Journal Articles: Social Media and Internet Preferences

Journal Articles: Social Media and Internet Preferences among Teens

In most parts of the world, teenagers have a chance to access smartphones. In fact, the number of the smartphone users has increased dramatically because smartphones have become cheaper. As a way of showing compassion to their children, some parents have presented their children with smartphones, which have in turn exposed teenager to the online world. Some of the biggest media houses have been using social media sites in sharing their news. As result, a larger percentage of the world population has consumed information from social media communities. It is noted that most teenagers have a social media accounts, with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram being among the preferred sites. According to CNN, teenagers are distressed, especially by spending many hours on social media sites. Moreover, the addiction to social media sites has forced some teenagers to check social media sites at school. In fact, teenagers who are active on social media do not perform well in school. In a report, some of the teenage users admitted to checking their social media sites approximately one hundred times a day (Haddad, 2015). 

What is more, the some social media users have influenced teenager into using unacceptable language, while interacting with peers. In a study, youths revealed that they are aggrieved to talk down on other because their peers did the same against them. In this sense, the social media becomes an avenue of spreading hatred and vile, with the intention of intimidating other users. Despite such activities being contrary to the social media use policies, containing bullying in social media is a huge challenge. Some of the teenagers have complained about harassment from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. However, it has been difficult to apprehend the cyber bullies. Indeed, cyber bullies have concentrated on portraying others in negative light, worsening the experience among timid teenagers. The fact that social media users are invisible to each other, some users may not be remorseful for using inappropriate languages. In some cases, it may explode to an exchange of abuses and sometimes these online bullies issuing death threats to the victim. This is a major downside of using social media, considering teenagers are likely to befriend strangers on social media. 

Some of the parents have been curious about their teenage children social media activities, forcing them to monitor their children online activities. Parents do this to ensure that their children are safe, while using social media or any other online resources. In addition, monitoring forces teenage users to evaluate what they post on social media, as well as people they interact with in online communities. Considering these sites have users who may post inappropriate content, monitoring what children access in social media provides a chance to parents to block unsuitable content. 

Apart from browsing on social media sites, some of the teenagers use the video chatting features to talk to their peers and other engage in playing online games, which work in a similar way as social media sites. The extensive use of the social media by teenager has made it difficult for them to differentiate real and virtual life. Some schools have blamed parents for allowing their children to spend more time in the screens, which contributes to poor academic performance. As pointed out in the Los Angeles Times, 26 percent of teens spend most of their time on social media sites and video chatting. Although smartphones offers an opportunity for the teenager to find information that could be helpful in their studies, the report revealed that a paltry 3 percent of the teenagers used smartphones to access educative content. In other words, teenager are not keen on learning using smartphone, given their preference of chatting and browsing social media sites over searching for educative content (Maltais, 2015).

Despite the popularity of social media among teens, most of the teenagers admitted that social media does not have a positive influence in their lives. Based on the preferences, it is noted that boys and girls found different media to be appealing. For instance, girls believed that social media site, Instagram, was appealing. For this reason, they shared a lot of information on the Instagram site. On the contrary, a significant number of boys found video games console to be appealing. Further, a large number of teenage girls spend most of their time reading social media posts, in comparison to boys. What is more, boys spend most of the time playing games using online platforms. As such, boys were mostly searching for sites that are more welcoming to players.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the advancement in technology has led to an increase in the number of social media users. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are among popular sites that teenagers have opened account. Online gaming platform have gained a following, particular among teenage boys. Most of the teenagers have opened social media account, as a way of keeping in touch with their friends and family. Despite the popularity of these sites among teenagers, most of the teenagers admit that they are not comfortable using social media. The increased numbers of social media bullies targeting teenagers has been a great concern. Despite social media creators coming up with policies against cyber bullying, it has been difficult to contain these vice, consider the ever-growing number of users. Of note, the addictive nature of social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, has contributed to teenagers spending more time on these sites, at the expense of their education. Indeed, access to smartphones gives an opportunity to teenage students to access information that could help them in their education. Nonetheless, a paltry three percent of teenagers with smartphones use it to access educative content. In other words, teenager spend most of their time on accessing less educative content or chatting with friends on social media sites. 

References

Haddad, C. (October 13, 2015). “Why some 13-year-olds check social media 100 times a day.” CNN. Retrieved on February 24, 2016 from http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/05/health/being-13-teens-social-media-study/

Maltais, M. (November 3, 2015). “Here's what teens are really doing on their smartphones.” LA Times. Retrieved on February 24, 2016 from http://www.latimes.com/local/education/community/la-me-edu-teens-tweens-spend-hours-on-smartphones-20151103-story.html