Teens Everywhere Need to be Smart About Social Media

 

It was three o’clock in the morning. Face shoved in a phone. Making her feel more terrible about herself. Every Instagram post, every tik tok. Makes her feel like she isn’t good enough and isn’t skinny enough. 

Scientists have found that body image and social media are part of women’s struggles. According to King University, 87% of women compare themselves to the skinny girls on social media. Especially young women are at risk. Surveys have found that Instagram and Snapchat are most likely to cause body insecurities for women. There are a billion people using Instagram, over 300 million people are using snapchat. Their obsession with how not ideal their bodies are not healthy. Girls who always post pictures of themselves on a social media app, sometimes spend hours trying to make it look perfect. 

Yes, social media may have positive effects on teens, but there are a lot more negatives than positives. If a teen spends less time on social media feels less depressed according to Baltimore. But it is hard for teens to put down their phones especially if they have friends texting them all the time. Teens just can’t handle the stress social media puts on them and can cause, Dr. Pate said. Some teens might need to give it up completely. 

Teens need to be themselves and not others. Everyone is different and teens don’t understand that. They need to be smart about all this, and not put so much pressure on themselves to be like those other girls. Many teens start using drugs and steroids at a young age to achieve a certain look. This often ends in suicide or drug overdose. From 1999 to 2019 there have been 450,000 overdoses. 

Boys are also impacted by social media. It’s not just girls obsessing over their bodies on social media and making mistakes in life. Little things send boys messages at a young age about their bodies. Superheros is one problem. Also, action figures have very unrealistic body types and boys think their bodies are supposed to look like that. They would do everything they could do to have the perfect body. They exercise a lot and go on many diets. They develop eating disorders or mental health problems from poor body image. Such as depression, anxiety, and many others. 130 men commit suicide each day. That is 3.63% more than women. The pressure to be an ideal body type is too much. 

Teens need to limit their time on social media. Studies show that the more time spent on social media, the more damage is done. All we ask for teens to do is to be smart about social media. Many people aren’t. 

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3 thoughts on “Teens Everywhere Need to be Smart About Social Media

  1. Nice introduction! Well done creating an image in the readers head, as well. I think you illustrated your point of how scary but important knowledge of drugs are. Demonstrating the risks of drug use in sports was very clever. Nice job! I hope to see more of your work later in life. Kewl

  2. Dear Lauren,
    I 100% agree with you on this topic. I like how you didn’t focus on one gender because this issue isn’t just for girls or guys. Your editorial was beautifully written, great job!

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