In this day and age, something that has taken over the lives of our youth is social media. Yes, social networks can be helpful in ways, but the negative effects of social media outweigh the positive in ways many wouldn’t expect. We are in a generation where Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter are our lifelines, and we don’t know the toll it is taking on our lives. 

When many people use social media, they like to connect with friends and family which is very helpful and important to be able to do so. People also like to use social media to share photos of themselves and post about the things they do, the people they’re with and where they go. This is great as it helps to keep families in the loop and up to date with their loved one’s lives and doings. Social media is great when it comes to showing the world what you’re up to. 

Although we don’t like to take this into consideration, there are many negatives to social media as well. With teenagers, they live online and obsess over these apps. There is actually a sense of addiction that can form to these platforms, which can lead to an array of problems. Sleep deprivation is associated with heavy social media usage, and since people take their online reputation so seriously, anxiety can be formed as they always want to seem perfect. Another issue with social media is that there are no sensors, meaning you can put whatever you like out there and that can lead to cyberbullying, being scammed, getting into inappropriate situations and having personal things leaked online. 

Although there are many positives to social media, there are also negatives as there are with anything. In moderation, social media is not deadly, but studies encourage only 30 minutes or less per day to help increase mental health status and to prevent internet addiction.