OKeeffe, G. S., and Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, (4), 800.

From Digital Culture & Society

Social media plays a major role in the development of a child's identity. This article discussed the impact of social media on children, adolescents and their families. Research has shown that when children engage in social media activity it helps enhance their communication skills, social connection and even technical skills. Social media sites such as myspace, twitter, Facebook is used to help children communicate with their peers. O'Keeffe and Pearson article discussed some benefits of social media. The first benefit the article mentioned is that social media helps communication and socialization. It creates opportunity for children to get engaged in events like fund raising for charity, local events, political and philanthropic events. It can also help children share their artistic behaviors; such as posting your talent online (music, painting, etc.). it expands their creativity, children now have their own blogs, gaming sites and podcasts. Finally, in terms of socialization and communication social media helps children meet people with common interest. The second advantage the article mention is, social media enhance learning opportunities. When teens and adolescents come online and collaborate with each other for projects and assignments. This can help them develop better skills in written expression and language. The third and final advantage that the article mentions is, social media helps kids access their healthy information. O'Keeffe and Pearson mention how teenagers and adolescents can now get information available to them about sexual transmitted diseases, stress reduction and even symptoms of depression. Also with the help o0f mobile technology children can now learn their health conditions and even get the chance to find support group online that will help them deal with their condition. The second part of the article, discussed the negative side of social media on teens and adolescents. The authors went ahead to say that even though social media can be seen as a great tool, it also has its downside. Social media Can have a lot of negative effects of children than most adults may realize (O'Keefe & Pearson,2013). The first risk of social media is cyberbullying and harassment. O'Keeffe and Pearson define cyberbullying as the deliberate act of using social media to communicate false, embarrassing, or hostile information about another person. They also mentioned that cyberbullying is the most common risk online for teens. The authors also compared online harassment to cyberbullying, they mentioned that both terms is mostly used interchangeably but they have a complete different meaning. Research has shown that online harassment is not as common as offline harassment, and children using social media does not put most children at risk of online harassment. However, cyberbullying is common and can happen to any young person online. It can cause a profound psychosocial outcome including depression, anxiety, severe isolation and suicide (O'Keefe & Pearson, 2013). The second risk of social media is sexting. The authors define sexting as the act of sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or images via cell phone, computer, or other digital devices". Research shows that 20% of teens have posted or received photographs of themselves (O'Keefe & Pearson, 2013). Some cases of this behavior have led teens to be convicted by law with felony child pornography. It has also led to school suspension, emotional distress, depression and so many other mental health conditions. The third risk the authors mentioned is Facebook depression. According to O'Keeffe and Pearson article, "Facebook depression," is defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression. online world such as Facebook can sometimes be too intense for children. Just like offline depression Facebook depression can lead to isolation. Teens then turn to online blogs for help which may promote substance abuse, aggressive and destructive behaviors. The fourth disadvantage is privacy concerns and the digital foot print. This is the risk of improper use of social media. The idea of sharing too much information or posting false information which can lead to lack of privacy. The article also mentions digital foot print as the biggest threats for adolescents who use social media. According to the authors "what goes online stays online" this can eventually come back to haunt them in the future when looking for a job, and applying to college. The fifth disadvantage is the influence of advertising on buying. Social media sites display a lot of adverting online. Ads now target people based on their behavior and previous cites they visited. This can now influence the tendencies of teens and adolescents purchase. The authors discussed parent's role in the use of social media. They discussed the importance of parents knowing the website their children visit. They also urged parents to evaluate this site and be sure that it is appropriate for their child's age. They also urged parents to have the discussion of online safety with their children and leave room for negotiation. The biggest strength of these article is the in-depth description of the pros and cons of social media. The authors used a lot of statistics to prove their point throughout the paper. Another strength is that the authors also mentioned how these problems, what sites they can occur and what parents can do to stop this issue from occurring. The authors also did a good job in not just mentioning the cons of social media, they also mentioned the pros. The one weakness I noticed is that some of the points where too vague. Example, when the author was talking about Teens and adolescents they were not giving a specific age range. It was just to an extent too vague.