Thoughts on Social Media for Teenagers

Social media are interactive technologies that allow the creation or sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression via virtual and networks. Social media are used by people of any age from all around the world. People spend their time on social media for at least 3 hours a day. It is estimated that 170 millions citizens of Indonesia and 30 million from it are teenagers who use social media for their daily bases. There are some pros and cons for teenagers who already use social media.

Being socially connected is very important for the psychological development of teenagers, and in this day and age, the online environment is where they get a lot of this. By connecting with others through social media, teenagers could: develop better social skills. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other large social networks expose teens to important issues. Moreover, social media helps teenagers make friends and keep them. Not only that, but social media also helps them to express themselves.

But on the other hand, social media gave us amount of disadvantages. Teenagers who uses social media often loss their ability to communicate. The interaction from face-to-face tends to decrease. This causes lots of teenagers to be silent and stay quiet. Not only that, teenagers are addicted to social media and can't control themselves. This made teenagers stay longer on social media and get side effects such as bad eyesight, depresion, sleep disturbance, and body image disorder.

It seems to me that social media has many benefits for teenagers. We must be able to use social media properly. Yet, we must also be careful in using social media because social media is like narcotics that can make us addicted.