Media Exposure

Jheross James L. Pineda

San Jose Sanchez Del Rio
How do you connect with your friends? Meeting each other face-to face? Using mobile
phones? Or just watching what they posted on Facebook and Twitter? Social media, including
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, is a two-way communication media that helps people to stay
connected to other sites, resources and people. In today’s society, staying connected to others is very
important, especially for the teenagers, who need to keep themselves up-dated so that they will have
more topics to talk with their friends and be less likely to be isolated. That is why the social media is
very common among teenagers ---- 9 out of 10 teenagers are using social media. However, if they
overuse the social media, it will be harmful to them in both physical and mental way. So, I believe
that parents should limit the use of social media by teenagers, not only limit the time but also how
they use. If they do that in a reasonable way, it is beneficial to the family, teenagers’ growth and
health.

The popularity of social media raises the privacy problem. Teenagers like to post their real names,
photos, interests like music or movies, birth date, address, email address and phone numbers to
make themselves characterized. These are all their personal information and once they apply some
applications, the companies of those apps can access and use what they have posted. The companies
may use the phone numbers and other personal data for advertising purpose or even sell them.
Also, many of the teens do badly in privacy settings. Some of teens just leave their social media
partially public or even fully public. Even if their social media are on private, it does not mean that
they are safe as their friends can share what they posted, which the others who they do not know
could read. That information collected by the strangers could be used for committing crime, like
giving you calls and then saying something based on your personal information collected to cheat
you. The more information you posted, the higher chance you get cheated. Actually, as teens use
social media for a long period of time, it is common that they will be less conscious of what they
should post and sometimes they just post without thinking before so that they feel regret
afterwards. To prevent them from the possible danger, parents should limit the time and how they
use the social media. Another risk parents should consider is that teens like to make friends on
social media. They will join different groups which can be supporting a pop-star or a type of music
and then make friends with who may have the same interests. But how they know if those ‘friends’
are really posting real information? Sometimes teens even go out with people met online to trade or
have a dating. Sadly, it is not uncommon to hear the news that some juveniles got sex harassment or
cheated when they went out with online friends. I believe that if parents can limit who the teens
make friends with, the possible risk can be prevented.

Social media have a great impact on teenagers’ behaviors. It would definitely play an important
role in development and growth of teens. Social media like Facebook and Instagram provide the
function of giving likes or comments to others’ posts and following other people. Teenagers will be
happy to have their posts liked by many people, but it can turn out to be narcissism. They may
think they are famous, beautiful and have many friends and become arrogant about that. Also,
teens seldom take their comment to other people serious on social media, but actually it can turn
out to be hurting the others or even cyberbullying. For example, in their real life, they will not
criticize the others directly; instead they will post their criticism on social media as they may be
under the impression that they have no responsibility on what they said on social media. The
functions of social media can be the media of instilling the wrong moral values into the teenagers
and it actually affects how they get along with the others. That is why parents should limit how
teens use the social media.

Teens spend too much time on social media can lead to bad heath of themselves and bad
relationship with family. Using social media for a long time is harmful to their health. Mentally,
they keep checking the latest status, no matter when they walking on street or during the lessons
and it is actually a symptom of addiction and regarded as a morbid state. It can make a harmful
effect on their academic results, and more seriously, it is detrimental to their health. Remember the
advertisement talking about a boy using mobile phone when he is crossing the road and finally hit
by the car? The same thing may happen in the teens checking the new status on the road. Parents
love their children and they will not leave their children addicting on the social media. Parents will
be worry about their health and performance in school and they may blame on their children. Then
the children may argue with their parents as they just think that their parents do not understand
them. This may ruin their relationship and increase the misunderstanding between them. If parents
can limit their children using social media before they get addicted to it, these can be prevented.
Some people may argue that relationship between parents and teens will also be ruin since they
limit their use of social media. Parents cannot control their children all the time. They can still seek
social media access elsewhere--- at school, the library, or friends’ homes. Yes, it is true, but I am not
encouraging to force the teens. The key point is not only to limit, but also to communicate with teens to
know what they are doing on the social media and crate a trustful relationship, so that teenagers will
follow rules set by parents and even tells parents what they are experiencing through the social media.

Some may also argue teens have the human right and parents have no right to limit their use of social
media. Most of teenagers use social media every day, however, do they have a sense of using it in a
proper way? On the stage as a teen, they are learning to adjust and make decision. They do not have the
ability to consider the dangers and consequences of what they do so that they need guides from parents,
teachers and the society. It just like students need to follow the school rules and we also need to obey the
laws. They are not deprived of their rights, but actually learning to adjust what should do and what should
not.

The use of social media by teens has long been discussed. I believe that if we want a good relationship
with family and a well development of teenagers’ growth and development, parents should limit the use
of social media by teens