EDU 10446 - Social Media Use and Adolescent Well-being Essay

This essay plan explores the multifaceted impact of social media on adolescent well-being, arguing that while social media can enhance mental health and knowledge by connecting adolescents to the world and providing access to innovative ideas, it also presents risks such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental trauma. The plan outlines supporting points, including the benefits of social media as a connecting tool, exposure to global ideas, and the negative impacts of cyberbullying and addiction. It emphasizes the importance of parental guidance and monitoring to mitigate the adverse effects of excessive social media use, suggesting that regulated and monitored usage can protect teenagers from its harmful consequences while still allowing them to benefit from its advantages. The plan references various studies highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of social media on adolescent mental and social health.

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Essay Plan Template
Essay Topic
"Adolescent Well-being can be enhanced through social media use"
Position statement (1 sentence)
 The usage of the social media helps the adolescents to enhance their mental health as well as
improve their knowledge.
Supporting points Body
1 Means of connecting to the world
 It has been seen that Facebook and many other such social media platforms are connecting tools
through which the adolescents can connect as well as socialize in an effective manner with the
world (Verduyn et al., 2017).
 Though this platform will help the teens to connect with the outside world, there are also many
harmful effects like addictions.
 If the children get addicted to the social sites they might not concentrate on other activities like
socializing, studying and many others.
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2 Connecting with a globalized platform and get many new and innovative ideas
 This is helpful for them because they can get a good exposure to the wide variety of ideas and
innovations that is present within the world.
 They are helpful as they help in making the young students and the other aspiring teens in gaining
a whole new insight into the world that lies in front of them (Woods & Scott 2016).
 However, the family members need to ensure that they are keeping a good check over the amount
of time for which the teenagers are using the social media applications.
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3 Addiction, cyber bullying, mental trauma
 The negative impacts that can be caused by the negative comments and statements that one can
get to hear after they have exposed themselves to the social networking or the social media sites is
one of the major problems that the adolescents are facing currently.
 A greater amount of exposure to the social media sites creates a huge problem for the teenagers.
 Thus, it can be concluded that the family members and the other caregivers must try to keep a
proper check over the activities of the teenagers who are suffering from the over usage of social
media.
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4 Proper checks in order to deal with the negative impacts.
 The different kinds of evil impacts that are created over the teenagers or the adolescents who are
addicted to the prolonged usage of the social media sites is a major cause of concern for the
parents (O’Reilly et al., 2018).
 The manner in which these negative comments or statement impacts the mental wellbeing of the
teenagers are to be taken into consideration while understanding this concept.
 This can be checked if the caregivers and the family members of the teenagers make an active
participation and guide them.
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Excessive social media usage can have negative effects on the mental, social and physical
health of the teenagers. This is mainly because of the fact that the many of the social platforms
act as the tools through which the teenagers or the adolescents enter into a strong and well-
connected world (Verduyn et al., 2017). The usage of the social media helps the adolescents to
enhance their mental health as well as improve their knowledge.
However, as per the opinion of Woods & Scott (2016) brief or limited usage of the
social media platforms are not bad. At the same time, that people who fall within the age group
of 13 to 19 years are able to maintain a proper time gap or time regulation for which they are
sitting in front of the social media. Prolonged exposure can create a harmful impact within the
minds of the young people or the teenagers because they will not be able to share things clearly
with their elders. Thus, the family members must guide the children on how to selective use the
social sites. The addiction of social media has the ill effects that can be caused on the teenagers if
they expose themselves to the social media for a very long time. However, Woods & Scott
(2016) has suggested that there are many benefits of using social media as they help the
teenagers in updating and upgrading their knowledge.
However, at the same time, they are often at the risk of damaging their self-confidence.
This is caused when the teenagers are facing some threats or some harmful comments. As there
are many different users from all over the world there is a chance that by using these sites, they
can become depressed as well Apart from this, the other problem that they can face is the
problem of addiction (O’Reilly et al., 208). Thus, it can be said that the prolonged and excessive
usage of social media platforms is likely to adversely affect the mental wellbeing of the
teenagers. The teenagers must be made aware of the harmful impacts that they can face while
they are exposing themselves to the sites like twitter, Facebook, tinder and many other dating

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apps. As said by Kowalski, Limber and Agatston (2012) the present-day teenagers like to have
a personal space of their own and often do not share everything that is going on in their lives.
However, it is important for the parents to take the onus and find out the things that are
going in the lives of their children especially the things which are related to social media. This is
not likely to help the parents to mitigate the harmful effects of social media bullying that many
of the children are facing over the social media on their children. More importantly, this will
enable the children to stay connection with the real world despite being active in the virtual
world of social media.
Thus, Erreygers et al. (2018) might be agreed upon on the viewpoint that the usage of
social media by the teenagers needs to be the regulated as well as monitored by the parents of the
teenagers so as to protect them from its adverse effects.

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References:
Cookingham, L. M., &Ryan,G.L.(2015)Journal of pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology: The
Impact of Social Media on the Sexual and Social Wellness of Adolescents,” Science
direct. 28,2-5. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpag.2014.03.001
Erreygers, S., Vandebosch, H., Vranjes, I., Baillien, E., & De Witte, H. (2018). The interplay of
negative experiences, emotions and affective styles in adolescents' cybervictimization: A
moderated mediation analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 81, 223-234.Available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563217307070
Kowalski, R. M., Limber, S. P., Limber, S., & Agatston, P. W. (2012). Cyberbullying: Bullying
in the digital age. John Wiley & Sons. Available from: https://ebookcentral-proquest-
com.ezproxy.scu.edu.au
O’Reilly, M., Dogra, N., Whiteman, N., Hughes, J., Eruyar, S., & Reilly, P. (2018). Is social
media bad for mental health and wellbeing? Exploring the perspectives of adolescents.
Clinical child psychology and psychiatry, 1359104518775154. Available at:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359104518775154
Verduyn, P., Ybarra, O., Résibois, M., Jonides, J., &Kross, E. (2017). Do Social Network Sites
Enhance or Undermine Subjective Well‐Being? A Critical Review. Social Issues and
Policy Review, 11(1), 274-302. Available at:https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12033
Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). # Sleepyteens: social media use in adolescence is associated
with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of

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Adolescence, 51, 41-49. Available
from:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197116300343