For years social media has been taking over people’s lives. People are constantly on it, looking at the latest post or being the latest post. According to the American Academy of Child and  Adolescent Psychiatry, “Surveys show that ninety percent of teens ages 13-17 have used social media. Seventy five percent report having at least one active social media profile, and 51% report visiting a social media site at least daily.” 

There are advantages as well as disadvantages to having social media. But how does social media really affect our generation? 

Some ways social media positively affects people in a positive way are being able to keep in touch with old friends, learning how to do things, and even looking at funny things. The article

 9 Positive Effects Of Social Media You Might Not Know About  states,“In times of loneliness, stress and anxiety, social media can act as a powerful tool to bring people together to support and lift each other up when they need it most.” Social media also makes it possible for users to learn things on their own. Instead of looking through old books and finding out through friends and family, social media users can just look it up on YouTube or find an article about it on Google. People have even made careers out of social media being influencers, web designers, and more. 

But social media can also have a negative effect. For some it’s as simple as seeing a person who they think is prettier than they are. For others it could be cyberbullying. 

Guardchild.com states that 88% of teens have seen someone be mean or cruel  to another person on a social networking site, while 41% of teens have had a negative experience as a result of using a social networking site. 

Sometimes interactions in cyberspace result in real world actions as 22% of teens have ended a friendship with someone due to actions on social media sites, 8% were involved in a physical fight with someone else because of something posted on a social networking site, 29% have been stalked or contacted by a stranger or someone they didn’t know, and 24% have had or embarrassing info made public without their permission. 

Social media obviously isn’t going anywhere, nor do I think we want it to. Even if there are some dangers involved in having social media, it is overall good. I think we need to be more aware of what we post, and how we interact with each other. 

Even if we cannot prohibit everything that comes our way, we can definitely do some things to lower the risks. Watching what we say to others, being more aware of what we post and how it will affect people, being aware of the dangers social media has and being cautious with what information we share.