With the advent of social media comes new opportunities for young people to communicate and express themselves. Through these channels, teenagers develop and mature in new ways that are not fully understood by many of the adults in their lives. By examining the development, behaviors, relationships, and attitudes of teenagers who use social media, one becomes aware that these websites are important tools for self-discovery and growth. This paper also delves into the dangers of social media, such as sexual behavior, harassment, and self-harm, why they happen, and ways to avoid exacerbating them. The discussion also includes the differences between age, gender, and emotional states, adolescence and social media as performance and the disconnection between online and face-to-face communication. Keywords: Teenage development, self-identity, social media, teenage relationships.
With the dawn of the worldwide web, people now have many new ways to communicate with each other. Young people now interact and present themselves publicly on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, and the dynamics of such interactions are unlike any that their parents experienced as teenagers. From these websites, known as social media, as well as through new channels of communication such as texting, come new ways of expressing oneself, which in turn create new ways of developing an identity and social image. There are also new dangers that stem from social media, such as cyberbullying and nonconsensual sharing of private photos. Despite the potential for misuse, however, social media have become an important tool for teenagers to discover and develop their identities. This paper will examine the development of young people’s brains in relation to what they do on social media, teens’ attitudes toward social media, and how using these new methods of communication provides new ways to develop one‘s identity.
Psychological Development in Adolescence Livingstone (2014) suggests that children are more likely to take risks as they reach adolescence Research by Gabriel (2015) indicates that the brain’s socio-emotional systems mature faster than its cognitive control systems, meaning that teenagers are more likely to engage in risky behavior that benefits them socially, an assertion that is supported by Livingstone’s claim that “testing trust” and “sharing intimacies” are part of the construction of an adult identity. Being in between the binary of childhood and adulthood, adolescence is a time when people focus on becoming independent and discovering their true selves. Social media lends itself well to not only this, but also to risky behaviors that push the boundaries of safety and social norms. Another phenomenon that occurs online is what Bowler et al. (2015) describe as an “online disinhibition effect,” With the physical disconnect between two people communicating online, as well as the lack of adult supervision, teens experience a sense of both anonymity and distance.
This can be either harmful or helpful. Benign disinhibition can occur, in which internet users are kinder and more generous than they would be in face-to-face interaction, sometimes even going out of their way to help their online friends. 0n the other hand, disinhibition can be what experts call “toxic,” when teens will act ruder and less considerate online. This is what gives rise to cyber bullying and online harassment. Lack of tangible feedback from the other person can exacerbate the bullyingr Teens’ Attitudes Towards Social Media With all the changes that happen from one year of adolescence to the next, teens of different ages have varied opinions of the importance of social media. Livingstone (2014) interviewed children ranging in age 9 to 16, divided into three different groups based on age. The children interviewed were from four different European countries, but in terms of the American school system, the groups can loosely be described as late elementary school, middle school, and early high school.
The attitudes and experiences between groups showed a great variationr Still, there are some concepts that transcended age. For example, Peek (2013) found that Facebook users of all ages felt worse after using the site heavily. However, the ability to alter how one is perceived on social media can also increase self-esteem, confidence, and well-being. Children from the ages of 9 to 11 seemed to echo what parents and teachers have fears about with regard to the use of social media by young people. Many were concerned about distinguishing “real” from “fake.” They have heard stories about hackers, con artists, and pedophiles that have dissuaded them from joining social media, preferring instead to call their friends on the phone or hang out in person. The children interviewed relayed scare tactics that are rampant on the news and in schools all over the world. One girl described hackers who spent all day searching for passwords online to steal people’s identities.
Another group of girls had heard stories about people who steal photos from social media, crop out a person‘s face, and paste it onto another person‘s naked body. Some children this age have already started using social media or communicating on online networks such as Blackberry Messenger or Playstation Network, but most are preoccupied with “stranger danger” and prefer to use the internet to play single-player games or watch Videos instead. Ages 11»13 By middle school age, children are starting to become more interested in networking both online and face-to-face. Relationships and social norms become more complex and significant. Also, some children experience their first romantic relationships at this age. As a result, children this age who use social media have more stories to tell than their younger counterparts. Some students in this group recalled times when they had used social media to play pranks on other children, or when they were used to escalate conflicts that had either started at school or on the sites themselves evidently, this group had already started to experience disinhibition.
Ages 14-16 High schoolers are more focused on deeper friendships with fewer peers, and their social media use reflects this. This is also the age when teens start developing a sexual identity. The experiences of the teens diverge by gender at this age. Girls become involved in the conundrum of wanting to be seen as attractive, but not wanting to be seen as “sluts.” Boys’ pranks become more brutal, often going as far as to hack into each other’s profiles or get banned by the moderators of the sites. Cyberbullying vs. Drama Teens do not take online harassment as seriously as adults do. They call it “drama” instead of “cyber bullying” which makes it seem more benign, Often, teens, especially girls, find these conflicts exciting, although they are still upsetting. However, experts agree that drama has always existed between teenagers; it is just more visible when it takes place online.
Conflicts are exciting to teens because they are an opportunity to push social boundaries An important distinction to make between bullying and harassment versus drama is that the latter is reciprocal. Both, or all, parties engage in the conflict willingly. it is in this way that online drama is an example of social networking as performance. Sexuality and Social Media Perhaps the most controversial aspect of teens using social media is sexting, or sending sexually explicit photos and messages. Peek (2013) notes that around one third of college students had exchanged nude photos in high school. Although profile pictures do not usually contain nudity, Kapidzic and Herring (2015) found that nearly half of the girls on the social networking site they studied were either partially clothed or dressed in revealing outfits. In line with the stigma associated with girls being sexual, many teens blamed the girls who took sexual photos themselves when the photos were shared without their consent. Sexting Pressures.
The most common reason for teens sexting is pressure from dates or significant others. Sexts sent under pressure or coercion are more likely to result in harmful situations. Teens who had been pressured into sending nude photos were more likely to have anxiety or a history of dating violence. Often, girls whose sexts become public are blamed for it, Livingstone (2014) interviewed a group of high school girls who said, “If you trust someone who fails you it is your fault, because you have trusted someone who did not deserve it.” This situation leaves girls in a double bind: they feel they must either disappoint the boys they are interested in, or risk the picture being shared and in turn be shamed by boys and girls alike. Risk of harm from sexting. Luckily, 79% of sexting results in no significant harm.
It is in this way that sexting may be seen as an alternative to physical sexual behavior, which can result in the spread of infections and pregnancy. Still, apart from the situation described above where the picture can be shared, sexting can negatively impact the development of teens’ sexuality and self-esteem. According to Kapidzic and Herring (2015) “sexualized self-presentation online can be traced to the ubiquity of web pornography, leading young people to ‘self-commodify’ in often stereotypical ways,” Much like in the media, more emphasis is placed on the physical appearance of girls and women on social networking websites. However, many boys also took sexual profile photos, such as pictures of themselves posing with their shirts off. Kapidzic and Herring also describe seeing many “seductive” photos of girls. It is normal for teens discovering the world of sex to experiment with the ways they present themselves, but attractiveness should not be considered the most important part of a person, and believing so can cause low self-esteem and holding oneself to unrealistic standards.
Use of sexuality as bullying. Among other pranks that teens play on each other, they sometimes use social media to create false personas that then form “relationships” with their peers. For example, 13- and 14-year-old girls from the Czech Republic made a fake profile of a man andconvinced their friend to “fall in love” with him. After the girl found out that the man did not exist, she was very angry and retaliated. One girl said, “It was quite funny at the beginning, and then it was really embarrassing. Other girls report being harassed by strangers on the internet who want to form relationships with them. Scarily enough, many of these girls will trust the boys they talk to online until the boys demand sexual favors or send nude pictures themselves, Sexual harassment of girls is often a power fantasy; boys are interested in manipulating girls in this way because it makes them feel dominant to the girls Personal Growth Teenagers experience significant and rapid growth and construction of their social, sexual, and internal identities. Combined with the hormone fluctuations that puberty entails, the use of social media can have a significant emotional impact.
The performance of behaviors over social media can solidify thoughts occurring in one person’s mind and spread ideas across communities. Differences in personality, gender, and emotional states appear online in ways just as noticeable as they do offline. Self-Harm Self-destructive behaviors have been glorified online in some ways and mocked in others. Teens with self»harming tendencies are finding new ways to visibly demonstrate their pain through social media An interesting but tragic case is that of Hannah Smith, a 14-year-old girl from the United Kingdom who received a slew of abusive messages on a website called Ask.fm that allows users to ask each other questions anonymously. Smith committed suicide after receiving these messages, but something very strange was revealed when the messages were traced: most of them were sent from her own computer. Perhaps these messages were a way of Smith seeking help for her depression, but the publicity of the posts suggests that they may have also been a performance.
Teenagers may feel that “inflicting harm on themselves before an audience makes their pain visible and therefore more ‘real.’” (Gabriel, 2014) Viewing not only pain, but also adolescence as a whole as a performance, reveals how emotions bottled up inside a teen’s mind can be relieved by incorporating it into an online display, similar to how physical self»harm is used by mentally ill people to ease depression, Although an online performance like Smith’s is not intrinsically harmful, teens may be encouraged to self-harm in more dangerous ways after encouragement from an audience. At the same time, those who care about the teenager could see these as signs that he or she needs help in order to stay safe Identity. Over public social networking sites and media such as chatrooms and forums, there is a complex network of users involved in an interaction. Some conversations may involve multiple users at once; others may start between two people, and later be joined by someone else Some topics may become derailed by other people in the original poster’s network.
As Bowler, Knobel, and Mattern (2015) note, roles include “bullies, victims, bystanders, reinforcers, assistants, defenders, outsiders, and those with no role whatsoever, such as the cyberlockers and voyeurs.” However, it is inaccurate to say that lurkers and voyeurs have no role, even if they are not taking part in the interaction. The importance of social media to the building of one’s image or identity relies on the performance aspect of using the sites As Gabriel (2014) describes, “young people’s lives are increasingly lived and expressed virtually, and these virtual experiences are both private and public, not to mention intensely ‘real.’ “These practices of self»development, reflexivity, and active meaning-making are at once supported by developmental principles and not attributed to young people in social networking environments due to broader issues of moral panicr” Indeed, the teens’ agency is often removed from discussions about their online experiences.
Many adults agree that a typical adolescence involves taking risks, pushing boundaries, and learning from mistakes, but fail to understand how social media plays into that role. Despite this, communication over these networks is paving the way to many teens’ adulthoods. The important idea for parents and educators to realize is that social media is a significant part of teens’ lives, and not necessarily frivolous or malicious. As far as online harassment is concerned, the responsibility is on the adults to teach teens values such as trustworthiness, healthy friendships, and respect for romantic and sexual partners. Even if the disinhibition effect has amplified these problems online, restricting use of social media only serves to shame teens and ignore societal problems that taught them poor values in the first place. Social media is here to stay, and now it is time to focus on using it responsibly.
