Affects of Social Media on Teens: The Good

Social media can get a bad wrap for being bad, but it isn't all negative. In this post I talk about the positives of social media. If you haven't read my post about the negative affects that social media can have on teens, go read that one here!

Now that we have discussed some of the harmful effects that social media can have on the mental health of teens, we can talk about the positive. Many teens say that social media is more positive than it is negative. It allows them to do many things that they would not otherwise be able.

Through social media teens are able to learn about and be a part of important issues. Many of the social justice movements of our time–like Black Lives Matter, Times Up, Me Too, March for Our Lives, and many more–have been started right online. Social media allows teens to become aware of these problems and become part the movement and hopefully the solution. It allows teens to feel like they have a voice and have the ability to affect real change in their world. The March for Our Lives movement was actually started by a group of teenagers who were advocating for stricter gun laws and better gun violence prevention after a shooting at their school.

Because of social media, “[teens] realize they have a voice they didn’t have before and are doing everything from crowdfunding social justice projects to anonymously tweeting positive thoughts” (Knorr, 2018). That voice not only allows them to get involved in things they are passionate about, but also allows them to express themselves and they have learned to do so online. In fact, “[m]ore than 1 in 4 teens say social media is “extremely” or “very” important to them for expressing themselves creatively” (Knorr, 2018).

There are many ways that teens can express themselves and their interests online, one of them is through their profiles. Other ways they express themselves is through content creation. Some do this through creating YouTube videos, writing, photo manipulation that takes a photo they found online (or took themselves) and changes it into something entirely different, something unique. With digital media they are able to share their self-expressions with a much bigger audience than they ever could have without it. And through that audience, they are able to gain support, feedback, and encouragement from their peers and other people who share their interests. This sense of community also offers teens a sense of belonging and may help them feel less isolated.

I have my own experience with this type of online community that fostered my interests and allowed me to explore and get better at them as well. As early as middle school, I began searching for and finding a community for myself online. The website/app, Wattpad, is where I was first able to find a space that I was able to share my own writing without being embarrassed or nervous about other people's responses and was able to consume and interact with content created by people who shared my interest and dedication to a craft that I was not exactly experienced in but loved and wanted to get better at. I cannot even explain how amazing it felt the first time I published a story and saw that other people were reading it and liking it and encouraging me to keep writing more for them to read because they could not wait to see what came next. This feeling of support and encouragement is something that I could have only gotten online because I never would have been able to reach as many readers offline as I did on Wattpad.

There were also many times that I asked for advice from other Wattpad writers–some of whom had massive audiences–and they responded and pushed me to keep writing and sharing. They gave me pointers on how to gain more readers and develop my stories to match my thoughts to the writing on the page. As I gained confidence and bettered my own writing, other writers who were new to the platform started to ask me for advice. This type of support and interaction with others is what helped–and still helps–me to become a better writer and editor. It gave me the confidence to continue to explore and refine my craft.

Many teens also say that social media “provides genuine support” for them and others Knorr, 2018). Through social media they are able to feel validated and supported. They are able to feel accepted. Many teens struggle with finding their identity and social media helps them find communities of people with similar interests who want to support them and help them find out who they are and be proud of who that is. The internet and social media also make resources readily available. Like I talked about in my previous post, many teens are at risk for anxiety and depression, but the internet–while a potential risk for making these problems worse–has resources for suicide hotlines along with apps that allow for people to chat with therapists and other health professionals if they need them. Many of these services are free online as well so they are easily accessible for everyone.

The internet can be a scary place, but it can also open up a whole new world for people to be themselves and find out exactly what that means with people who support them. The most important step to take with staying safe on the internet is to set boundaries and stick to them and to have people you can trust to talk to if you have a bad experience online.