SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON TEENAGERS

Media had emerged as a powerful tool in mass communication which influenced life of millions in providing accessibility to shared knowledge and information about current times to everyone. Media connected the people of differences and vast cultures. But unfortunately this process of establishing wide communications has reached its detrimental destiny.

Social Media turns to be a boon when it comes to establishing connections with the people, sharing your views globally, knowing other's views and react to them. Also, it provides a platform to display your talent worldwide. Being online also helps you to discover latest happenings occurring around you. Social media is cost effective method of communicating your relatives, friends and acquaintances as it costs  lesser than a voice call.

Along with the positive aspects, social media gains a disapproval too. A study shows: The average person now spends more time each day on their phone and computer than they do sleeping. All the statistics tell the same story : Social media are gaining in popularity everyday. We are all familiar with relief and vulnerable zones of social media. teenagers use mobile phones and access social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, twitter, Pinterest , Snapchat, etc to satisfy their leisure and addiction.

But, are we as the young generation, becoming more concerned with Facebook friend than we are with the people we interact face to face in our daily lives? The reality is in the process of connecting to many unknown people we are being separated from our beloved ones. While grades did improve for the light users, the grades of students who are heavy users of social media tend to suffer.  The private and personal information revealed by teens on media can be misused by the third parties, advertisers or hackers. Criminals use social media to commit crimes. Robbers know when you're away from your home on vacation and stalkers get information about you via social media. Security attacks such as hacking, identity theft and exposure to phishing scams are common. Cyber bullying is commonplace online, causes emotional trauma and sometimes leads to suicide. children have higher risk of depression, low self esteem , eating disorders and more prone to feeling isolated and disconnected (specially youth with disabilities). Also there is a lot of wastage of time.

It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time. The other forms of print and electronic media such as television, magazines are an effective way of influencing youth but often they show up immoral articles or advertisements which too has certain adverse effects on a child.

At last, i want to convey that "Don't let your comfort zone become a coffin!" We don't have a choice on whether we do social media the question is how well we do it.