Teenage experiences with social media

When people think of social media and the idea of their children using it, they think off all the negative possibilities that can happen. Although a lot of negative things can occur when using it I think that educating them on what can happen can possibly prevent some of it. There is a lot of good that can occur when using social media, and the good can outweigh the bad.

After reciewing this weeks conent on tenagers experiences using social media I learned a lot about how they were feeling. One thing that stood out the most was the idea that face to face interactions were valued less over the years. To me this is horrible, and as the years go on that percentage will continue to go down. This isn’t something that you want to happen, so how can you prevent this? When I was growing up and using social media I just interacted with my friends that I had at school, so I was getting both the face to face and in person interaction. I think that when people are meeting online then that's all the relationship is, and the foundation is social media so that is preferred.

Another experience is that teens think they are being manipulated to spend more time on these apps. This is very true, these companies want you to spend more time so they think of ways to take your time. Being aware of this is important so that you don’t fall into the trap. It is nothing wrong with social media but when you spend to much time there in comparison to your priorities it begins to be a problem.

Lastly, I would like to speak on my experience with social media and how it was a positive. I first made a Twitter account when I was in the 9th grade. I made it because I was playing high school football. With this Twitter account I could reach out to college football coaches, and send them my highlights. This helped me a lot because I was capable of having easy interactions, and I later received college scholarships. That Twitter account helped me receive attention and is one reason why I am in college today.

Not every teenagers experience can be negative when using a social media account. To me it all stems from the purpose of the account and how you are using it.