After school, many teenagers get home, grab a snack…and then pick up their phones. Their plan might be to scroll on social media for a few minutes, but those minutes quickly turn into hours. By the time they realize how long they’ve been doom-scrolling, the sun has set and their homework remains untouched.
Social media has become a focal point of teenage life, for better or for worse.
According to The New Yorker, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced Sept. 17 new protections have been added to the app to increase safety for teens. Also, according to the article, social media platforms have been slow moving in creating these changes, likely due to the immense
profit they gain from teen users.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital school-based clinician Megan Sivula said various aspects of teenagers’ lives are being affected by the amount of
time spent on social media.
“Kids are scrolling for hours and hours,” she explained. “A lot of the time, they’re not watching anything educational or something they’re going to benefit from.”
According to CNN, Instagram’s new safety features have been added to protect teenagers.
The “teen accounts” are automatically private and
block explicit content from teenagers’ feeds; 16 and 17 year-old users are able to adjust their settings, while 13-15 year-olds need parental permission to access their settings.
Junior Sylvie Nowlin said as a result of social media, she does not read as much as she used to, and her attention span is shorter. It is harder to be
alone with herself in silence because of her need for stimulation from her phone, she added.
“I used to just sit down and read a book in a day,” she said. “I don’t know how I did that.”
Nowlin explained she often takes excessively long breaks when working. After completing a short assignment, she said she will spend more time resting afterward because she becomes tired after completing simple tasks.
“I get bored so easily,” she added. “I’m trying to work on that. It’s just sometimes hard to fight against it.”
Sophomore Zoe Brown explained she had to set a screen time limit for herself to manage the amount of scrolling she was doing online.
“Sometimes, it’s really hard to get off of Tik-Tok,” she added. “It’s built to be that way.”
Sivula said another negative aspect of social media is the way teenagers compare themselves to one another. She explained she sees this especially in younger girls; they measure themselves against unrealistic body images or lifestyles online, which can lead to lowered self-esteem.
Brown said during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she was in middle school, she would see people doing different activities online while she was at home and unable to see her friends, causing her to feel lonely.
However, she came to the realization social media only shows a snapshot of life, she added.
“It’s only a minute out of 24 hours in a day,” she added.
Similarly, Sivula explained social media only shows certain aspects of an individual’s life.
“No one’s posting the bad things on social media,” she said. “You’re only seeing the times that people are going on vacation, when they’re doing fun things with their friends, when they have their makeup done.”
Social studies teacher Dianne Day explained cyberbullying can also be a problem on social media.
“When people are on social media and they’re behind a screen, they feel a lot more comfortable saying things they probably wouldn’t say in person,” she explained.
Day said some people are concerned about FOMO: fear of missing out. This can lead to an individual feeling sad or hurt, she added.
Teen depression rates are on the rise, and 53% of Americans think social media is “predominantly or fully responsible,” according to The New Yorker. Also, suicide rates among Americans aged 10 to 24 have risen 62% between 2007 and 2021.
Despite there being downsides to social media, Sivula said there are some ways it can be beneficial to teens.
“A lot of students are able to use social media to connect with other kids,” she explained.
She said students are able to express themselves on social media when it is hard for them to do so in person. This can allow kids to start gaining confidence, Sivula added.
Day explained social media is important in spreading information to teenagers because they generally don’t watch the news or read the newspaper; however, there are issues with this.
“It becomes a problem when students don’t know how to do research and see if the information they’re getting is accurate and unbiased,” she added.
Despite this, Day said some accounts on TikTok report news accurately and serve to inform younger generations. Adding a class focused on media literacy would be a good way for students to learn how to recognize inaccurate and biased information, she explained.
“I definitely think [social media] is a major part of our life, whether we realize it or not,” she added. “That can be a good thing, but also I think it can be a little dangerous, too.”