Social media is quite possibly one of the most toxic inventions to come upon our newest generations.  Over the past ten years, it has revealed itself as a mode of connectivity and engagement with a fresh twist, but it has led to the rupture of an unforeseen issue that has poisoned much of the contemporary youth.  With a misguided marketing plan, the founding fathers of social media created a digital world that has a skewed target market partially because a target market was never instituted.  This premature issue has led to an increase in curiosity of the digital realm and has become an enticement to a vast amount of teenagers.  With this, has come a sliver of benefit while a strong disadvantage has been stormed.  The digital age has led to a decrease in health, decrease in communication, has brought about psychological issues, and has kept the young people of today from truly knowing what life without or away from a screen is like.  The misuse of social media has tainted our youth, and become an epidemic leading to the unfortunate demeaning of today's young people. 

  For background, I currently hold the title of Miss Lexington with which I will compete in the Miss South Carolina pageant in June.  Each contestant must have a platform she feels strongly about, mine being literacy and the youth.  I often travel to different schools throughout the state to advocate literacy and get the "in" on what kids these days are doing with their time.  I have found the frightening truth that a vast majority of these children (K-12) are spending most of their time on some kind of mobile device and are consumed with social media (sixth-twelfth grades).  After seeing this, I have taken it upon myself to advocate students to spend their time reading and becoming more literate, rather than searching for a mindless gratification in the number of "likes," "favorites," "reposts," and "retweets" they receive.  It does seem that these two topics do not entirely overlap, but when applied in the right way, there is most certainly a correlation between the two.  Seeing as though I am very much involved with the youth and am at an age where I can place myself in the same though patterns as our millennials, I find myself qualified to research and address the issue of social media demeaning our youth.

A piece published by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2011 explores various social media outlets and the effects they take on adolescents.  It compiles research from different pediatric specialists who have done experiments and tests with adolescents.  It contains a large amount of psychological content rather than statistical numbers and data.  The article takes one side of social media's effect on the youth, the psychological side, and breaks it down by explaining the conflicts being seen within the psychological spectrum of the issue.  Topics such as "sexting" and "Facebook depression" are covered in the piece, as well age limits, and digital footprints -- all factors that feed into a deeply rooted issue that go beyond the "physical" aspect of the topic.  This piece is certainly credible for its psychological research.  It contains the observations of pediatric specialists and compiles it into an easy-read that is understandable.  It is certainly biased because it focuses on the negative aspects of social media in regard to adolescents, but it is credible because again, it is information compiled by experienced specialists who make up the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Katie Holliday, author of the piece, "US youth frustrated with 'oversharing' on social media" lays groundwork for the youth's obsession with posting their lives on social media.  She makes claims about today's kids taking shelter in social media through her evidence of data from a survey.  She also explains the reliance teens have on social media to makes their lives more interesting, or "cooler."  A lot of this article contains the issues of "authenticity" that teens are facing when dealing with social media.  Holliday stated that on social media outlets, teens " ... felt like they could not portray their own "real selves" on these sites."  Much of her claim translates to the idea that there is a jading of personality because teens are trying to make themselves appear to be something they are not, generally something to make them appear on a "higher level" of social status.  Making shallow judgments from author Katie Holliday's bio page and twitter page (links provided in article), she seems like she has a good grasp on this topic.  She is a writer for CNBC, and although she does not come off an "expert" in the topic, she certainly has an opinion and an understanding of what is going on as far as social media's effect on the youth.

This article by Amanda Lenhart from Pew Research Center is loaded with statistical information about teen use of social media.  Lehnart includes information about family income, methods of logging onto social media, and age grouping to plant her research.  All being very important factors, she lays out the information with hyperlinks, and charts filled with data.

Going back to the fact that the article is loaded with relevant, statistical information, it is clear that the author simply wants to put forth her research, rather than take a position on the topic.  The information is an awareness arouser because it is solid, and straight-forward without any extra psychological backing to it.  The article does not contain any bias on social media and the youth, but simply breaks down teen usage of different social media outlets.  It is definitely a credible source because it comes from the Pew Research Center which is a "nonpartisan American think tank" that provides information, statistics, and data on different issues that occur across the country.

This article from Social Media Today begs the question "is social media bad for us?"  Author, Sarah Snow, presents an argument from both sides -- social media being good a thing and social media being a bad thing.  Snow lays her arguments out in an organized manner with different bits of "evidence" to help the audience understand her points.  She uses statistics and pulls research from different Social Media Today articles to express ideas within her arguments.  Snow's argument seems to weigh more heavily on her "Social Media is Essentially Bad" argument where her evidences are more detailed as she refers to the First Amendment and other more legally centered sources. Sarah Snow, the author of this article is a "content hacker" for Social Media Today.  Though there was not very much information on her "background" on the website, scanning through her other articles, it appears that her job with Social Media Today is to research social media in depth and write about it retrospect to today's society.  Genre definitely plays a major role when discussing social media.  When informative, there is a great amount of statistical and analytic data involved.  On the other hand though, when argued, a new can of worms is opened because the discussion of social media being a "good" or "bad" thing is presented leading to a vast spectrum of arguments. 

The article "Teenagers and the Internet" by Suren Ramasubbu explains the interactions of today's teenagers and their interactions with the internet. Ramasubbu uses statistics and hyperlinks to build his informative argument on the topic.  He also lays out the "dangers" of social media explaining that "exposure to age-ina 1.When I was typing this search in, I knew that I would certainly find a solid amount of data, but was happily surprised when I found the in-depth research all over the page.  I will more than likely use this article as a primary source for my research.  It was posted on the Huffington Post, which is a very well-renown source and the author's biography page proved that he is well educated in this topic because he is the co-founder and CEO of the most widely-used internet safety company for computers and mobile devices, appropriate content is another serious risk," showcasing his concerns with internet safety. 

A thirteen year old stated that she would prefer not eating for a week over having her phone taken away in a CNN article titled "Why Some 13-year-olds Check Social Media 100 Times a Day."  Eighth-graders all across the United States allowed their activity on their various social media accounts to be monitored for research in 2015.  Different habitual aspects of why teens were so into checking their social media so frequently was the main test being done in this case; the research and studies brought back some interesting data.  While the vast majority of the teens (61% of them) were mainly concerned with the number of likes and comments they received on their posts, less than half of them were checking to see if their peers were either having fun without them, or checking in to see if anyone was negatively of them on social media.  The breakdown came to the fact that these teens were fishing for gratification from "likes," and searching for conflict to address amongst their peers.  

In her piece, "The Negatives of Social Media on African Youth," writer, Akua Djanie discusses the negative affect that is being seen amongst the youth of Africa.  She beings her argument with some benefits of social media stating that "social media is providing all manner of opportunities," in terms of business, promotion, and other entrepreneurial aspects.  This is an ideal move for her to get the opposing viewpoint out of the way, as she does not side with it in an overly-biased way, but does not sell the opposing point short.  However, Djanie then files into her argument expressing her deep concern that social media has tainted the African youth she knew because "African children were respectful," but they have seemingly become irresponsible, disrespectful people.  The writer explains that there has been a massive decrease in cultural means of respecting their fellow people and especially elders, and she believes it is all because of social media.  She points out that there a loss of respect towards political figures when she notes that " ...  young African children who should know better, now see nothing wrong in insulting their elders, especially the African politician" in reference to things such as memes, and other "disrespectful" pictures much of the youth has taken pleasure in.  Her argument does seem to play the blame game a bit, as she heavily believes that social media is the root of all evil amongst the African youth, but she does make some interesting points to support her claim.  Djanie uses examples about African children losing traditional respect for their elders because of social media -- whether this is relevant or not could be questionable, but her prognosis seems to be somewhat accurate from her observations.  The article was published in November 2015, making it fairly current.  The information can be seen as relevant because she is looking into parts of Africa that are developing at a more rapid pace and she sees that technology is already negatively (her argument) affecting the youth.  I have a fair amount of knowledge on this topic at this stage in the game, and I have read many articles on it, but this is the first article I read on social media affecting a specific group of people (African youth in this case).  I think this would be a good "fact boosting' source in my paper because the information is interesting and the writer takes a different perspective on the topic by focusing on a certain group of people rather than a generalized collective group.

This Article by Karen Goff from The Washington Times lays out the benefits of social media on the youth.  Goff uses research from doctors and other "digital youth" researchers to compile information on why social media really is not such a bad thing for our new generations.  Goff uses a lot of research as her evidence for her claim.  From my research I cannot seem to find a lot on Goff, except for the fact that she obtained her degree in journalism from Ohio State University and has written for various different outlets.  She also specializes in writing about "new media" and social media.  Goff uses the bias that young being using social media does not mean they are lazy or unmotivated, but that they are using a new and unique outlet to express themselves and showcase their connectivity and creativity.  I don't feel like anything is very accurate in this article because of persona; bias, but I suppose from a nonbiased standpoint it has detailed research so it essentially could be considered accurate.  This article was published in 2009 -- about seven years ago, when a lot of social media was still in its developmental stages and just emerging. I think that it interesting that the question of social media being good or bad for the youth was raised even that long ago when it was in its smaller form.  From the beginning I intended to use a source in my paper that contradicts my argument to show the opposing side of my topic, but I'm not 100% sure if this is the source I want to use.  It was interesting, but it would be idea to find something that comes from a well-renown source/writer because it would make the juxtaposition more interesting.

The misuse of social media has certainly tainted our youth, and become an epidemic leading to the unfortunate demeaning of today's young people.  It is an issue that has taken over our youth and taken a harsh toll on the sanity of them.  This issue goes beyond not 'liking' the fact that our youth is submerging themselves into technology, but the fact that they are simply taking it too far and becoming the demon that social media is.  It is unfortunate to see something that should be used for good be used to harm other people and be used for self-harm.


