking with them. (Pan, 2012) The percentage of people reporting less face-to-face time with family increased from 8% in 2000 to 34% in 2011 according to a January 2012 Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School study. (USC Annenberg, 2012)  The previous two statistics are particularly sad to me.  “A family that eats together stays together”, as they say, and we can’t expect strong families if they do not even talk with each other.

Secondly, problems in the scholastic realm can arise due to excess social media use.  The average GPA of non-social media users is 3.06, while non-users is 3.82.  Also, students who used social media while studying scored 20% lower on tests. (Kirschner et al, 2010)  As we all know, social media can be very distracting.  40% of 8-18-year-olds spend 54 minutes a day on social media. (Rideout et al, 2010) On average it takes someone alerted to a social media notification 20 to 25 minutes to return to the original task, and in 30% of cases, it took two hours to fully get back on task. Obviously, social media might impact studying a bit. (Gasser et al, 2009) Social media can also allow students to cheat.  California, New York City, and Houston students have posted photos of standardized tests on social media websites. The SAT has reported having similar issues. (McCullagh, 2012; Blume, 2012; Bommarito, 2012)  It can even impact your chances of getting into college.  According to a 2014 Kaplan Test prep survey 35% of college admissions officers look at prospective students’ Facebook pages, and 16% said that they discovered information that negatively impacted the prospective student’s chances of being admitted. (Kaplan Test Prep, 2014)

Lastly, there are many security risks linked to social media.  13 million Facebook users are unaware of Facebook’s security settings, and 28% of those users have shared all, or almost all, of their posts publicly. (Consumer Report, 2012) According to an ExactTarget marketing report to companies, “When a user clicks on a [Facebook] like button belonging to your brand, you’re immediately granted access to additional information about this customer, from school affiliation and workplace information to their birthplace and other things they like.. [M]arketers can access and leverage data in ways that will truly alarm customers.” (ExactTarget, 2010)  Knowledge is power.  If companies know our likes and dislikes, our interests, etc. they can manipulate us.  Another scary fact about social media is that anything written on social media is in ink.  It cannot ever truly be deleted.  The Library of Congress has been archiving every tweet since Twitter’s inception in 2006. (Raymond, 2010)  Apparently one-third of all divorce cases filed in 2011 cited Facebook as a source of information. (Tuchman, 2012)  Viruses can be spread through social media, as social media sites do not scan messages for viruses. (Waugh, 2012)  When you create an account on just about any website you are asked to answer some security questions, which seem to often deal with pet’s names, high schools, and our mother’s maiden names, and to give some information about yourself, such as your birthday.  Imagine how many websites someone would be able to access if they knew the answers to those questions and our personal information?  Social media doesn’t make it too difficult to find out the answers to those questions.  68% of those using social media share their birthday publicly, 63% share their high school’s name, 18% share their phone number, and 12% share a pet’s name. (Topping, 2012)

In conclusion, I hope that I have been able to clearly highlight the psychological, scholastic, and security issues related to social media.  Social media’s main goal is to make us more social, to connect us, and it does succeed partially.  We are certainly far more aware of the day-to-day lives of others, but, in general, we aren’t any closer to each other because of it.  My dad makes a point of mentioning that nobody said hello to us when we toured Otterbein’s campus.  10 years ago I doubt that would have been the case.  We are so absorbed with social media, we actually forget to be social in person.

Tips To Reduce Social Media Use In Teens

• Institute a no cell phone while eating rule.
• No cell phone usage at bedtime.  Make a family charging station somewhere in your home other than the bedroom.  (Replace your cell phone alarm with this.)
• Sit down with your teen (not in judgment) and open screen time on their phone (why not check your stats too) to see how much time they are spending on their phone. (Go to Settings > Screen Time and take a look.)
• Have a one week or month family media fast.
• Make sure you are actively engaged with your teen on social media.  If you allow Facebook and Instagram, then you need to be on there with them, guiding them and checking their account.

YOUR TURN…

How do you monitor social media in your home?

Blessings,