Teenagers and their use of social media is a lot different compared to what it was years ago. 92% of teens have reported going online daily, while 24% reported going online “almost constantly”. This crazed amount of access is fueled by mobile devices. Teens stay connected, always refreshing their news feed, checking direct messages, and receiving notifications, at a constant rate. Every time one happens to receive a ‘like’ on a post, whether it is a video, picture, or just a text post, a chemical called dopamine is released to the brain. This is the same chemical that is released when drinking, smoking, and even gambling. An age restriction currently exists on all of these activities, but there is no sort of age restriction on social media. This means that teenagers are being exposed to this addictive, numbing chemical on a daily basis with limits ranging from little to none. Furthermore, because of this addiction, teenagers are becoming reliant on social media and more susceptible to some of the negative effects social media use has to offer. Although there are many positive aspects, there are equally as many dangers that come with the use of social media sites, especially with the excessive amount of use that seems to be occurring today, as well as just the misuse. Some of these negative effects include, but are not limited to, a distraction from school, cyberbullying, risky behavior, a lack of privacy, and issues with peer pressure, as well as mental health.

Social media serves as a distraction inside and outside of the classroom. It enables cheating on tests and other assignments, and it also takes away from studying time that occurs outside of school. Cheating has multiple consequences, such as a failing grade or even expulsion, and a lack of quality studying results in lower test scores. A study shows that students who took time to go online while studying scored 20% lower on tests. If this sort of habit continues, it could eventually begin to even effect one’s GPA. Another study showed that grades happened to improve for light users of social media, while heavy users suffered. On average, social media users seemed to have a 3.06 GPA, as oppose to non-users, who had an average GPA of 3.82. Not only can social media use be detrimental to a student’s performance, but it can negatively affect their admission into various schools, depending on what they allow themselves to reveal through their accounts. 35% of admissions officers reported actually scanning the social media of applicants and discovering information that was taken into consideration during the admission process. Job recruiters also check the accounts of potential employees for profanity, poor spelling or grammar, racism, sexism, poor health, references to alcohol or drugs, and sexual and religious content that can count against them.

The loss of face-to-face contact with other people is one of the most obvious negative aspects of social networking. Teenagers are often sitting around with their gadgets in their hands all day long, scrolling down news feeds, and typing messages onto screens instead of communicating with real people. Many feel more comfortable with virtual friends than with real ones. The majority thinks it is simply easier to chat online, because they lack communication skills. The lack of face-to-face communication also makes teens more likely to participate in cyberbullying, which can often times cause emotional trauma. It may also lead to more dangerous results, such as suicide. 49.5% of students have reported victimization by online bullying and 33.7% actually admitted to online bullying. The constant connection to social media allows for these high percentages. Instead of saying goodbye to friends at school and waiting to see them the next day, teenagers just go home and log into their various social media accounts and interact with them for the rest of the day. With the use of smart phones, they do not even have to wait to get home, they can instantly pull up their social media applications while in the car. As far as bullying goes, it used to only happen at school or on the bus, and once you got home, you were safe. Because of social media, bullying has now moved from school and the bus to online. This means if a teen is getting bullied, they are unable to get away from it. Those who are bullying them are able to simply continue their bullying through social media. In 2012, a study found that at least 800,000 minors had been harassed just through Facebook. This does not account for those that were harassed through the various other sources of social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, that are also popular today.

The comfort level teenagers feel behind a screen has them participating in activities that they should feel a lot more sensitive doing, not just cyberbullying. Sexting is a prime example of how comfortable teens have become online. Many do not feel comfortable enough to engage in physical sexual activity in person, but they are, however, more comfortable participating in sexual activity online. Social media applications, such as Snapchat, make it easy for teens to engage in this sort of behavior. They feel “safe” behind a computer or phone screen, so they are more likely to post nude or just semi-nude pictures. They may even engage in sexual conversation through direct messaging on Facebook or other social media sites, because they would not feel as comfortable having those sort of conversations in person. Not all teens are using social media for sexting, but many are. No matter whether it is sexting or bullying, teens are feeling more comfortable participating in these activities behind a screen than they are in person. Social media has made it so much easier for them to embrace what they would not otherwise embrace, because they are able to do it “safely” behind a screen. 

Teenagers, today, are also sharing more personal information online than they did in the past. The Pew Research Center measured for five different types of personal information being shared online in both 2006 and 2012. Each is significantly more likely to be shared by teen social media users in their most recent survey. Results showed that 91%, in 2012, as oppose to 79%, in 2006, post a photo of themselves, 71% as oppose to 49% post their school name, 71% as oppose to 61% post the city or town where they live, 53% as oppose to 29% post their email address, and 20% as oppose to 2% post their cell phone number. Many teen users do not even read privacy policies, making them unaware of who their information is being shared with. Some users’ information may be used by third parties, including advertisers, insurance companies, and the IRS. However, many do not express a high level of concern about third party access to their information. Only 9% reported that they were “very” concerned. When using social media, not only do users risk their personal information being used by third parties, but they become more vulnerable to crime, as well, the more they decide to share. Security attacks such as hacking, identify theft, phishing scams, and viruses are very common online. Sexual predators also use online information provided by users to find, stalk, and assault their victims. 16% of teen social media users have set up their profiles to include their location in posts. This could potentially aid in the stalking of a sexual predator. A majority of teens at least choose to set their profiles as private, however, 33% are Facebook friends with people they have never met in person. One in six online teens say that they have actually been contacted online by someone they did not know that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.

Teenagers are highly influenced by their peers on social media. When deciding whether to click ‘like’ on a photo or not, the number of likes it already has is highly taken into consideration. An experiment was done by UCLA’s Ahmanson–Lovelace Brain Mapping Center that showed these sort of results. The teenagers in the study viewed “neutral” photos, which included pictures of food and friends, “risky” photos, which included cigarettes, alcohol, and teenagers wearing provocative clothing, as well as their own photos. Each photo was submitted by one of the teenagers included in the study. Half of the teenagers participating in the study were shown a photo with a lot of likes, and the other half were shown the exact same photo, but with just a few likes. Whenever they saw a photo with more likes, they were significantly more likely to like it themselves. “In the study, this was a group of virtual strangers to them, and yet they were still responding to peer influence,” stated Dapretto, a senior author of the study. Not only can peers effect whether other teens ‘like’ a particular photo online or not, but they can also influence teens to participate in bad behavior depending on what sort of attention that behavior is receiving online. Social media can even contribute to body dissatisfaction or disordered eating, although it is definitely not a single cause. However, research is increasingly clear that it does indeed contribute. The media presents idealized shape which is invested with attributes of being attractive, desirable, successful, and loveable, but may be unattainable without resorting to sinister or dangerous eating habits. Adolescents are still in a phase of brain development and emotional regulation, and they are often susceptible to peer pressure. Being exposed to particular images can provoke concerns related to body image.

While teenagers’ behavior is highly influenced by their peers online, they are also highly affected, emotionally, by them as well. A study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology called “Seeing Everyone Else’s High Reels: How Facebook Usage is Linked to Depressive Symptoms” looked at the social comparison habits of college students and concluded that after spending a large amount of time on Facebook, users feel bad about themselves due to comparing themselves to others. Social comparison is a natural, important part of being human. However, when this comparison is made through online social media, users fail to realize that what they are comparing themselves to is a perfectly crafted, and sometimes exaggerated, representation of the lives of others. Despite the anxious and depressed feeling social media can cause, users continue to scroll through their feeds to keep themselves updated. Teenagers are curious and feel the need to see what everyone else is doing due to FOMO, or the “fear of missing out”. Other feelings of anxiety and depression can result from poorer sleep quality due to the pressure to be available 24/7 on social media. According to study author Heather Cleland Woods, of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, "those who log on at night appear to be particularly affected.” The teenage years can be a time of increased vulnerability to both depression and anxiety, and sleeping poorly may contribute to the risk of these conditions. Woods also stressed that the use of social media itself is not a negative activity, but suggests that it is important to think about how we use it and when we go online. 

While social media, itself, is not completely negative, the way teenagers often use it, is. Not only are teenagers using it excessively, but many parents have no knowledge about what their kids do with their gadgets, oftentimes because they are new to and not necessarily adept with the social networking scene. Chris Crosby, the author of The Effects of Social Media on Teenagers, says, “While kids are plugged in to social media, only about 40% of parents are involved themselves.” Because parents do not know the full picture, they also do not know how to deal with a teenager’s potential overuse or misuse of social media and might not even be aware that a problem exists. A CNN study found a disconnect between what their parents think about their kids' posts and how their children are feeling. Sixty percent of parents underestimated how lonely, worried and depressed their kids were and 94% underestimated the amount of fighting that happens on social media. Because of this, it is important for parents to be involved with their teenagers’ social media. The social behavior of many teens is driven by the ways in which they socialize with their peers online. They do, however, have a sense of watchful and potential judgmental eye of adults, which is a key influence of the choices that they make online. A 17-year old female told the Pew Research Center, “I mean, I kind of feel like it [adult scrutiny] does teach you to watch what you post at the same time. Obviously, it is a little invading of the privacy, but I feel like it has taught me to watch what I post. What you post does represent you, whether you like it or not, it really does. And if you post something, middle finger up or swearing constantly, they’re going to think that’s who you are. So I think it has taught me to watch what I post.” With teenagers being aware and concerned of parents and other adults seeing what they post on social media, it is important that these authorities are present online.

Overall, teenagers put a lot at risk when they decide to use social media. The misuse and overuse, obviously, leads to more cases of teens suffering from the negative effects social media can cause. Their performance at school is effected, putting their test scores and overall grades in danger when they result to cheating on assignments or allowing social media to serve as a distraction while they are studying. The lack of face-to-face contact even makes teens feel a lot more comfortable behind their screen, causing them to be more susceptible to participating in cyberbullying. Whether they are the bully or the victim, they are put at risk. They are also more susceptible to sexting, which includes sending inappropriate pictures, or just engaging in sexual conversation. Not to mention, the lack of privacy that can come along with social media can cause teens to be put in danger and more likely to become victims of crimes that take place online and because of information others can see online. Their information can be used by sexual predators to help them gain insight about where the user may live, go to school, or other locations included in their daily routine. The other dangers include pressure put on by peers, causing poor sleep quality, anxiety, and depression. With the help of parents, however, teenagers can be monitored for their misuse, and by understanding what they are putting at risk, teenagers can learn to limit themselves online and put the phone down from time to time. When time management is put into consideration and social media is used properly, it can have many perks and positive effects.