Research has documented that youths employ social media to serve vital adolescent growth activities, including aspirational growth, identity development, and peer engagement (Uhls et al., 2017). Adolescent's application of social media reflects, reinforces, and complements off-line practices, relationships, and processes. Social media facilitates advanced self-esteem, safe identity exploration, elevated social capital (that is resources accessed via individual social links), an excellent chance for self-disclosure, and social support (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). As such, it has been evidenced that youths, most notably, adolescents, use social media to formulate and sustain relationships. Through the use of social media, adolescents make links with existing off-line friends daily, alongside understanding their feelings. Besides, social media helps youths with learning challenges or the ones struggling with their sexual identity by making them feel more confident and less lonely (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). Following the cost of social media, it presents with negative influence on their development and health (Uhls et al., 2017). For instance, the use of social media during adolescence results in depression, cyberbullying, exposure to developmentally ineffective content, and social anxiety (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). The instance of unlimited access to peers facilitated by social media leads to changing sleep patterns among adolescents, and thus depression (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). The lack of sleep leads to loss of memory, depressive symptoms, motor vehicle crashes, challenges at school, among other chronic matters (Uhls et al., 2017).
Personal thoughts on the benefits and costs of social media
I believe that social media has both negative and positive impacts on adolescents in the modern world. For the positive effects, I think that makes youths up to date on the activities occurring around the universe and still enabling them to network and remain connected with their friends and fellow teenagers without physical meetings. On the other hand, I believe that social media has negative impacts such as psychological, physical, mental, and emotional matters that facilitate depression and anxiety, among other conditions that affect adolescents' health and development. With this, I believe that several stakeholders, including providers and clinicians, educators, and policymakers, should best ensure that youths benefit most from social media.
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Impact of social media on my development
Through the use of social media, I have developed the ability to effectively make new friends and maintain such friendships in various fields, and this always keeps me informed about what is happening in multiple places around the world. This makes me to be connected to my fellow age mates and friends without having to meet them necessarily.
References
Uhls, Y. T., Ellison, N. B., & Subrahmanyam, K. (2017). Benefits and costs of social media in adolescence. Pediatrics , 140 (Supplement 2), S67-S70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1758E
Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social media its impact with positive and negative aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research , 5 (2), 71-75. https://parsippanyfocus.com/2017/09/02/the-impact-of-social-media-on-todays-teenagers/ https://s3.amazonaws.com/blackboard.learn.xythos.prod/5a343eaadaf7a/1281202?response-cache-control=private%2C%20max-age%3D21600&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Benefits%2520and%2520costs%2520of%2520social%2520media.pdf&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20200524T090000Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=21600&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIL7WQYDOOHAZJGWQ%2F20200524%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=f932b1327598270cb7754d28e13a456409d5b58c4108646dfd7846ed9cae915c
