Hours and hours and hours of an average teens day are spent online.
Socializing, texting their friends, looking at what their favorite actor wore at the
latest red carpet. But what influence does social media truly have on teenagers?
How does the glamorization, deception, and fraud that takes place online affect
teens?
To start off, we all have witnessed the utterly unbelievable photoshop and
facetune that takes place on our favorite social media apps. However, have we
ever stopped and wondered how this influences teens of this generation,
specifically girls? The completely unrealistic and impossible beauty standards
being presented to teens is damaging to their self image. These standards may
lead many teens to believe that they are unattractive or unworthy. Thoughts
similar to these can destruct all confidence and self pride. This leads to the
complete corruption of teens' mental health.
Furthermore, teenagers' mental health can be greatly impaired by social
media. Not only do the unrealistic physical features get drilled into their heads but
also the idea that everyone's life is perfect, the untrue information presented. For
example, many posts online claim that if you aren’t studying, getting good
grades, living an active lifestyle, and eating a carb-free diet then automatically
you aren’t good enough in today's society. All of this negativity and false
information can forever have an effect on a person's mental health and stability.
On the other hand, social media has many positive effects on teens. Recently,
many influencers, blogs, and magazines have began promoting healthy habits
and normalizing many issues such as mental health issues and body image
issues. Correspondingly, we have seen many teens be pulled out of dark places
and be helped to improve their lives and all due to social media.
Social media has many effects on teens. Partly negative and partly positive.
So far we’ve seen many negative effects take place and affect the teens of our
world. All we can do is hope and pray that this new improvement that is currently
occurring will benefit not only teens of this world but all people.