Social Media Websites and Networking for Internet Users Under 18

This essay examines the pervasive influence of social media websites and networking on internet users under the age of 18. It highlights the dual nature of social media, acknowledging its potential as a powerful business marketing tool and a facilitator of social interaction, while also addressing the significant risks it poses to teenagers. The essay discusses opportunities such as improving business needs and building strong community relationships through social media. Conversely, it delves into the risks of misuse of internet resources by teenagers, including exposure to inappropriate content and the dangers of cyberbullying and privacy loss. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of recognizing social networks as an integral part of modern reality and business environments, while also stressing the need for awareness and countermeasures to mitigate the negative impacts on young users. The essay references various studies and reports to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Social Media websites and Networking 1
Social Media websites and Networking
Affiliate Institution
Student
Date

Social Media websites and Networking 2
Social networking website that will attract a large percentage of Internet users under the
age of 18.
Introduction
Information communication technology has tremendously caused a lot, both positive and
negative impacts to the society at large. The impact or effects of technology has been achieved in
several fields including; business, government, accessibility to information and education. The
positive impact being it has helped to grow the economy and the living standard of the
community. However, spending much of your time on the internet has led to weakening of the
lively relationship between family members and the relatives. The topic title above explains that
most of the teenagers are totally addicted to the use of the internet. (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe,
Lenhart, and Madden, 2015)
The fact that the internet been of great important to the business environment, internet has made
the teenage group to become lazy. This is in the sense that you find most of the youth staying
over the internet leaving the prioritize work undone. Furthermore, the research shows that more
than 80% of the teenagers normally are on the social media website such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and whatsApp (Couldry, 2012).
The importance of social media website (opportunities)
Opportunity 1(improving the business needs)
The most important aspect of social media websites is that it can be used as a strong business
marketing tool. Most companies or entrepreneurs use social media websites while making
adverts to their services or products. Social media website as regarded as a reliable marketing
tool since it is where you will find most of the people. According to the research studies, it has

Social Media websites and Networking 3
been identified that social media network is the leading platform with the highest number of
access traffic. (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, and Madden, 2015)
Advertising products over the social media network like Facebook or whatsApp has led to
tremendous improvement in the business field. Most people go to social media platform looking
for product which they may require. This is because it is accessible with known URLs unlike
individual websites.
Opportunity 2 (building a strong relationship community)
Another most important aspect of social media website is that it has enhanced social interaction
between different communities. Social media networking sites has made the globe looks like a
single village. This is because people can interact from wherever they are without necessarily
facing each other. Also by interacting together, people will build strong relationship and peace
will be maintain as if we belong to a single family. Therefore, we should ensure that these sites
are very important in our lives and we should not spam them in any way.
Risk 1 (Misuse of internet resource by teenagers)
However, social media website can be a problem on the other hand. Teenagers (children under
18 years of age) usually misuse the use of social media networking platform. Most of the time
you find this group spending much of their time on the social media platforms. In this case, these
sites are very addictive and may damage the lives of the teenage group. In depth research states
that teenagers uses this social media platform to practice sexual abuse. Every time, we find viral
videos of teenagers engaging in sexual abuse over the social media platform. This kind of
behavior has largely spoilt our children. It has motivated them to misbehave even when they are
too young. (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, and Madden, 2015)

Social Media websites and Networking 4
However, parents does not even bother the effects of internet on our children. They don’t bother
to monitor the purpose of the smartphones to under 18. In the recent past, the UNICEF had to sue
the family who exposed their child to access phonographic movies over their phone and made
them went viral over the social media platform. So the most important countermeasure to solve
this issue is to create awareness to all the parents on the importance of not exposing minors to the
internet resources. (Kaplan, and Haenlein, 2010)
Risk 2 (Risk to cyberbullying and privacy loss)
Another critical risk is privacy protection. Social media networking platforms does not protect
the privacy of an individual. Through the use of the social media website, we are risking the
exposure of our personal privacy. For example, if we are using Facebook or Twitter or any other
social media networking sites, we are exposing much of our details which may lead to our
privacy protection being misused.( Asur, and Huberman, 2010)
In this case, most hackers look for a few information from us so that they can find ways to access
our data. This has caused problem which includes cyberbullying which is a serious problem in
the current world. Also increase rates of crime is due to the use of social media platforms where
most users have been conned and their property being stolen. (Xiang, and Gretzel, 2010)
Conclusion
On the earth surface with over 70% of web clients’ dynamic on social media website, who on
daily basis spend at least one hour daily to access social media website, we need to infer that
social networks have turned into a kind of reality in which individuals impart, cooperate, and
clearly trust. We additionally must know that over 60% of those clients get to social websites by

Social Media websites and Networking 5
means of cell phones, with solid markers that this percent will just increment later on years.
(Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, and Madden, 2015)
In the globe, we need to accept that social media platform is another component of reality that
has turned into a piece of the business environment as well. Over 90% marketers report they are
or will utilize social media websites for business, while over 60% of them witness to have gained
new clients over the same websites.
The researches explained by business expert and advertisers boost the way that organizations can
have a ton of advantages from utilizing social media networking sites, which is the reason usage
of those has turned into a piece of business practice. This is the reason online networking
advertising is never repeatedly viewed as an after-trial supervision, however rather it has turned
into a significant piece of business environment.

Social Media websites and Networking 6
Diagram and images
References
Duggan, M., Ellison, N.B., Lampe, C., Lenhart, A. and Madden, M., 2015. Social media update
2014. Pew research center, 19.
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M., 2010. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), pp.59-68.

Social Media websites and Networking 7
Asur, S. and Huberman, B.A., 2010, August. Predicting the future with social media. In
Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence and
Intelligent Agent Technology-Volume 01 (pp. 492-499). IEEE Computer Society.
Couldry, N., 2012. Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity.
Xiang, Z. and Gretzel, U., 2010. Role of social media in online travel information search.
Tourism management, 31(2), pp.179-188.