Jadon Johnson Ms. Lehmann English 2-1B 7 February 2020 The Complicated Social Media Effects on Teens According to teensafe.com, 11 teens die each day from texting and driving. This issue can be solved if teens were more responsible on their phones. Teens should be responsible users of social media because social media impacts teens’ well-being, social connectedness, and academic achievement. In examining social media’s impact on well-being, it is clear that the connection is complex. How we use social media impacts our well-being. Social media has both good and bad impacts on teens’ emotional health. There are a range of challenges teens face in life, and social media allows them to seek out help they might not get otherwise. James et al write, “The ability to communicate anonymously can mitigate barriers, such as shame, that interfere with support-seeking offline” (72).Being able to anonymously ask for help has a positive impact on teens’ lives because it allows people to ask for help without feeling judged so that they can get the help they need. Having considered the positive impact of social media, users must also be aware of the negative. Social media has been blamed for many negative impacts on people’s lives. James et al explain, “Several investigations document correlations between heavy media use and reduced well-being – related outcomes, such as diminished life satisfaction, internalizing negative experiences, and various dimensions of ill-being, such as depression, anxiety, attention problems, and stress”(72). When young adults use social media to compare themselves to others, negative outcomes will follow. When social media presents the good things in our lives as the only things, users can lose sight of the messiness of life, making them feel less satisfied with what they have. The impact that social media has on adolescents’ well-being depends upon how it is being used. Social media can have a bad effect on offline relationships if people only talk online. The survey conducted by Common Sense Media showed that it is a young adult’s personality that determines social media’s impact. Teens’ personalitiesare the more important factor in determining the impact of social media.“The 17 percent who scored in the low-SEWB group were the most impacted by social media interactions, suggesting that the child’s personality -not the platform - is the more important factor when determining the influence of social media” (K.Y. 18). Many people are moving away from talking in person and increasing their use of social media. Face to face communication has declined because of social media’s impact on teens. “Teens’ preference for face-to-face communication with friends has declined substantially, and their perception of social media’s interference with personal interactions has increased” (K.Y. 18). This might be because only a small percent say that their favorite way of communicating is in person.As teens’ communication online grows stronger, their offline communication has a negative effect on their offline relationships. Some argue that the dangers of social media have been overexaggerated. Despite the appeal of this argument, the negative effects of social media cannot be ignored entirely. Using social media too much has been connected to a lack of emotional and physical well-being as well as weaker social connectedness. Success in school has also been impacted by screen time. “Academic performance is directly related to sleep time and inversely related to overall sedentary SMU [screen media use] among the students who participated in this study” (Peiro-Velert et al 5). The study found that the more time students spent on their screens, the less time they had to sleep, which resulted in lower academic achievement. It’s obvious that social media’s impact is complicated, and people should be mindful of how they use it. By using social media responsibly, teens can minimize its impact on their health, connections with others, and success in school. Being aware of how they use social media can help minimize social media’s negative impacts on teens. Teens prefer to talk on social media, rather than to talk face to face. The amount of time that teens spend on social media has an indirect effect on their achievements. It’s clearly important that teens recognize and be aware of social media’s impact because it can go as far as to take lives. Page Break Works Cited Page James, Carrie, Katie Davis, Linda Charmaraman, Sara Konrath, Petr Slovak, Emily Weinstein, and Lana Yarosh. “Digital Life and Youth Well-being, Social Connectedness, Empathy, and Narcissism.” Pediatrics, vol. 140, no. S2, November 2017, pp. 71-75. Academic Search Premier, doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-1785F. Accessed 21 January 2020. K.Y. “Social Media and Teens.” School Library Journal, Vol. 64, issue 10, Oct. 2018, pp. 18-18. Academic Search Premier. Accessed 21 January 2020. Peiro-Velert, Carmen, Alexandra Valencia-peris, Luis M. Gonzalez, Xavier Garcia-Masso, Pilar Serra Ano, and Jose Devis. “Screen Media Usage, Sleep Time and Academic Performance in Adolescents: Clustering a Self-Organizing Maps Analysis.” Plos One, vol. 9, no. 6, June 2014, pp. 1-9. Academic Search Premier, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099478. Accessed 10 February 2020.
Research Paper Reflection Please answer all questions in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific. -I read articles to get information and used Cornell notes to put information into my paper.
What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them? -It has a main claim, evidence, and a rebuttal. It also restates the main claim.
Explain one thing you learned about reading research or taking notes on research that you can apply to your next research paper. -I learned how to write Cornell notes which will help me in the future.