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Cindi Trummer
Ms. Fox
Eng. 101, 2pm
November 20, 2013
Social Media: Toxic for Adolescents
Social media networking has steadily increased since the early 1990’s. Social media
includes the technology tools people use to communicate on the internet through sites such as
MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Furthermore, videos can be watched and uploaded on
YouTube. Networking helps people stay connected with family and friends. People can share
pictures, watch videos, chat, or play games with each other from the comfort of their home. In
addition, people separated by miles can use video chat to help endure the separation. Social
media can be used by people of all ages to express themselves and to share their life with the
world. Adolescents’ presence on social media has exploded in the last decade. E. Jane Costello,
William Copeland, and Adrian Angold define adolescence as the period between puberty and
legal adult hood (1015). Moreover, social media networking is becoming popular in the school
systems, allowing them to communicate with students and parents (Pilgrim and Bledsoe 2). The
use of social media in people’s lives has become important and the ability to access the sites such
as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter has become easier.
Computers, tablets, smartphones, and game consoles contribute to the limitless access to
social media for adolescents. According to Yamalis Diaz, PHD, Lori Evans, PhD, and Richard
Gallagher PhD social media use among adolescents, ages eight to eighteen, average six or more
hours a day; this is an increase over the last five years from four or more hours a day (2).
Adolescents use social media for fun by playing games, chatting, listening to music, and
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watching videos. Conversely, adolescents’ participation with social media sites is not always
positive. The adolescent faces potential danger from interaction with strangers on social media
sites. Additional dangers of social media may include being cyber–bullied and users placing
personal information in the wrong hands. Social media accounts are inappropriate for
adolescents considering the greater risk of exposure to pedophiles, the lack of maturity that
coincides with the use of social media, and the harmful long-term impact.
Adolescents are trusting and self-absorbed by nature. They do not realize the agenda of
pedophiles because they are inexperienced. Pedophilia, the sexual desire for children who have
not reached puberty (“Harvard Health Publications). A pedophile will befriend children, gain
their trust, and take advantage of them. According to DeeAnna Haney, a journalist for a North
Carolina newspaper “Facebook and text messaging is a factor in almost every child sex abuse
case at the [Haywood County] Sheriff’s Office” (1). Social media accounts are new avenues for
pedophiles to reach their victims. The mother of an eleven year old girl discovered a twenty-
three year old man communicating with her daughter in an inappropriate manner on Facebook.
He asked the girl for a nude picture; consequently, the mother intervened and had the man
arrested (“Undercover Mom” 1-3). The girl’s Facebook account enabled him to make contact
with her. For generations adolescents have been taught not to talk to strangers, and social media
sites should not be treated differently. However, adolescents do not see people as strangers on the
internet because they are safe in their home. Adolescents fail to comprehend the danger of
befriending strangers on social media accounts because they want to make new friends and date;
although, some people will lie about their age to start a friendship and lure them away from the
safety of their home. Keeping adolescents safe from pedophiles is an ongoing problem for
parents; it is equally important to discourage adolescents from misusing social media accounts.
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Adolescents misuse the privileges of social media because they are not mature enough to
handle the responsibility. The purpose of social media accounts is to help people stay in contact
with family and friends as life takes them in different directions. However, some adolescents use
social media sites to express themselves, meet new friends who share the same interests as them,
and play games. Additionally, social media sites help shy children to socialize easier.
Consequently, some adolescents use social media sites to vent anger or dislike of others. Heather
Benzmiller, who published an article in Northwestern University Law Review, writes about two
boys creating a Facebook page for the purpose of threatening a classmate; they wrote about
wanting to run the boy over with a truck and bringing a gun to school to hunt him (929). This
depicts how adolescents misuse social media for cyberbullying. Facebook allows the boys’
boldness with their actions because they could hide behind a computer. However, many
