Social media is slowly taking over our lives. All people worry about is how many instagram followers they have or how many favorites on their last tweet that they got. It is beginning to be a great tool for businesses to market their products but it is mainly used by people at all age groups to show their peers what they're doing. People can paint an image of how they want their peers to view them even though their life isn't actually like that.  They only post the pictures that they want people to see rather than showing how it actually is. Social media can deceive so many people, but it can also help people express themselves and their emotions. It is also extremely rare to find a teenager in today's generation that does not have any form of social media. Contrary to popular belief, social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can actually help people instead tear them down. It is a way to get teenagers to connect with their peers on a whole new level. People tend to be extremely open about their lives on these websites for all of their friends, and family to see. There can be posts such as a death of someone close to him or her, a college acceptance, or even a fight with a friend. These people tend to put their entire lives out on their profiles for people to look at. This ends up building a community among followers and friends and people feel safe to express their feelings and lives with these people. 

Social media is one of the most powerful platforms that the Internet has today. Anything such as stories, pictures or any kind of post could go viral in minutes. Even a picture posted by Ellen DeGeneres at the 86th Academy Awards that contained many award winning celebrities reached over a million retweets in just an hour (The 86th Academy Awards In Hollywood). It is mind-blowing to know that so many people interacted with that one tweet since many iconic actors or actresses were in it. This started continued to build fan bases of Ellen or any other celebrity in that photograph because they were with other well-known actors or actresses. The smallest things like a picture can be seen all over the world in the matter of seconds. 

It is almost impossible to find a teenager without a profile on any social media website. This form of communication is becoming so common that a person can search another person's first and last name and they can find out a lot about that person. The generations of teenagers now rely on social media heavily. Many of them have different accounts on the same platform just to create a stronger bond with their friends. These websites are used so much that,  "90% of adolescents have used social media, and one third of adolescents visit social media sites multiple times per day" (?). Teenagers feel out of the loop if they don't have these accounts. Even if their parents don't allow them to make these accounts, they tend to go behind their backs because they don't want to miss out on something they feel is important. Even going on these sites is extremely easy with the technology there is today. People don't even have to have access to a computer to go on these sites. There are apps on phones or tablets that allow teenagers to see what their friends are doing currently. 

Expressing emotions can be extremely difficult for people, especially in writing. When student write essays, they only write about the facts, but it is refreshing when they begin to write about a personal experience. The personal stories draws readers in and makes the reader feel empathy for the writer of the story. Social media helps these students open up in their pieces of writings. Teenagers never want to talk about their feelings, especially to adults. Adults, especially their teachers and their parents are the enemy during their time of adolescents. Teenagers think that their parents hate them and their teachers want them to fail at everything they do. Soon these students grow up and realize that adults just want the best for kids. Since these teenagers refuse to talk to their parents about anything, they begin to talk more to their peers. Through social media platforms, people tend to share their daily activities and feelings to their friends or followers. The social media websites are open platforms for people to share their opinions and thoughts on whatever they want to talk about. . Social media can allow teenagers to "not only chats with friends, but online groups of various sorts can ameliorate a common adolescent experience of feeling like an anomaly among humans."(Barth 206). This makes the kids feel like they belong in the world which a lot of people need since in that time of their life since they are already so confused about the other things going on with them. The concept of "likes" and "favorites" give the person-posting feel like their peers accept them. 

The adolescent stage is one of the hardest stages of anyone's lives. It is those awkward middle school years that everyone tends to look back at and realize how rough it was. It was when the growth spurts begin and people didn't know how to handle this change. Either their legs were too long or they were too short. Then a lot of people still had a lot of baby fat still on their bodies while adding those horrible looking braces on top of this already bad looking image. It was very rare for kids to look semi decent during this awkward phase. On top of not looking the best, these new teenagers had to begin finding themselves. They cannot rely on their parents forever and they have to learn how to start to become more independent. These children start to identify themselves with the people they are around and it is an extremely hard journey. To this day, many people still cannot identify themselves. In an article written by F. Diane Barth, she talks about how social media can affect the opportunity to grow for teenagers during their adolescent development. It can hurt the teenager when they are trying to identify themselves since "tremendous cultural pressure to provide more space and less hands-on involvement than adolescents yet connected, adult identities" (Barth 204). There is so much pressure to be the person that everyone wants them to be and this makes it even harder for teenagers to find themselves.

Along with helping the teenagers find themselves, social media can also provide an educational aspect to the lives of teenagers. Most recently with the presidential election coming up, it is almost impossible to avoid seeing something about it on any website that a person may be on. Seeing so much coverage and articles on social media can trigger curiosity in someone, which will lead someone to want to learn more about this subject.  An eye catching news article in between all the pictures of friends and family on Facebook would definitely make someone want to read more about this subject. Not everyone has time to read the newspaper or watch the news everyday, but even a short tweet or a small Facebook post can help someone become a little more educated on a certain subject. Even though people should not believe everything they read on the Internet, if they are reading the right sources, they can be come more educated. 

There are many arguments that people seem to make that social media can cause adolescents to feel worse about them by seeing certain posts on social media. A main argument is that when young teenage girls see super models in ads or magazines, they begin to have lower self-confidence. However these pictures are not the cause of their emotions, it is their interpretation of these pictures that are really hurting these people. Everyone has a problem with something about himself or herself, it is normal to feel insecure, but people shouldn't be blaming social media for all of these problems. Along with this insecurity, a lot of people think that their peers tear each other down through these websites or what it is better known as, cyberbullying. Most horror stories that people think about the worse things happening through social media is this event. In the worst-case scenario, a teenager might commit suicide from all of this abuse. This doesn't happen often, actually "cyberbulling only happens 20-40 percent of the time" (?). it happens less than people actually think it does. People are now beginning to defend their peers instead of joining on the abuse. This is an evolutionally event since people know that horrible things such as suicide can happen if they join along in te ridicule. There is a lot more support on these social media websites since people want others are beginning to learn to treat people how they want to be treated.  

Boys are stereotypically very closed off and they do not enjoy sharing their feelings to their friends and family. They want to keep a "masculine" identity to their peers so they don't seem week to their friends. However, social media has even allowed them to express their feelings not only to their friends, but also in their schoolwork writings. It does not only help boys, but it also helps girls' writings as well. Now these students can write about emotional topics such as traumatizing experiences, their family members, or even about themselves. Even an English teacher, Andrew Simmons noticed the change amongst his students. From personal experience, he stated "my students in 2013 are more comfortable writing about personal issues than were my classmates in the mid-late '90s". Even from personal experience, Simmons can testify how much the generations have improved in this aspect of social media. He has witnessed first hand the change the teenagers have evolved to be more open about them. 

A support system can be built with friends and family through these social media websites. If there is a terrible accident that happened at a town or school, thousands of people can come together to help others around them during this time. All throughout my childhood I grew up in a small town and everyone knew each other. One day a student at my high school and his family had experienced a traumatic event. This boy's brother got hit by a hit and run driver. This boy was a three-sport athlete and always had a smile on his face until this day came by. His brother was in a coma for months and his family received support fro everyone in town. A main source of support was through social media. People posted pictures with loving memories or t-shirts they had made to show support. Everyone from mothers to kids was posting on the entire families wall to let them know that they were there for them. There was even a Facebook page that the families made so they can let the people around them know the progress that his brother was making. This created a community among the people in the town to make sure this family didn't feel alone. Even the toughest teenage boys showed emotion and their love for their friend since it was one of the hardest times of their lives. Without social media, it would be extremely hard for people around the town to keep up with the status of the family. It was a create tool to bring people together and it not only brought the teenagers together, but all the families in the town. 

Through these platforms teenagers can remain in contact with their old friends, family or even people they have met once in their entire life. Teenagers are able to let their families that live farther away what they are up to without doing a long phone call. It is an easy way to announce big event in their life such as an acceptance to college or a new job that they just received. It is a great way to keep in touch with friends that someone may have lost touch with over the last couple of years. There may be a friend that moved across the country or one that one may just not talk to anymore. Social media is one of the fastest ways to talk to people when they want or need to. This can be also be a way to ask family or families to ask for help when they need.it. On these websites teenagers can ask their families and friends to donate to a cause they believe in. A popular cause that these people ask their families to donate to is dance marathon. Dance marathon is popular throughout schools all over the country. People ask their peers to donate money to their page that ends up getting donated to a local children's hospital. This is a faster way to ask to talk to them instead of making multiple phone calls to your aunts or uncles.  

In such a large school, like the University of South Carolina, social media can help make the school feel smaller. There are Facebook pages just for the class that the student is graduating is. It is a way to meet new people and connect with people that are going to the same school. By following these people, you are able to see what they are doing in their lives such as what sorority they join or any other major events that happen in their life, Through Facebook I was even able to meet my roommate and my best friend. I was able to start talking to her from a small post in the class Facebook group. Even though I only talked to her for a short time, I knew that we would get along by just her social media accounts. Just by seeing pictures of a person someone can learn so much about their lives. These pictures can show what the person does in their free time. People tend to assume that the pictures that one may post on their social media accounts can help describe their life. Even with following your friends from high school on social media accounts, you can see what how they are doing. A simple "like" or comment can help show people that they support whatever they are doing. Peers want to keep up with other people in their life no matter what they are doing. Whether it would be friends or family, a person can still create a strong bond with people even though it may not be all of their a thousand instagram followers. Even though this social media, teenagers feel like they know their favorite celebrity personality by just seeing a lot of their personal pictures. People are sharing their personal lives on such a large platform for everyone to see it. It is nice to see people change for the better and grow up to be something great.
