Arlette Juarez Ms. Lehmann English 2-1B 7 February, 2020 Social Media is Complicated Have you ever asked yourself how social media has affected teens’ well-being? This is a question teensneed to ask themselves more and more. Teens should be responsible users of social media because social media impacts teens’ well-being, social connectedness and academic achievement. In examining social media’s impact on well-being, It is clear the connection is complex. How we use social media impacts our well-being. Social media has both positive and negative impacts on teens’ emotional health. There are a range of challenges teens face in life, and social media allows them to seek out help they might not get otherwise. James et al write, “The ability to communicate anonymously can mitigate barriers, such as shame, that interfere with support-seeking offline” (72).Being able to anonymously ask for help has a positive impact on teens’ lives because it allows people to askfor help without feeling judged so that they can get the help they need. Having considered the positive impact of social media, users must also be aware of the negative. Social media has been blamed for many negative impacts on people’s lives. James et al explain, “Several investigations document correlations between heavy media use and reduced well-being – related outcomes, such as diminished life satisfaction, internalizing negative experiences, and various dimensions of ill-being, such as depression, anxiety, attention problems, and stress”(72). When young adults use social media to compare themselves to others, negative outcomes will follow. When social media presents the good things in our lives as the only things, users can lose sight of the reality of the messiness of life, making them feel less satisfied with what they have. The impact that social media has on adolescents’ well-being depends upon how it is being used. The impact that social media has on teens’connections with other people depends on how it is being used. Many young adults are moving away from communicating in person and going to social media instead to communicate. “Only 32 percent say their favorite way to communicate with friends is in person (dropping 42 percent in 2012) and teens are more likely to say they are distracted by social media when they are with other people (54 percent, up from 44)” (K.Y. 18). People find it easier to communicate on social media than in person. Even though people think it is easier to talk on social media, it is not always a good tool. Social media can also hurt friendships. James et al report that “44% [of teenagers]at least ‘somewhat agreed’that using social media often distracts them from people they are with in person”(73). Being distracted by phones can cause people to feel distracted from one another. Social media is complicatedbecause it can be a good thing and it can also be a bad thing. Some argue that the dangers of social media have been overexaggerated. Despite the appeal of this argument, the negative effect of social media cannot be ignored entirely. Using social media too much has been connected to a lack of emotional and physical well-being as well as weaker social connectedness. Success in school has also been impacted by screen time. “Academic performance is directly related to sleep time and inversely related to overall sedentary SMU [Screen Media Use] among the students who participated in this study”(Peiró- Velert et al 5). The studyfound that the more time students spent on their screens, the less time they had to sleep, which resulted in lower academic achievement. It’s obvious that social media’s impact is complicated, and people should be mindful of how they use it. By using social media responsibly, teens can minimize its impact on their health, face to face connections with others, and success in school. Being aware of how they use social media can minimize the negative impact on teens’ well-being. Teens like social media and have become more distracted by it, and should become more aware of how they use it. The amount of time that teens spend on social media has an indirect impact on their academic achievement. In other words, we should all be asking ourselves how social media has affected teens’ well-being.
Work Cited Page James, Carrie, Katie Davis, Linda Charmaraman, Sara Konrath, Petr Slovak, Emily Weinstein, and Lana Yarosh. “Digital Life and Youth Well-Being, Social Connectedness, Empathy, and Narcissism.” Pediatrics,vol.140, no. S2, November 2017, pp. 71-75. Academic Search Premier, doi: 10.1542/peds.2016-1785F. Accessed 21 January 2020.
K.Y. “Social Media and Teens” School Library Journal. vol.64, no.10, October 2018. Pp.1-3. Academic Search Premier, Accessed 21 January 2020.
Peiró-Velert, Carmen, Alexandra Valencia-peris, Luis M. González, Xavier Garcia- Massó, Pilar Serra Añó, and José Devís-Devís. “Screen Media Usage, Sleep Time and Academic Performance in Adolescents: Clustering a Self-Organizing Maps Analysis.” Plos One, vol. 9, no.6, June 2014, pp. 1-4. Academic Search Premier, doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0099478. Accessed 10 February 2020 Research Paper Reflection
Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
I read some articles to get information to write my research paper. I made an annotated bibliography, when I was that I made sure I had everything that I needed and I turned it in. Ms. Lehmann than revised my paper and then I corrected all my mistakes that I had made.
2. What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them?
It qualifies as an argumentative essay because you are putting in other people’s opinion about what they think about the thing we were researching about.
3. Explain one thing you learned about reading research or taking notes on research that you can apply to your next research paper.
I learned how to make a bibliography and how to make Cornell notes. This can apply to another research paper I the future because I will understand how to make notes for it.