The growth in technology has created the social media technology boom. As a result, boom has created an increase in young women developing negative effects from it. These negative effects can be life threating to a young woman. Technology is one of the most easily accessed things and it impacts women of all ages and ethnicities. As emphasized by Michael Prieler's scholarly article discussing technologies reach to all ethnicities of women. 

Producers have utilized this growth by generating powerful advertisement campaigns because they understand the reach that technology has. While advertisements have not changed over serval decades, based on Jean Killbourn's research, the way the ads are delivered has. Advertisements are now woven into social media feeds. This results in images of true women being distorted by photo shopped, unrealistic women. Once these unrealistic images become imbedded into a young women's mind her self-esteem can be damaged for the foreseeable future. Eating disorders and other mental disorder have become a major factor when dealing with self-esteem issues. Based on Elizabeth Heubeck's article on about media related illnesses. 

Other results from the growth of social media are the lack of social skills that young women develop. Young women spend hours socializing through technology that they lose the art of conversation. Caitlin Dewdy's article found in the Carolina Rhetoric discusses her relationship that developed solely through social media. Another article in the Carolina Rhetoric is Matt Richtel's piece he wrote on the dangers of over using technology included a whole family that became enveloped by technology and lost most of their social skills. These negative social skills can lead to very dangerous consequences. As noted by Anouk den Hamer's article "Cyberbullying Behavior and Adolescents" on social media can lead to young woman taking dispirit actions to feel like they belong. 

An intriguing aspect that has developed from social media is the "insta-famous" woman coming into the spot light. These women are looked upon by young venerable women and these young women see a role model to follow after. These women tend to be famous for all the wrong reasons. These women involve in negative actions through social media. Sue Jackson's scholarly article discusses what makes a negative role model and a positive role model. Young women need a broader range of positive role models to choose from.  

Some individuals believe that social media can have great benefits. They believe that it promotes confidents and conversation. Kelly Wallace's article discusses some of these benefits. She also relates that the media is part of the problem. The media itself does not report on the positives and only reports on the negative events linked to social media. 

These particular issues linked to social media can be looked upon as both a global issues and a local issue. The University of South Carolina has a diverse population of women and this issues effects every one of them. Whether they directly relate to the issues or they want to be part of the change every woman can get involved by changing the social media culture. Social media poses the dangerous risk of negatively impacting young women through distorted images of the female body, which creates harmful perceptions of one's self and others. Female students at the University of South Carolina make up a locally affected demographic and should work to create change through both individual and collective efforts.

There has been a steady history of young women developing body image issues from advertisements. Advertisements have been a part of culture since the buying and selling industry developed. The ideal female body type has also stayed cemented in the past. Jean Kilbourne has been collecting ads since that last 1960 and has created serval presentations over the years. The common tread with these advertisements is the portrayal of women. Her first presentation was made in 1979, "Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of woman". Some advertisements she included read, "If your hair isn't beautiful the rest hardly matters ... I'd Probably never be married now, if I hadn't lost 49 pounds," (Kilbourne). Advertisements in the 1960s and 1970s depicted a woman had to be at peak appearance in order to attract a husband or boyfriend. Kilbourne herself posed for advertisers as a model and she found it to be hypersexualized. Woman's body are scrutinized by advertisements. Advertisers pull apart young women's body and only display sexualized aspect and these ads run in teen magazines. One such advertisement reads, "Your breast may be too big, too saggy, too pert, too flat, too full, too far apart, too close together, too A cup, too lopsided, too jiggly, too pale, too padded, too pointy, too pendulous or just too mosquito bites. But with Dep styling products, at least you can your hair the way you want it," (Kilbourne). Producers target young women by running hypersexualized advertisements in teen magazines. 

There is also a history of producers hiring advertisers to take models and turn them into the ideal body image. Advertisers take models with averages bodies and turn their photograph into the ideal body image through social media. For years companies have been using photo shop to produce the ideal body image. Ralph Lauren used photo shop to make a models pelvis smaller than her head which is physical impossible. The same model was fired for being "too fat". Women's skin tones are lightened to produce a white effect. Young women are exposed to anatomically impossible advertisements 24/7 with the advisement of technology. 

The development of technology has created the social media age which has allowed advertisements to be more easily accessed by the main stream populous. Young girls are exposed to hypersexualized advertisements at a much higher rate than before. This has created young women developing mental disorders at younger and younger ages. Young women have developed eating disorders to make themselves more thin. 

Some key term that are used when discussing this topic are body image, media, and hypersexualized. Body image is defined as, "the media's ability to create a powerful set of unrealistic ideals that keep girls and women preoccupied with femininity and beauty standards," (Julie Frechette). Frechette defines hyper sexuality in examples, "For instance, music videos and lyrics are a central part of our popular culture, and they routinely portray women's bodies in hypersexualized, sexually available ways,". Woman are constantly seen as sexualized tools for main stream media. Finally, media is described as, "Advertising is the act of drawing the attention of the public to a specific product or service. By employing methods of persuasion, advertisers endeavor to convince members of that public to purchase or otherwise acquire a product or service," (Frechette). These are just some of the terms used in this topic. 

The historic cycle of advertisements has created an over whelming world young girl to experience. For decades young woman were constantly exposed to unrealistic women. Every woman on the University of South Carolina is susceptible to being exposed to unrealistic images and then developing some sort of mental disorder. Every woman also has the ability to change this cycle. 

There is a staggering amount of young woman who are being impacted by the dangers of easily accessed technology. This easy access is a result from the technology boom with has resulted in social media exploding. This growth in social media has resulted in young women developing major issues such as body image issues and harmful social skills. Body image issues can lead to mental illnesses and negative social skills can have dangerous consequences.  While some may argue that social media does have some benefits, the negatives out way any benefits. The detrimental effects all steam from the easy access of technology.

The dominate concern with social media is the body image issues that arise when young woman use social media. Young women are bombarded are negative images that are woven into social media streams. Michael Prieler's discusses how young woman encounter advertisements, "Young women may use Facebook primarily for socializing and may encounter pictures of thin women," (381). Young women have no choice but to absorb all of the "ideal female body type" advertisements being placed in front of them. Advertisements portray in all the same way, Kilbourne's presentation discusses, "The pressure on woman to be young, thin, beautiful is more intense than ever before," (3:33).  Currently young women are being exposed at higher rates and are expected to be the "ideal body type".  They believe it is the social norm to be the "ideal body type". The easy access to social media has directly resulted in the growth of body image issues with young women. 

Young women also have the issue of viewing negative role models through social media. "Celebrities are often assigned tags of 'good' or 'bad' role models in public discourse," (Jackson). Many "bad" celebrities have twitter battles online or choose to use undesirable acts online. Young women look up to these women because they are in the public spot light. Then young women start replicating these undesirable social skills. Women in Popular Culture should be using the highest respect and constructive social skills on social media. 

There are consequences associated with using social media. Philippa Roxby wrote an article about the impact of social media and bullying on the female body and self-esteem, she wrote about the experiences of a young woman's, Kelsey Hibberd, experiences. Roxby writes about Hibberd's experiences with online bullies that resulted in her body image issues, "Kelsey describes the bullying she experienced between the ages of 11 and 16 as 'absolutely awful'. 'It was all about my body and how I looked,' she says. She changed her hair color and stopped eating to try to fit in,". Roxby's interviewee got bullied through social media and it caused her to look at herself in a negative light. Young girls have started to look negatively upon themselves as young as five years old, (Heubeck). Young woman are starting to developed self-esteem issues at younger and younger ages.

There are life threating consequences associated with using social media. "Trolling" is a person stocks or bullies another person online. Trolling can be life threating, "[an] example is the tormenting of the parents of Mitchell Henderson, a boy who committed suicide. They were subjected to gruesome audio-video creations and other tools at the disposal of virtual sadists.," (Lanier ). Megan Meier is not the only case where young women have killed themselves after being bullied online. If young women do not result to drastic measures, then they can be put in an equally as dangerous situation. There is a cycle of cyberbullying, first victimization, second anger or frustration, and then an individual can take two paths one, they can expose or become a cyberbully them self. (den Hamer). This is the hazardous and life threating effects of social media.

Another effect is the effect on relationship between families and couple. The family focuses on their devices, "screens big and small are central to the Campbell family's leisure time. Connor and his mother relax while watching TV shows like "Heroes." Lily has an iPod Touch, a portable DVD player and her own laptop This family has become consumed by technology," (Richtel 486). They cannot function without their technology devices. Romantic relationship can suffer too, "With my Skype screen open and my webcam on, I viscerally felt that Will was sitting a foot away on my bed ...  I didn't like being surrounded by his things. I felt more comfortable in my room, with my things, and with his presence confined to a laptop screen," (Dewey 519-520). This young lady's relationship developed through social media but when she met him in person it was very different. People act different online then they do in person. 

Many people believe that social media has positive effects and that the media only responds to the unfortunate stories. Kelly Wallace writes an article discussing the constructive side to social media, "it can ... help to build self-confidence, too,' said Masio ...  'When they post selfies, all the comments I usually see are 'You're beautiful,' 'You're so pretty,' 'Oh my God, gorgeous,'". While this can happen young woman can get cyberbullied for the way they look. The cyberbullying can lead to dangerous consequences and any helpful aspects of social media are dominated by destructive social skills delivered through social media. 

There can be constructive for people but more and more social media is being used for to hurt and provided free advertising of damaging images. When young woman view "ideal body image" advertisements they are more likely to develop mental disorders so they can replicate the images they see. Young women start to develop unwanted social skill that they display through the use of social media. All of these issues are a direct result to the evolution of technology. The easy access to technology has allowed children at younger and younger ages to expireences these destructive effects. 

There are many solutions that could be implemented to help prevent young woman from developing negative body images and harmful social skills. One proposed solution is having young woman becoming involved in local sports programs.  Second proposed solution, is having parents talking to their children about what and who they viewing on social media, and also inspiring them to view their true self. Finally, mentoring program that do you focus on young woman's bodies for young women can be extremely beneficial. These solutions focus on developing young women's emotional side. These solutions can be applied both locally and globally.  

The first solution that should be discussed is young women joining a local sports team. Sports teams can be very beneficial for a young woman because it allows them to develop key team building skill which help with building positive social skills. Furthermore, it allows them to see that women come in all shapes and sizes disproving the "ideal body image" that is so often placed in front of them by advertisers. It is important to note that young woman should get involved with a team that does not value the way a player look, for example ice skating, (Heubeck). When young women are involved, "adolescent girls and women benefit from, and are empowered by, sports and sports programs that build assets, provide access to resources, and develop agency and leadership," (Aafjes 372). It has been proven that sports based programs can help young women change their outlook on themselves.

The second solution and a very powerful one is, to have parents, guardians, leaders, and mentors create a conversation with all young women, not just one who have been impacted by body image issues, about viewing themselves positive. Young women need to know that the images that are plastered all over social media and the internet are not true images.  Parents or any other impactful leader in a young woman's life, "parents' energy is better spent getting their daughters to look at and think critically about the unrealistic way the media portrays girls and women ... Co-viewing ... allows parents and their daughters to talk about those patterns of [physical] representation," (Heubeck). By having a leader in young women's lives communicate to them that the images they are viewing are altered they it can have a great impact. 

The third solution is to have young women involved in mentoring programs Local University of South Carolina student can play a major role as mentor for a young woman and other University of South Carolina students. A country wide program that has chapters in Columbia, South Carolina, is Girls on the Run. In every session of Girls on the Run young woman have a lesson about positive body image and then they learn how to run a marathon. USC students can be a coach at local school and be a mentor to young women. 

The fourth and final solution is to have young women becoming involved with programs that do no emphasize the body. Programs that de-emphasis the human body and the focus solely on the mind can build on a young women's mental strength. Building mental strength can help prevent young women from developing eating disorders or any other form of mental illness. Young women can change the conversation from focusing on the body to focusing on the health of the mind. Any solution that a young woman choses to be a part of would be beneficial. 

Through the technology boom, social media has grown at an exponential rate allowing young women to have access to social media twenty-four seven. This access has caused young women to develop body image issues and unhealthy social skills. Advertisers have not changed the way they portray women for decades and while the way advertisers have presented those advertisements have.  Advertisers now thread the "ideal body image" advertisements into social media. These false images cause young women to develop body image issues causing them to developing eating or other mental disorders. Other issues with the growth of technology are the "ista-famous" women who are perceived the be role models because of their celebrity status. Young women view their undesirable actions and then copy them. Social media can be a source of cyberbullying with can create a very dangerous situation. Young women have killed themselves become of cyberbullying but they can also become a cyberbully themselves continuing the cycle. The solutions to these issues include becoming involved with local sports program, family or leaders speaking with young women about what they are viewing, and finding a proper mentor to view. Young women need to be the driving force that creates the conversation to changing advisements and social media. 

