Advanced Essay #2

Email, done. Facebook, typed. Sign up, clicked. I was 10 years old, and I was ready to join the social media world with my brother and cousins. I felt like I was missing out on all of the good things, and yes YouTube had great content to keep me entertained, it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to see what other people that were just like me were up to, and by just like me, I mean not rich and super famous. It felt like the new main way to communicate with people. It was my opportunity to talk to people that weren’t on my block. I had access to the world. But with that were also risks that could’ve affected who I am if I wasn’t blessed enough to have the family I have.  Social media has greatly affected how the youth are in the world.
Today teens are less likely to open up to an adult because it is less comfortable for them. The NBC News tells it’s readers: “Not surprisingly, they found that many teens and young adults are using digital tech. They are using social media as a stand-in for a therapist — not so much for feedback, but as a way to vent.” What I understand from this quote is that it is teens are less social and willing to speak out about their problems compared to the past. Back when there were no social media, people had to physically talk with each other or be on the house phone, texting was not an option. So, because of this, teens actually had stronger relationships with people because they weren’t afraid to vent to them. Texting and talking with your voice are two totally different things and a lot of teens choose to text.

But this is not the only thing social media is doing to teens; it’s also making them feel insecure about themselves. It’s not that teens weren’t insecure before social media, but now it is definitely more common and frequent that you see someone who doesn’t like something about their physical appearance. It’s out in the open now and models and celebrities are really influencing the youth more than ever because of their online presence. In a certain study called #StatusofMind, by Royal Society for Public Health in the UK, results showed that Instagram had the most negative effect on teens and young adults in the US, most notably among women. CNN reported, "Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren't good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look 'perfect,' " an anonymous female respondent said in the report.” When you get on Instagram, if you follow teenage girls or young women, you are most likely going to see a picture of someone with a filter on themselves. It makes them feel acceptable and presentable to the world.

Along with these things, social media has also significantly changed the way we communicate with each other. Families don’t even talk to each other the same anymore because everyone is so focused on being in the loop online. People have grown too accustomed to talking to someone digitally, so when in person, they can’t hold a conversation very well. In an article called Stop Googling. Let’s Talk, posted on New York Times by Sherry Turkle, she explains things she has found from interviews and studies on how phones influence conversations in real life. In the article, she tells us about a college student she interviewed, and this is what he said: “One college junior tried to capture what is wrong about life in his generation. ‘Our texts are fine,’ he said. ‘It’s what texting does to our conversations when we are together that’s the problem.’” Phones are ruining how well we are able to communicate and hold a conversation with the people around us. A group of people can be together and not say a word to one another because they are on their phones looking at something on social media or texting someone who’s not around them. It gives people a way to escape having to socialize with the ones around them, which could be awkward or intimidating to some. Conversations are just no longer the same because of social media and it is most prominent in the youth.