“Social Media Addiction” is the eighth of fifteen teen articles received in spring 2024 from Piute High School students. Three of them were published in The Byway‘s most recent May paper. The rest will be featured online.
Social media affects everyone’s modern life. Everyone is on it. It is, however, a big distraction from everyday life—work, school, learning abilities—it is all affected for both good and bad. Teens use social media for school work. However, they get so distracted by Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook that it’s all they want to do. It affects their learning. One great solution to this addiction problem is to put screen time on your child’s phone so they only can be on it a couple hours a day and it be shut off during school hours.
Every teen is affected by social media in one way or another. They enjoy having social media because they can see what their friends have been up to, but at the same time, it wastes too much of their time. Kathy Katella said in her article, “How Social Media Affects Your Teen’s Mental Health: A Parent’s Guide” that “the excessive use of social media can harm teens by disrupting important healthy behaviors. Researchers think that exposure to social media can overstimulate the brain’s reward center. When the stimulation becomes excessive it can trigger pathways comparable to addiction.” Addiction makes a person unable to get anything done because of the distraction. They can get lazy and form poor habits for their later lives.
Students who are on social media don’t get into the real world. They feel lonely and worthless. This can lead to depression and/or anxiety. “Excessive use has also been linked to sleep problems, attention problems, and feelings of exclusion in adolescents. And sleep is essential for the healthy development of teens,” wrote Katella. “Although the minimum age most commonly required by social media platforms in the United States is 13, nearly 40% of children ages 8 through 12 use social media. That signals how difficult it can be to enforce these rules without parental supervision.” Parental controls should be in place to be sure their children only use social media at certain times and for shortened amounts of time. Parents should get their children off social media and get them out doing chores, hanging out with friends, and being outside experiencing life.
The problem with social media is that it can waste your whole day. TikTok is probably the biggest problem because it’s just video after video and people just want to sit in their room or the couch and watch TikTok all day. They don’t think SnapChat is bad because it’s a source to talk to your friends and see what your friends are up to at that time. All social media isn’t bad, it just wastes too much of daily life when there are things that can be accomplished.
Parents need to get their own heads out of their apps and get their children outside and off their phones. If parents get off their phones, their children will, too.
– by Braige Beus (10th) Junction
Feature image courtesy of Abbie Call, The Byway.
Read more from Piute teens in Understanding and Addressing Anxiety in Teens by Brandi Sylvester.