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The effect of social media on our youths
What is the effect of social media for teenagers
What is the effect of social media for teenagers
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A 14-year-old girl was chatting with a child predator on social media for a month before deciding to meet in the woods near the girls’ home. The sex predator, Jarred Workman was hiding in the girl’s closet for five days, raping her at night repeatedly. He was found by the little girl’s mother, when she was putting something in the girl’s closet. When he ran he dropped his wallet and phone, making it easier for authorities to locate him (Murdock). The victim’s story is not unique. Many young people are on social media and are unaware of the danger.
If students, like the young woman were taught to stay on guard at a young age and know what to do in situations like this one, there will be fewer incidences of online victimization. Schools should teach students at a young age how to protect themselves on social media from predators, to increase awareness to the danger.
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According to Merryn, there are 42 million sexual abuse survivors in America and in that 42 million are three million that are children. In today generation, most people are on their electronic devices and because of these devices many predators are taking advantage of children on social media, by pretending to be someone else. Apparently Facebook and Twitter are so overpopulated that perverts, pedophiles and rapists are using the social network and the numbers of sexual assault cases relate to social media has increase(Kotenko). Every minute, a child is being abused on social media and there is no way of knowing it because children today are not properly taught how to be on guard in circumstances like this
Social networking sites leave opportunities for vulnerability, however, I don’t believe many youths are an easy target. Using ethos, pathos and logos individuals can create their own reality to relate to the internet world who they think are and how they wish to be seen. In mediated publics such as Facebook and Instagram, the user has complete control of his or her profile and is the only one who can allow content about his/herself to be shared. It is my personal belief that as technology has evolved many people have taken to fabricating some truths here and there and omitting details to give an ideal representation of who they are without incriminating themselves or leaving themselves vulnerable for mistreatment. The fantasy of what is or could be is more desirable than reality. In the past few years, privacy settings have been adapted to cover the growing technological advances to keep users safe from online predators.
Nowadays, a standard stage of growing up is feeling the stress of one’s body image due to the growing pressure from society and media. In 2012 there was a survey that said “A full 50 percent of children from 8 to 10 years old report being ‘unhappy’ with their bodies” (ProQuest Staff). This is because when girls are growing up they see models/ actresses on TV and magazines that are thin and look beautiful and they think that’s what they are supposed to look like; unfortunately this is unrealistic. In 2006 there was a fashion model named Luise Ramos who died of a heart attack moments after she steps off the runway during fashion week in Montevideo (ProQuest Staff). News accounts later report that Ramos, 22, had been eating only lettuce and diet
The publicity about online predators that prey on naive and inexperienced young children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate. Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often fit a model of statutory rape which is adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting (Wolak et. al., 2008). However, prepubescent children are even less vulnerable because their internet use is generally more supervised by the parents and guardian. In addition, they use the internet less for communication and are for developmental reasons, less interested in sex and relationships than adolescents.
Harmful insults and acts of bullying are no longer restricted to the actual world. Cyber world is now infected with these issues in which technology and private information are instinctively used to constantly harm or bash emotionally hostilities towards a group or one particular individual. Social networks such as Facebook, twitter, and Google plus have been gaining immense popularity in the past years. With the popularity of these sites, the problems of cyber bullying, online sexual predators and accessibility to adult content also continue to grow. The younger generations are becoming more techno-friendly, with electronic devices such as tablets, computers, and cell phones. With this fact younger children are becoming more vulnerable and more likely to be confronted with these problems. These problems and issues of social discriminations are why there needs to be an age restriction or improved rules and provisions in order to prevent this.
The concept of internet safety is often taught to adolescents starting as early as secondary school, however, recent research has shown that the teachings aren 't effective. Issues that stem from parents being ignorant to what their children are posting online are cyberbullying and sexting; which are common negativities that minors are subjected to in recent years. The topic of kids harassing other kids via social media has become a sensitive subject as well. Cyberbullying has become so out of control that the youth are starting to take their own lives because they cannot bare to deal with the hate. Teens like Jamey Rodemeyer who was a 14-year-old who took his own life after being bullied physically at school and harassed online about his sexuality (Hughes). These types of problems could be prevented if parents were more aware of what exactly their kids were posting on social media and limit their access to the
Cyber bullying and online crime must be put at a stop. Parents and teachers should play a great role in regulating what their kids are doing on social media. Parents give their children smart phones, tablets, and computers but they fail to convey the proper way of using those tools. They should teach them the rules of being on social media by telling them from right to wrong. Parents don’t give their children a car to use without telling them the proper rules of how to drive the car. If they don’t teach them how to drive the car then that child wouldn’t know what to do about his or her car and may lead to an accident. This is the same way of how parents should also teach their kids of how to regulate on social media. There are many privacy settings on these social network sites which some kids are not aware off or simply do not care about. We should put an aware of these settings to them and teach them from right to wrong. Parents and teachers should also encourage their kids to come talk to them if they are facing any type of
YouTube, a video sharing site, contained one billion monthly users, Instagram shared 600 million monthly visitors, and Twitter with 313 million monthly users (“Social Media”). Overall, Facebook remained the largest online social network, with about 1.86 billion active users worldwide (“Social Media”). The immense number of social media users is overwhelming.Though social media can be used positively by connecting friends and families around the world, it also comes with drastic consequences and dangers. With the amount of information that can be shared online, criminals can easily use this to target specific people, and can also use the information for identity theft (“Social Media”). Many networking shows have introduced the growing issue with a pedophilia and how social media can enable acts of violence against children, and not only that, but the new, easier accessibility to child pornography online (“Social Media”). Relationships between a pedophile and an underage person can easily be formed behind screens, as these attackers can be manipulative and often lie about their identity and
As we go about our daily lives we have probably noticed that just about everyone nowadays has their eyes glued to their phone. People are using them at restaurants, at the park and sometimes even at the movies and If we were to observe the dinner table in the homes of most families today, we could probably see the entire family on their phones. Teenagers practically only put them down to shower. Cell phones are used today by young adults for so many things, texting with friends, listening to music, googling information for homework, selfies which they post on overly used social media accounts. Today, we are surrounded by social media. Most teens have on average a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts. They can stay connected with
Generally, social networking provides online sexual predators with an easy gateway to youths. Users of online social media services tend to share copious amounts of personal information on online profiles, these same users control who can or cannot see their information by utilizing privacy settings. The problem with these “privacy settings” is that they are often hard to manipulate, leaving a multitude of online profiles vulnerable to often explicit offers from online sexual predators. Lacking the ability to protect their information properly, users are in jeopardy of being contacted by sexual predators. In fact, “[d]uring the years prior to the explosive expansion of social networks, most online sexual predators attempted to contact youths through chat rooms and message boards. In recent years, however, predators are increasingly targeting minors over social networking services”, showing that social networking directly puts youths in peril (Guo, 626). This sheds light on the fact that social networking is basically a way to herd youths and display them ...
With the level of exposure that teens are facing today by joining the social networking trend, they often forget the dangers of social networking such as stalkers and pedophiles, who may use the sites as a major tool of the trade. Said dangers can befriend naïve teens and lure them into dangerous situations. For example, Raymond Wang had a friend being stalked by an unknown person through one of the social networking sites. This stalker acquired private information about her via Facebook, and it got to the point where the stalker was sending her threatening or perverted letters to her actual mailbox detailing what he would do to her. “This has really affected her a lot because now she’s scared other stalkers might do the same and she doesn't want that to happen or have anything happen to her.” (Wang 19) Even though users are given the option to make one’s profile private, there is still the looming threat that stalkers are able to gather enough information about the person’s whereabouts. Another similar incident happened to Regina Chau, a member of a social networking site catered to the raver lifestyle, Plurlife. When she first joined with her offline friends she liked everything about the SNS, but “[where] most of the people you accept to your friends list would probably be strangers.” (Chau 18) she had befriended a person she did not know offline and one these “friends” got a little too friendly with her; “he would keep asking over and over if I wanted to meet up with him at the next event. I found this a little creepy and did not message him back after that.
In today’s society, much advancement has been made throughout the universe. However, one that seems to stand out in particular is the use of social media. Social media has both positive and negative effects on society. This advancement has led to a difference in communication to everyone by reconnecting with others, or even informing the public nationwide through televisions such as the news or talk shows. However, is social media safe to use? Social media has a great impact on everyone in society. While allowing your children or teenagers to engage in social media a few things to consider are the risks of youth using social media, what age is too young, and also how social media is useful in some cases. Children participate in cyber bullying now and even find themselves involved in bad habits, such as sexting (Schurgin O’Keefe). According to a recent poll conducted, over 22 percent of teenagers log onto their social media site more than ten times a day (Schurgin O’Keefe). Not everything is negative towards social media, but there are precautions that need to be taken when there is the youth involved.
Adults are easily accessible to the goods and bads on social media, compared to children that are less capable to realize what is convenient for them. As a result, children have become victims of cyberbullying via social media. One of the major problem of cyberbullying had to do with the fact that “[t]he Internet provides more than ample opportunities for children to bully one another anonymously. Kids can embark on impressive and terrifying bullying campaigns, drawing in dozens of other completely anonymous children. Even a child who never does anything risky online is at risk of being bullied”, (Woda,2015, p.32). Children are expose to more cyberbullying in social media than in their normal everyday lives. According to Woda Tim, (2015) “a 2013 Pew Research Center study, indicates that 20.8 percent of kids ages eight to ten report that they have been cyberbullied at least once in their life, while 88 percent of social media-using teens say they have witnessed someone being mean or cruel on a social media site”, (32). Parents should focus more when their kids are using phones or computers in the house and it should use in public areas of the house, where parents can be aware of what their kids are doing in social media. They must use a “Parental intelligence” with their children and know that kids are the more vulnerable to be involved in cyberbullying. It is painful to see how everyday in the news kids are committing
Social media can have detrimental effects on the formation of an adolescent’s identity such as social isolation meaning that the individual will spend excessive amounts of time attached to any electronics that will provide him with social media access. Social networking has been debated to have beneficial or detrimental effects, as overuse and abuse of the Internet can be harmful to someone, such as an adolescent. According to the National Crime Prevention Council, over one million teenage girls are victimized psychologically as well as physically, through social media.
Social media has token a huge step from when it first started. The more the years go by there are new trends and new technology that continues to grow. As the newer technology comes out, the younger the kids are getting their hands on the new gadgets. As a result our younger generation begins to get into the internet having their own accounts to multiple social media websites. Kids don’t realize what they can get themselves into when they get an account, it can lead them to older people (child molesters, Perverts, ect.). Since 2011, teen Twitter use has grown significantly from 16% to 24% (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013). These social media accounts can make it easier to cyber bully there victim. Most importantly it takes away their
Social media bullying is becoming a growing problem, not only in the United States, but all around the world. Children can easily have access to the internet and social media sites and therefore say whatever they want to others in order to boost their self-esteem. In order to prevent social media bullying, children and parents must be aware of all internet dangers and also what children are capable of. Parents should monitor what their kids are saying and doing online and take action if they are not behaving in an appropriate way.