Kinsey Reber February 4, 2014 ENGL 1102 Social Media and its EAffect on Youth

Formatted: Centered

Social media is a big influence in the lives of many young adults. Everyday more than 135,000 new Twitter profiles are created and over 58 million tweets are made (Twitter Statistics). I find myself burying my nose in my phone at least every fifteen minutes checking messages, Twitter, and Instagram. Social media isnt all fun and games. Some very serious issues happen and social media has been proven to play a role. I have a thirteen-year-old sister who is consumed by social media. She is constantly getting in trouble for being on Twitter or Instagram instead of doing homework or chores. She has also become more quiet and reserved as a result of always burying her face into her phone. This is a problem for many parents because they can no longer communicate with their children unless it is through the phone. Social media is creating a generation where face-to-face contact is not very important. Is this dependency in social media affecting the rate of suicide attempts and suicides of American teenagers? The purposes of social media are also changing due to how people use these sites. Cyber bullying has become a very serious problem in the United States and every state now has laws against cyber bullying or online harassment and stalking (State Cyberstalking). In 2011, my graduating class lost a student to cyber bullying. 1
Comment [AP1]: Questions like this tend to have very simple answers. You want your inquiry to warrant investigation, but you dont want the answer to be a simple number and you dont want your question to be unanswerable either. Youll have to find the balance here. So you could ask, how is dependency on social media affecting us?

I personally did not know him too well, but he was in many of my classes. He had committed suicide because he no longer wanted to live if people were going to continue to harass and bully him online about the way he lived his life. Everyone at the school now began to see all the negatives social media has. Our principal set up certain precautions in the hope that events similar to this would not happen again. She hired counselors who were available throughout the day to talk specifically with problems dealing with the cyber world, our student government held a anti-bullying week in honor of our lost classmate, but the most influential precaution our principal made was paying a firm to monitor every students social media page for bullying, depression, suicidal thoughts, and threats. If the system detected any of these on a students page that student would be called to the counselors office to talk. Some students and parents had issues with this privacy invasion. The only problem with their argument, when you put things like that on the Internet it is no longer private. It becomes public for the whole cyber world to read. I personally agree with my principals decision to hire the firm. It prevented many students from hurting others or their selves as well as, getting them help they needed. Should schools monitor students social media to look out for cyber bullying, threats, and suicidal thoughts? A new problem that I see occurring is teenage girls becoming unhappy with the way they look. If I were to scroll through my Twitter right now, I would see many ad accounts telling girls Lose 20 pounds and look like this model. Constantly I over hear my sister complain about how she does not look like this friend of hers or the model she saw on twitter. It is damaging the self-esteem of women
Comment [AP4]: Okay, so youre saying that social media, like television or magazines, perpetuate unrealistic ideals of what beauty is. Comment [AP3]: Interesting. Is this not a violation of privacy? Comment [AP2]: Nice.

everywhere. So damaging that in the last three years the number of teenagers seeking professional help for eating disorders has risen 110 percent (Dugan). Is social media to blame for the rise in eating disorders among female teens? This past June I was able to go on a mission trip to Burundi, Africa to teach at a local school in the capital, Bujumbura. Burundi is the poorest country in the world, but what amazed me is that all the staff at the school I worked at had Facebook profiles. I still keep in touch with them today through Facebook messenger and look weekly for new posts by them. It is crazy to think how technology has come so far and what roles it plays in peoples lives across the world. How do people in other parts of the world use social media and do they experience the same problems we face in America? Any of the above questions would be very interesting to research. I have already begun researching online for texts about each topic. I am expecting to complete my Inquiry Project on the topic that has the most sources available for me to use and I find to be most interesting. I am also looking at other topics to study in case my proposed topics of research fall through. Kinsey, You have some really interesting questions that you are asking here. I think you ve done a really great job incorporating your inquiry with your personal experience. I think that it is pretty clear that the topic you are most interested in is the topic of cyber bullying. I would want you to ask questions about what a school can do to help cyber bullying (or what a school should do). Im sure youll find differing opinions on the topic. Some might even cover privacy protections. Really good work here. I
Comment [AP7]: I would venture to say that the answer here is probably yes, depending on the social media that are popular there. Comment [AP6]: True, so now youre discussing the positive aspects of sm. Comment [AP5]: This is an interesting question.

look forward to seeing how these ideas develop.

Works Cited Dugan, Emily. "Eating Disorders Soar Among Teens." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 26 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Jan. 2014. <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/healthnews/exclusive-eating-disorders-soar-among-teens--and-social-media-is-to-blame9085500.html>. "State Cyberstalking And Cyberharassment Laws." Cyberstalking and Cyberharassment Laws. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. <http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-informationtechnology/cyberstalking-and-cyberharassment-laws.aspx>. "Twitter Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. <http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/>.