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Social media influences on youth
Internet effects on teens
Chapter 2 about the impact of social media on our youth
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Think about your Internet usage. How much time out of your daily life do you spend online? Does your use of the Internet take a toll on your diet, exercise and sleep? Think about today’s young people. They cannot remember a time when they did not have computers and cell phones. While technology and the Internet are useful tools to get information fast, the increasing use of the Internet by adolescents is taking a toll on their physical and emotional development. This increase in use of the Internet is causing several health issues in adolescents; these include problems with nutrition, exercise, and unhealthy sleep patterns, all of which can lead to a multitude of adolescent developmental concerns.
[Diet/Nutrition]
Adolescence is a time in one's life when many radical developmental changes are taking place. These biological changes include rapid growth in height, weight, and sexual maturation. In order to encourage these natural processes to take place appropriately, it is crucial that adolescents get the proper amount of nutrients from their diet, adequate physical exercise, and a sufficient amount of sleep. Today's ever increasing use of technology, especially the Internet, by teenagers has the ability to affect these developmental processes. Several scientific studies have shown that Internet usage has negatively impacted adolescents' diet, exercise and nutrition. A 2010 study examined the changes on the diets and lifestyle of Korean junior high students as a result of different levels of addiction to the Internet. The goal of the study was to analyze the connections between the students risk levels of Internet addiction and how those levels corresponded to their sleep, substance abuse, and dietary patterns. The results of t...
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...nternet Addiction on the Lifestyle and Dietary Behavior of Korean Adolescents." Nutrition Research and Practice 4.1 (2010): 51-57. PubMed. Web. 17 Sept. 2013.
Subrahmanyam, Kaveri, and David Šmahel. "Internet Use and Well-Being: Physical and
Psychological Effects." Digital Youth: The Role of Media in Development. New York: Springer, 2011. 123-42. Springer Link. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Zhang, Wei. "The Influence of Sports about Internet Addiction on Teenagers' Health in
Different Dimensions." Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. Vol. 135. Heidelberg: Springer, 2012. 739-44. Springer Link. Web. 22 Nov. 2013
"Teens and Sleep." Sleep for Teenagers. National Sleep Foundation, n.d.
Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
Colrain, Ian M., and Fiona C. Baker. "Changes in Sleep as a Function of Adolescent Development." Neuropsychology Review 21.1 (2011): 5-21. Springer Link. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
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According to Li, O’Brien, Snyder, and Howard (2016), problematic internet use may lead to serious psychosocial dysfunction and has resulted in a proposed diagnostic criterion for the DSM-5 in order to assess the disorder. In the United States, 6% to 11% of internet users are problematic internet users. Researchers, in fact, compare problematic internet use to the assessed criteria for gambling and internet gaming disorder. They have also concluded that college-aged teens and young adults are at most risk due to the availability of internet access around them and the direct relationship between the internet and education. Symptoms include impaired physical health such as obesity or sleep disorders, psychological distress, and behavioral problems. Students may also experience more interpersonal problems and worse school and work performance.
According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, “Between 16 and 33 percent of children and adolescents are obese” (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry). That number is beyond outrageous. Steps must be taken to prevent this from continuing. Our children are our future; without them we won’t even have one. In a country where there is a vast amount of information available, many parents are ignorant to the ramifications or consequences of letting their children eat whatever they want in addition to the long term effect of allowing them to sit in front of a computer or television, as well as allowing them to play video games all day. Eight to 18-year old adolescents spend an average of 7.5 hours a day using entertainment media, including TV, computers, video games, cell phones and movies, and only one-third ...
If all of these important activities occur during sleep, why is it that people are so willing to short themselves of this vital activity? Although much about sleep still remains a mystery, research and experiments continue to show how important sleep is to each and every person. Throughout this paper, I will discuss sleep and the effects that it has on performance and health, especially among college students. A college student’s sleeping pattern is a reliable indicator of their level of performance in the classroom and other school-affiliated activities, as a lack of sleep leads to decreased performance. Sleep is directly related to the level of performance and health of an individual; the more rested a person is, the better that person will perform and feel (Dryer, 2006).
Teens used technology consuming excessive amounts of exercise time throughout the day that caused the physical health problem of obesity. Teens were physically active throughout the day before technology was fully exposed to teens. According to the article, Obesity in Children and Technology, Cespedes (2013) stated “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that approximately 10 percent of preschool age children and 15 percent of 6- to 19-year olds, can be considered overweight. In addition to eating more processed, high calorie foods, active play has been supplanted by technology” (para.4). Teens would take more time outdoors riding bikes, playing at the parks, walking with friends, and swimming at indoor pools that caused them to burn calories while having fun. Most of technology today was at a sedentary state that replaced many of the outdoor activities with teens playing sport video games, using their smartphones, and browsing the internet on the computer or tablets for coun...
"Impact of Media Use on Children and Youth." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2003. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
This world has become immersed in online media from socializing on networking sites to seeking information on search engines. People of all ages have become reliant on online media, but the most engaged users are the younger, more easily impacted generations. Although there are many positive uses for online media, there are many negative uses as well. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for these negative effects to impede upon the perceptions of adolescents. Some countries have been trying to reduce this effect by expelling the inappropriate content of online media ("Influence on Children Media...”). However, in the United States, children are thrown in the waves, expected to stay afloat in this massive sea, but many are being dragged under the surface by the nefarious temptations media creates. Content that is not appropriate for the young, growing minds of children are easily accessible; a myriad of devices may be used to access this material, all at the click of a button. Without adult content filters on online media, adolescents of various ages are exposed to dangerous conceptions. A world of pornography, violence, and public humiliation lay in the user’s fingertips.
Carpenter, S. (n.d.). Sleep deprivation may be undermining teen health. http://www.apa.org. Retrieved March 6, 2014, from http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct01/sleepteen.aspx
The change in the social life of children and young generation causes research upon technology’s usage of young people. A recent survey shows that adolescents aged between 10-18 waste an average of six to seven hours with electronic devices like computers and smart phones, which cause negative outcomes such as depression, social isolation, anxiety, insomnia, and obesity (“Technology gadgets steal kids' sleep, shows survey”). The good feeling brought on by the chemicals like adrenaline, dopamine as in the gambling addiction and the joy of social networking sites, smartphones, online video games and also not-feeling alone and freedom in virtual world are the factors of technology dependence. This 24/7 online, connected community is actually a place to escape from stress and bad emotions. The countless facilities and alternatives of the virtual world attract the attention of many teens.
Kershaw provides an example of the negative effect of Internet addiction in the article “Hooked on the Web: Help is on the Way”. Mike is a 34 year old man who addresses his Internet addiction problem and seeks treatment. Before seeking treatment, Mike struggled with alcohol and drug abuse and depression along with Internet addiction. He often spent countless hours using the computer to search news and sports information. He never felt it was a problem because he liked it so much and used it in his everyday life. However, Internet addiction started to impact Mike’s life. He became unemployed and lived with his mother. It also affected his social interaction; he would rather be on the computer than be around other people (Kershaw). Another case where computer addiction is found to be a problem is in some Asian countries. Elizabeth Cooney, in her article “Some People Need Help To Kick Their Internet and Computer Gaming Obsessions” reports that “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in girls and hostility in boys can predispose children to later Internet addiction, which they estimate affects 4 percent of children in Korea and 15 percent in China.” Furthermore, there have been reports of death due to Internet addiction as well. In Korea, a man died because he did not perform basic survival skills such as eating and sleeping for 50 hours due to his Internet addiction (Cooney). In the article “Computer
The internet is an essential tool in everyday life. The age of a person does not matter, because whether they are a teen, an adult, or an elderly person in order to stay in contact with others they will need the internet. However, the internet is dangerously addictive. Some studies say that the internet is not the addiction, but the means of getting to the addiction. The more believable of the two studies are the ones that discuss the internet being the addiction. Curtis stated in 2012 that reports on the brain are showing that people who excessively use the internet show abnormalities similar to people who suffer from substance addiction. Curtis also stated that internet addiction was becoming
There has been a long lasting debate in the resent years on whether or not technology has a positive or negative impact on today’s kids. As the years move on, the negative effects have begun to outnumber the positive. The generations previous spent their childhood making forts, fishing, and using their imaginations, contrary to today’s generations who spend their free time texting, playing video games, and watching videos. Damaging effects such as decreases in school performances, addiction to electronics, and lack of brain development have all been linked to the electronic media stimulation. In order to prevent the future generation from following in the current generations footsteps, one must full comprehend just how much technology impacts
It is an obvious fact that technology is a main part of daily life. Assuredly, it is also the major fact that contributing to such problem as obesity in children, one of the most concerned problems facing the present society. Generally, all the technology gadgets have the great impact that can make children sit at one place. Meanwhile, when they tend to loose their control, while using the technology such as television or cell phone, their body craves for more food and snack (Levine, 2009). Definitely, it would not be a problem if all the food they grabbed were some nutritious food, which in fact they are junk food such as chocolates, ...
First and foremost, health problems due to the increase in technology usage is becoming a bigger issue than one might think. With technology becoming a bigger factor in everyday life, diseases and other health issues that used to be less prevalent are now becoming epidemics (Rowan). For example, obesity, which is a condition in which a person is very fat or overweight. Obesity is caused by not getting a proper diet and exercise. Technology is causing this to become an epidemic in children, because children need at least sixty minutes of physical exercise a day and when they are watching TV, on the computer, or playing video games, they are not physically active (Loop). Also, when children are less active and on electronics, they are more likely to eat food that is not healthy for them, such as high calorie junk foods (Martin). With obesity can come many other diseases or health problems. For example, people who are obese are more likely to develop heart problems, diabetes, or high bl...
Children of all ages everywhere these days seem to only depend on the internet. The internet is an amazing creation, but people take advantage of it. Since there is internet there is access to all kinds of social media, games, and all sorts of other things. However, because of today’s society internet is one of the only things kids use and go on, whether it’s go on Facebook for hours or watch ridiculous videos on YouTube, the internet is taking a negative turn towards children, their brains, smartness, and attitude. Despite helpful or early learning programs, the internet does not make children smarter.
As a person gets older, their likely-hood to become and internet addict decreases. For example, China and South Korea are among the highest rates of internet addiction. In China and South Korea 30% of their citizens are addicted. However, in America o...