Carroll, J.A. and Kirkpatrick, R.L. (2011). Impact of social media on adolescent behavioral health.

From Digital Culture & Society

Carroll, J.A. & Kirkpatrick, R.L. (2011). Impact of social media on adolescent behavioral health. Oakland, CA: California Adolescent Health Collaborative.

http://www.phi.org/uploads/application/files/g9g6xbfghdxoe3yytmc1rfvvm8lt1ly9sr3j369pstkojdly15.pdf

Children and teenagers widely use social media during this period, and recent studies have shown that they spend the majority of their time daily on social media pages. This study aims to show the positive and negative impacts that social media has on the level to development of the teenagers. This review brings together work from disparate fields which examine the relationship between social media and medium, privacy, youth safety, psychological well-being, and educational achievement. The article shows that children and teenagers were positively affected as social media helped in increasing their communication abilities, getting and sharing information, improve creative skills, developing technical skills, and how they can effectively use this recent technology. On the other side, they are exposed to the risk of Facebook depression, mental health, cyberbullying, privacy and online sexual harassments.

What are the advantages of social media in children’s ability to communicate?

Children are future of the world, Teenagers in these days widely use the social network. They have made this a part of their daily activities. The social media through its interactive platform enables the users to communicate with others in building the relationship and sharing information and knowledge related to the needs and activities in the real life and fulfill the personal need. Every webpage that allows for social interaction is considered to be touch with outside world. These pages include the social network pages like Facebook, Snapchat, Wechat, Twitter, Instagram; gaming sites and virtual worlds such as Club Minecraft, Second Life, and the Sims; video sites such as YouTube; and blogs. Consequently, such sites offer today's youth a portal for entertainment and communication. However, the internet affords many opportunities for learning, entertainment, enrichment, and personal growth. Via social media children have more opportunity to find those, who have similar hobbies and interests, they have the chance to express themselves without fear to be misunderstood or not to be understood at all. The spheres of interests are broad: music, books, art, games, blogs and many-many other things. It is the opportunity to share ideas and thoughts immediately not waiting for some time to gather together and discuss. Children present a vulnerable group of the population, it is easy to affect them, which is important to navigate their social environments. The article also mentioned that most of the teenagers use the media platform to developing the identity, emerging sexuality, physical development and moral consciousness. In brief, the effect of social media on grown-up teens and children are important, so better understand children’ thoughts, interests and ideas and will help to develop them.

What are Possible Threats of Social Media Influence?

Apart from the benefits, discussing only positive sides and effects is not enough for the complete picture of a problem stated. There are lots of disadvantages and real threats to children’s health and development. The term “bullying” came into online lives, it was awful, hard to understand and nobody knew how to fight against it, how to teach children to respect each other, to teach that someone’s life is precious and unique. Why do we say cyberbully is more dangerous than we thought? The answer is pretty simple, cyberbullying is much harder to detect, to find out and as a result to stop or prevent because everything takes place in Social Media, cyberspace provides a lot of opportunities to hide many things. For instance, one can hide his or her own page in social networks from viewing by these or that people, another one can use an unreal name to register and to live a life of an absolutely different person. Cyberbullying results in suicides, in anxiety and depression of victims. Even strangers may leave negative comments, and it affects the self-esteem radically, because every photo, every video, posted in the Net is a sign of the desire to get a good assessment, to find support, to look cool and good. Social media are a space for sexual predators as well, this is the main concern of parents, teachers and other specialists who work with children. Two other big problems of social media presence in children’s lives are the lack of sleep and obesity, which is hard to fight. Negative influence on health will result in future problems with choosing the profession, job, and career, with giving birth and getting older. Children should know more and should be taught what privacy policy is, and what to pay attention to when you are using social networks.

Carroll & Kirkpatrick made a clear statement in the beginning to benefits of social media on adolescent health. They also draw a graph and data to support their ideas, which said most teens use online network to extend the friendships, gaining knowledge of outside world. Over 90% of parents buying a smartphone for their kids because they can “keep in touch no matter where I am;” 73% of online teens have used a social networking site; 63% of online teens watch online videos; 62% of online teens have commented on a blog; Of course, teens have found that they were more independence and freedom to owning a smartphone that allows them to use for personal purposes. The weakness of this article, Carroll & Kirkpatrick points out that parents should navigate the social environment of their kid, which face to face to talk with their kids. To me, the way parents build up their activity in media is also a good or a bad example for children to follow.