Facebook And Facebook: The Influence Of Social Media

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Envision the year 2000. It was four years before Marc Zuckerberg propelled Facebook into a social networking site from his college residence. It was five years prior to the founding of YouTube and six years preceding the first tweet. It was also years before the concept of spending 1,560 minutes monthly on a solitary website like Facebook was even fathomable (“Why Social Media”). Fast-forward to the present day. Teenagers spend their school day anticipating the next time they will be able to update their status. It’s imperative for them to let their one thousand three hundred sixty one Twitter followers in on their daily lives as it happens. The popularity of social networking is rapidly increasing every day and has dramatically changed the way societies live. There are numerous ways to use this new means of interacting, thus it affects each individual differently, in both positive and negative aspects. Social media can stand as a platform for adolescents to express themselves; however, it also presents a new dimension of peer pressure and additional stress to today’s teens.
A great amount of value is placed upon self-expression in Western civilizations. After all, the first amendment in the United States Bill of Rights is freedom of speech and expression. Living in an individualistic society, such as the United States, places an emphasis on the need to create an identity for oneself through the choices he or she makes. Other than Twitter’s limit of 2,400 tweets per day, there is no real set boundary for teenagers to express themselves, take a stance on controversial topics and have their voices be heard. “After a Christian motivational speaker, who believes ‘dateable girls know how to shut up,’ spoke at a high school in ...

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...re what help humans to grow and develop as intelligent people. Each and every mistake one makes is being documented on the internet. This newfound stress that is inflicted upon by means of social media leaves adolescents with a learning disadvantage and no room for error.
Social media is not black and white. It should not be perceived “as either positive or negative, but as essentially neutral” (Klass 2). Social media can act as an outlet for adolescents to express themselves, have a voice in society and even discover fame and fortunes. Yet on the opposite spectrum, the media implicates new forms of peer pressure that creates the need to be noticed and accepted. It also places a burden of stress upon teens, for each of their online mistakes is being recorded and could ultimately cost them a college acceptance letter. How one uses social media affects its impact.

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