Topic

The Impact of Social Media on Youth

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Table of Contents
Topic................................................................................................................................................1
Preface.............................................................................................................................................3
Acknowledgement...........................................................................................................................4
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
The Impact on the Youth..................................................................................................................6
The Use of Social Network Sites.....................................................................................................7
Facebook..........................................................................................................................................8
WhatsApp......................................................................................................................................10
Twitter............................................................................................................................................10
Snapchat.........................................................................................................................................10
Daily Use of Social Media.............................................................................................................11
Positive Impacts.............................................................................................................................12
Negative Impacts...........................................................................................................................14
The Influence of Social Media in our Lives..................................................................................17
Social Media Threats/Risks...........................................................................................................18
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................19
Reference/Bibliography.................................................................................................................20
Appendices....................................................................................................................................22

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Preface
This research will be looking atThe Impact of Social Media on Youth. It will inform you about
the different social media sites and their effect on the youths of today. The purpose of this
research is to inform the reader about how it impacts your life.

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Acknowledgement
I wish to express my sincere gratitude Mr. Sinclair for providing me this opportunity to do this
SBA. I thank you for your guidance and encouragement in carrying out this research. I would
also like to thank my fellow classmates for assisting me in this research.

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Introduction
Social media is an instrument of communication, like the newspaper or a radio broadcast, only it
is a used socially. With social media, it comes with the platforms we know as social networks
like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc... Networking sites that are emphasized on their ability to
act as a technological bridge that helps in maintaining or building relationships with people who
are a distance away, but as the years have progressed, social media networks have evolved into a
social community that mimics real world aspects. Particularly, social media sites are used by
young adolescent and young adult users.

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The Impact on the Youth

Social media is woven into many young people's day-to-day lives. Young people are always in
conversation and communication with their Friends, family and peer groups by using a wide
variety of different social media sites every day.
About 10 years ago, young people could only been in touch with friends, family and peer-groups
when hanging out at school, or meeting up in town. Now young people can be touch through
instant messaging, social networks, online games and many other different areas of media. Young
people are growing up in a constantly connected society.

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The Use of Social Network Sites

Part of this regular connectivity comes through Social Network Sites.
Young people are using social network sites for:

Keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances.

Developing new relationships and often talking with friends of friends, or people with
shared interests.

Sharing content, engaging in self expression & exploring each others personality.

Hanging out and consuming content including commercials, user-generated content, etc.

Accessing information and informal learning.

Participating in informal groups, and formal youth engagement opportunities.

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Facebook

There are many Social media sites in this world. These are the main ones.

Facebook is the one site where youre to be expected to find friends, colleagues, and relatives all
floating around. Although Facebook is primarily centered around sharing photos, links, and
quick thoughts of a personal nature, individuals can also show their support to brands or
organizations by becoming fans.

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WhatsAppis very simple.You can send text-style messages to anyone, without paying data
charges. It is a straightforward idea and has already gathered more than 700 million fans, making
the app the worlds most popular messaging platform.
Twittersome may say is the simplest of all social media sites. Messages are limited to 140
characters or less, but thats more than enough to post a link, share an image, or even trade
thoughts with your friends, family, or even your favorite celebrity. Twitters is easy to learn and
use, and setting up a profile only takes minutes.
Snapchat is an app which gives you the ability to take a picture, add art and text if youd like,
and then send it to recipients for a set amount of time (after which the photo will erase itself and
be removed from the companys servers). This app is lots of fun for most people, and potentially
a good way to stay in touch with friends.

Instagram is there whenever youre looking for a immediate, opportune connection between the
camera feature on your smart phone and all your social profiles. Not only will it allow you to
share via Twitter, Facebook, and the Instagram website, you can choose from a variety of photo
filters and friends can comment on your photos or ideas.

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Daily Use of Social Media

Girls and older teens carry on to be the heaviest users of social media sites. Among teen girls
who are social media users, 48% visit social networking sites several times per day, compared
with 36% of teen boys.

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Positive Impacts
It is expected to ignore the fact that nowadays social media sites play an essential role in most
teenagers lives. Most youths are spending at least an hour or more in these popular social media
sites. Generally, 1 out of 7 minutes which are spent online by most of those who can access
internet is spent on Facebook.

One may ask how spending all that time on the social media sites may have a positive impact on
them. It has never been easier to make friends than it is right now, mostly thanks to social
networking sites. Just a few decades ago it was pretty hard to connect with people, unless you
were the overly outgoing type able to make conversation with anyone at a gathering. The rise of
mobile phones helped change this, connecting people in a new way, but then social networks
sprang up and the whole idea of friendship changed once more and forever.

Well, social media helps the youth and any other user with what is happening around the world,
it helps teenagers stay connected and interact with each other even if they are many miles apart.
This strengthens their relationship with an individual even if they completed school and moved
to different locations, they can still stay connected and update one another.

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Its entirely possible to have hundreds of friends on Facebook for example. They may not be
friends you know on a personal level and spend time with in the real world on a weekly basis.
But theyre friends nevertheless.

In addition, social media sites have provided a platform where the youth can create groups and
pages based on their common discipline and end up constructing connections and opportunities
for their particular careers by updating various topics to discuss. Youth who have been
interviewed, say that social media has become their lifestyle and it makes their lives easier and
efficient.

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Negative Impacts
While on one hand social network sites seems to bring people together and connected on the
other hand it creates social seclusion. As the youth tend to spend many hours on these sites, they
rarely have face-to-face interaction. According various studies, scientists assessment determined
that social seclusion can lead to a host of emotional, psychological, physical and mental
problems which include anxiety, depression and somatic complaints among many others.
A scary fact about young people and the internet is that they are too open and public with private
information, most youth do not read websites privacy policies or may be uninformed that their
information is at risk of revelation to third parties like advertisers. Though disturbed about
talking to people they dont know online, teens appear to be less worried about posting
information about themselves. Twenty-one percent of teens say it is safe to post personal and
private information, including photos, online to a public profile .When teens and young adults
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use the internet without reading all disclaimers and policies it opens them up to having their
personal information broadcasted.
This is a serious issue due to the increasing rates of cyber crimes like identity theft. Once youre
a victim of identity theft or even a computer virus, theres not much you can do to fix it or make
it better, the best way to avoid this misery is to be careful and aware of what youre putting out
on the internet before it happens.
Social networking sites can very be destructive to the health and wellness of your computer if
youre not alert, many hackers can get access to your information effortlessly by using tactics
such as social engineering. Social engineering plays on human nature to get results. Basically,
the hacker goes into a friends account or creates a false account for a friend and gets you to click
a link to a video or another site and when you click it, your computer becomes infected with a
virus of some kind.
Psychological experts warn that social media sites can have emotional implications for youth
who are already suffering from low self-esteem or self-confidence. Such youth may judge their
accomplishment by the number of friends they have on the facebook or if they are integrated in a
specific group of people. This may lead to diminishing their confidence.
There is also Cyber-stalking that takes place. Stalking is defined as the obsessive monitoring or
attention towards a victim that may harass him or her. Cyber-stalking can be done in several
different ways using social media. Sometimes, an ex-boyfriend or spouse may get heated at the
breakup of a relationship and use social media to track the victim. In another case, a relationship
that was developed online gets bitter and the private information shared can be used by the
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stalker. Or, someone may also fall victim to a random cyber stalking attack. The worst thing is
that most people do not even know that it is happening because most social media sites do not let
their users see who has viewed their profile.
Explicit or Violent Imagery is a negative impact as well. Spending a lot of time on the social
media sites like facebook can be unsafe, as often as a result of political events around the world,
explicit and cruel imagery get shown on the debate threads. Often it is very difficult to restrain
such content due to its viral nature. This most probably has a negative effect on the minds of the
children, leading them to have a vicious and negative view of the world.

Other negative effects of social networking included encouraging poor spelling and grammar,
exposing underage youth to online predators, allowing the spread of misinformation that is
perceived as fact and decreasing efficiency as those who are supposed to be working spend time
in the sites to chat.

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The Influence of Social Media in our Lives

In many cases it is clear that social media has become not only a part of peoples lives but the
thing their life revolves around. We see people on smart phones every two minutes searching for
the newest status updated by friends. We find that being Facebook official also brings authority
to things in our lives and the list of examples goes on. Its key to realize that this great tool is just
that, a tool, not a lifestyle.
In this day and age we are pressured in many different ways as far as our beliefs and opinions are
concerned; are we standing up for what we believe in our lives and having our own opinion or
are we so influenced by this occurrence that we mistake what we have seen for our own
opinions? Social media sites can, not only help us become more social but, also make us useless
as well. We sometimes share too much with too many people and we have to also be conscience
of that. Overall, we have to be careful and caution when approaching these things.

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Social Media Threats/Risks

Social media tools have changed the way we interact in our personal lives and are in the process
of transforming our professional lives. Mostly, they play a significant role in peoples lives. But
they're also high risk. With hundreds of millions of users, these tools have attracted attackers
more than any other target in recent years.

Here are some social network threats/risks that people must consider when developing policies:

Social networking worms

Trojans
Data leaks
Advanced persistent threats
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Impersonation:
Trust

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Conclusion
Overall Social Media has its Advantages and disadvantages. People all over the world will
continue to use Social Media because is a great way of communication.

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Reference/Bibliography
The American Academy of Pediatrics (2011): The Impact of Social Media on Children,
Adolescents, and Families. Retrieved from
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/4/800.full on September 15, 2015
Speechprosody (2012): Social Network Impact on Youth. Retrieved from
http://www.speechprosody2012.org/academic-essay-sample-social-network-impact-onyouth.asp on September 15, 2015
Social Networking (2014): What are the Effects of Social Media on Our Youth. Retrieved from
http://downtoearthadvice.hubpages.com/hub/effects-of-social-media-on-our-youth on September
17, 2015
Youth Engagement and Social media (2014):What? Understanding Social Media and Youth
Engagement: The Impact of Social Media. Retrieved from
http://www.practicalparticipation.co.uk/yes/what/what_does_it_change on September 19, 2015
Randy Milanovic (2015): The World's 21 Most Important Social Media Sites and Apps in 2015. Retrieved
from

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/2015-04-13/worlds-21-most-importantsocial-media-sites-and-apps-2015 on September 19, 2015

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10 Negative Effects Of Social Media On Children And Teenagers. Retrieved from

http://www.technocrazed.com/top-10-negative-effects-of-social-media-on-children-andteenagers on September 19, 2015

Pew: 94% Of Teenagers Use Facebook, Have 425 Facebook Friends, But Twitter & Instagram
Adoption Way Up. Retrieved from http://marketingland.com/pew-the-average-teenager-has-4254-facebook-friends-44847 on September 20, 2015
Pictures Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?
q=social+media&biw=1365&bih=855&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmo
VChMIo4Xkt5edyAIVgiYeCh08FQ1X&dpr=0.75

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Appendices

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