Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families

Impact of social media of Children, Adolescents, and Families
Student Name, Name of the university
Abstract— The use of social media is the most
rising trend among children and adolescents in
recent days. Social media websites include social
networking sites, gaming sites, and virtue worlds,
and video sites like Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube. These sites act as the youth's portal for
communication and entertainment. Recently, social
media has gained popularity and has grown
exponentially. Their popularity is worrying for
parents because not all social media websites offer
a healthy environment for children and teenagers.
Teenagers can now easily share information both
with positive and negative impacts on the social
media. The usage of these sites by teenagers has
become a way of life where personal activities are
easily made public. It is therefore important for
parents to monitor for potential problems such as
cyberbullying, social media depression, sexting
and exposure to inappropriate media content.
Index terms— Cyberbullying, sexting, Social
media
I. INTRODUCTION
Social media is now contributing to the
infrastructure of our everyday activities. According
to Boyd & Ellison (2007), “social networking is
defined as web-based services that allow
individuals to construct a public or a semi-public
profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of
other users with whom they share a connection and
view and transverse their list of connection and
those made by others within the system” (pg. 211).
On the other hand, social media represents the
technologies or applications that people use in
developing and maintaining their social
networking websites. This involves the posting of
multimedia content, locations, and gaming.
Current commonly used social media sites include
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and
WhatsApp. Social media have changed how youth
socialize and learn, and this raises a new set of
issues that educators, parents, and policymakers
should consider (Ito et al, 2008).
Due to the limited capabilities of children and
adults for self-monitoring and regulation, some are
vulnerable to peer pressure. In addition, most
teenagers are at risk as they use and experiment
with social media. This includes negative
experiences such as online bullying, sexual
experimentation, privacy issues, and sexting and
internet addition (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006). In
contrast, social media activities can also improve
communication, social connection, and technical
skills among children and adolescents.
II. ADVANTAGES OF USING
SOCIAL MEDIA AMONG
TEENAGERS
There are several benefits of using social
media among children and adolescents. These
include improved socialization and communication
and improved learning opportunities.

Socialization and Communication
Most youths use online networks to extend
their friendships that they navigate in the familiar
contexts of school, religious organizations, sports,
and other local activities (Ito et al, 2007). This
result in the creation of new friendship beyond
what they access in a day to day life and
sometimes beyond their age limit. In addition,
social media allows children and adolescents to
stay in touch with friends and family through
messaging platforms and chats, sharing pictures
and exchanging ideas. This aspect of social media
can be used to strengthen friendship which is a key
component of teen life. According to Gordon,
(2019), having at least one solid friendship can go
a long way in preventing bullying.
Political and civic participations
According to Carpini et al (2006), political
participation is those activities whose aim is to
exert influence on, directly or indirectly in the
selection of political officials. In the recent days,
social media usage especially among teenagers has
proven to be a very strong political campaign tool.
Awareness campaigns are easily circulated among
the general populous within hours. This was the
case between 2010 and 2012 that saw protests and
demonstration in the Middle East and North
Africa. During this time social media played a
significant role in facilitating communication and
interaction among the protestors (Teti, Abbott &
Cavatorta, 2017).
Self-Directed and Peer-Based Learning
Youths create and go through new forms
of expression and rules for social behaviour.
Learning is accomplished through exploration and
play with various forms of emerging media
(Wankel, 2011). While employing tools such as
chat rooms, online forums, and social networks,
young people actively direct their own learning
paths and in the process develop important
technology and media skills. Moreover, these
media platforms allow teenagers to share and
discuss learning materials and share past
experiences.
Other positive effects if using social media
among teenagers include getting informed about
the current affairs. This includes finding out about
what is happening in their environs, school,
country, and even the world. This information can
be useful and can enable them to make informed
decisions based on what they know. The freedom
provided by social media sites allows teens to
freely express themselves. This can boost self-
esteem allowing the teens to reproduce their own
unique personality. Social media sites also provide
entertainment platforms. Children can watch
videos, view pictures and read blogs.
III. RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH
USING SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
With the recent exponential growth of social
media, there have been exponential risks to
adolescents and children. These risks mainly
include peer to peer threats like bullying and
harassment, inappropriate social content and
behaviours like sexting and pornography, online
privacy issues, decrease in productivity due to
online addiction, and outside influences of a third
party and advertising groups. In addition, posting