THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON TEENAGER'S SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEERS



The Effect of Social Media on Teenager's Social Relationships with Peers

Introduction

This paper discusses the effect of social media on teenager's social relationships with peers; society places negative and positive effects on adolescents. By identifying these effects my goal is to help readers understand the negative and positive aspects of the social media on our adolescents. With today's technologies being instituted in a society of transition and adaptation, social media networks generate profound changes in the society of adolescents.

While these networks were created as tools to inform and communicate. Adolescents use them for other personal and environmental reasons, some positive and some negative. I strongly believe the research findings and other information is very beneficial to parents, teachers, counselors, care takers etc. to make them aware of the different effects.

Theme A: Social Media

The social media has both positive and negative effects on adolescent's relationships with their peers. Most literature about child and adolescent relationships reflects yesterday's world, a time when face-to-face encounters were the only concern. Students saw each other in school, at the mall, or visiting someone's home. Changes in technology have brought about a significant shift in the way friendships are formed by reliance on cell phones, texting, instant messaging, iPads, email, PDAs, and blogs. There is a corresponding need to become informed about the dark side of Internet communication. Cyber bullying relies on an online medium to frighten, threaten, or harm others (Subrahmanyam & Lin, 2007). Texting, instant messaging, chat rooms, blogs, online voting booths, and email are tools bullies apply to inflict humiliation, fear, and helplessness (Steinberg & Monahan, 2010).

Theme B: Online and Offline Social Network

Studies show that adolescents tend to meet people online on various networks, which sometimes lend them to meeting offline (face to face). Establishing intimacy and emotional connection with others is an important developmental task during adolescence (Julie, Wendy, Pepler & Connolly, 2008) and research suggests that youth use the Internet for connecting with friends, supporting and cultivating emotional ties, and sometimes creating new relationships. Because interactions that occur via a screen often lack face-to-face cues such as gestures, gaze, voice, and other body language cues, online communication may be less rich than traditional face-to-face interactions (Julie, Wendy, Pepler & Connolly, 2008).

Online contexts also allow users to interact with much larger numbers of people than offline contexts. Thus, it is possible that the opportunity to interact with a variety of people, in a potentially less personal way, may provide fewer opportunities for more intimate interactions and consequently interfere with the development of close connections. Researchers have found support for both positive and detrimental influences of Internet use on teens' personal relationships (Julie, Wendy, Pepler & Connolly, 2008). For example, in looking at how Internet activities influence close face-to-face relationships, (Mesch & Talmud, 2006) found that social media involving direct interactions, such as instant messaging, increased adolescents' reported intimacy, trust, commitment, and communication with their best friend 1 year later while less social ...