Digital Life (Final)

               Social media is great! Social media can help us connect better with friends and family, it can allow us to see what kind of things people around the world are doing, it can even give us warnings a head of time of upcoming events. But social media can also be a very dark and scary place even I don't want to get on it sometimes. Social media makes teens insecure about themselves about things like wanting to fit in, their looks/body, and in some cases it makes them feel unwanted. And this happens to everyone today in some type of way.

               Social media may stir up a lot of insecurities but it can also be good for facing them. If you are insecure about something and you post something online facing that insecurity depending on your followers they can help you get through that insecurity. Another reason why it is good is because it can make you feel better about yourself if you post something say a selfie and you get these comments like " wow you look amazing ", or if they comment a heart eyes it can actually make you feel better about your self and boost your self confidence. So although many people may perceive social media as something to just make you more insecure it can actually have some perks to make your feel better about yourself and feel better and boost your self esteem.

               Imagine your sitting at home all of the time and you never go out but you always see the people you know your friends going out 24/7 and always posting about it on social media sites like Instagram, and you are never invited, how would you feel about that? That is exactly what a lot of teenagers feel today. "High school students who feel they do not fit in are less likely to attend college" phys.org. This is an example of how social media can effect you in the future and how if you let it consume you it can take away your hopes and dreams. "Particularly at risk were girls who are obese, who are 78 percent less likely to attend college than non-obese girls, and those who are gay, who are 50 percent less likely to attend." News.utexas.edu.com. And this also shows the type of people that it primarily effects and and the percentages of those people. So having the feeling of not fitting in is one of the main insecurities with in social media because you are seeing people post of going out all the time and you not being invited can make you and the people around you very insecure.

              Another big thing that teens get insecure about is their looks and body image on social media. But it's not just seeing other peoples nice body that makes teens insecure but it can also be the stages of puberty that we are going in. "The changes of puberty and resulting sexual maturation often make adolescents feel self-conscious and awkward about their bodies." Education.com. This gives us a insight of another thing that majorly influences teens feelings of insecurities of their body, and how it's not by seeing other people making us feel insecure but it's from with in ourselves and how this contributes to also seeing people's nice body's and then looking at yours and feeling ashamed. "A study found that adolescent girls were more fearful of gaining weight than getting cancer, nuclear war or losing their parents" justsayyes.org. This shows how bad teens worry about their size or how big they are because socia media has brought upon this almost rules on how you should look and how skinny or muscular you must be and it is sad to see that this frightens teens this much and that they have to even worry about it. 

               Although social media can be a good thing for us by making us feel better about our selfs but it has mostly a negative effect on teens for insecurities. It shows proof that it makes teens insecure about their body's it also shows proof that it makes teens feel like they don't fit in. Insecurities has become a bigger issue with in the last few years and it's been growing at increasingly fast rate and has shown no sign of slowing down. And the only possible ways to stop this now is for parents to instill a sense of self worth in their children from a young age. And hopefully if everyone does that the percentage of insecurities with in teens about social media may go down.

CITATIONS:

"Teenagers Who Feel like They Don't Fit in Less Likely to Attend College, Sociologist Finds." Teenagers Who Feel like They Don't Fit in Less Likely to Attend College, Sociologist Finds. N.p., 5 Apr. 2011. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

"Teenagers Who Feel Like They Don't Fit In Less Likely to Attend College, Sociologist Finds." UT News. N.p., 04 Apr. 2011. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

"Teenagers and Body Image." Teenagers and Body Image. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

"Self Image Media Influences - Just Say Yes." Just Say YES. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

Digital Life (rough draft)

               Social media is great! Social media can help us connect better with friends and family, it
can allow us to see what kind of things people around the world are doing, it can even give us
warnings a head of time of upcoming events. But social media can also be a very dark and scary
place even I don't want to get on it sometimes. Social media makes teens insecure about themselves
about things like wanting to fit in, their looks/body, and in some cases it makes them feel unwanted.
And this happens to everyone today in some type of way.
               Although social media can make teens insecure it can also help teens face those insecurities. "When a person is insecure in their relationship and feeling down about their partner, they take to
Facebook for some kind of validation." This is how some people use social media to make them feel better about themselves they use it as a outlet to let people know whats going on in their lives at that moment. But this can also be a bad thing for those people that do it too much "We all know at least one person who turns to social media to constantly do one thing: complain about EVERYTHING imaginable. Whether it’s about an ex or school or just life in general, these people don’t hesitate to make a Facebook status or tweet about it… like maybe five times a day." This is a bad thing because they feel more comfortable writing about their feelings in the public rather tan face to a real person where if its in the public there is more of  a chance that they will get judged and feel even more about themselves after seeing those comments.
               A lot of teenagers love clothes and love to get new ones, it makes them feel better about themselves, it makes them feel more wanted it, makes them feel special and pretty. That's the reason behind why girls wear make up. "Girls use clothes, accessories, and fashion to define themselves, make statements about their choice of peer group, and to establish their psychological identities." this shows one way that teens feel better about themselves or make them feel better about themselves. its also one of the things that teens are the most insecure about.  "Fifty-six percent of women revealed that they were dissatisfied with their overall appearance, and an astounding 89% of women wanted to lose weight." This goes to show that a large chunk of out teenage population is insecure about their body.
               In some cases teenagers feel as if they are unwanted, and feel like they are invisible to everyone else. This is probably the worst that it can get. "i am at the point that i hate myself and anybody else and I feel like theres no hope and i thought that you might be able to give me some advise since you are good at stuff like that.  my mom is always screeming at me and her and my dad don’t love me and i don’t know why cause i try to do everything i can and i’m not a bad kid but they always tell me i am in fact my mom today sayd that i am one of gods biggest mistakes cause i slept threw my alarm and missed my bus. my dad doesnt ever hit me but he is always calling me an idiot or a retard or stuff like that. anyway at school i don’t really have very many friends cause i’m to shy i guess. i don’t know what to do cause i am just wanting to give up even trying anymore cause why should i? have you ever felt like nobody cares if you just disappear cause i really feel that way even with my parents.” this is what happened to one of the teenagers that feels unwanted and as you can see it is a very dark and scary state to be in and this is why I also think that this is the worse case of insecurities because no one especially teens should feel this way about themselves. They should not hate themselves.
              So as you can see social media can make teens very insecure, and these are just some of the things that they get insecure about (Looks/body, feeling unwanted, wanting to fit in) So with social media being a big part of todays society it has increased the amount of insecurities and if it continues to grow at this rate it will get out of hand and it will maybe to late to stop. And a way that we can stop it is by simply giving support at and encouragement at a young age.