Lit Review
Teen’s
sexual health is an important issue that teens are faced with today, and when
coming from the pressure, Social media brings along both benefits and risks.
Research has been done to prove that exposure to content in magazines, television,
movies, and music used by early adolescents predicts teen’s sexual behavior. By
surveys being done, this leads these researchers to conclude that social media
does in fact increase teens to engage in sexual activity. (Brown, Landin
L'Engle, and et al 1018 -1027). “Earlier maturing
girls reported more interest than later maturing girls in seeing sexual content
in movies, television, and magazines, and in listening to sexual content in
music, regardless of age or race. Earlier maturing girls were also more likely
to be listening to music and reading magazines with sexual content, more likely
to see R-rated movies, and to interpret the messages they saw in the media as
approving of teens having sexual intercourse.” (Brown, Tucker Halpern,
and Landin L'Engle 420-427) Since girls nowadays are starting puberty sooner in
their lives then in history, media is serving as a sexual super peer to these
early maturing girls. Media’s lack of expressing the healthy sexual messages
and no sexually responsible models just a relatively consistent set of sexual
and relationship norms results in girl’s fascination of Sexual media and
activity (Brown, Tucker Halpern, and Landin L'Engle 420-427) (Brown, Landin
L'Engle, and et al 1018 -1027).
To view this in a different way,
there are a few benefits that come along with having sexual media by preventing
some teens in engaging in sexual activity because of the results that scare
some teens. Like seen on 16 and pregnant,
produced by MTV, that many teens and young girls watch; there is a huge
risk of getting pregnant even if you use condoms or birth control. Also
contributing to that fact is anyone can get pregnant the very first time of
having sexual intercourse. Also but rarely promoted, taught in sexual
education, is the chance of getting a sexual transmitted infection (STI). Teens
see that getting a STI is at such a high risk that it is also scaring some
teens away from having sexual intercourse. Seeing condom and birth control
failure in media results in some teens not “doing it”, even when being promoted
in all types of media that sex is the best thing for relationships to “show that
you really love someone” (Collins, Elliote, Berry, Kanouse, and Hunter
1115 -1121). Viewing
and hearing minimal and limited sexual media along with parental guidance is
shown to improve the way teens express their sexual knowledge. (Collins,
Elliote, Berry, Kanouse, and Hunter 1115 -1121)
Mental health risks are a concern
for our youth today through all of the social media that is out there,
especially with social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter but
also pressure coming from owning a smart phone. In the past it has been very
easy to dismiss pre-teens and teens as too young to experience mental health
issues, but since today more and more younger aged kids are joining these
websites “being too young” could not be further from the truth. It is proven
that these websites are a host of psychological disorders. These teens on the
websites find that there once personal and private life is now a new found
freedom to publish this information to the public. In result, some children with these types of encounters and
online popularity contests can lead to low self-esteem, peer pressure and can
cause or worsen anxiety or depression ("Online Connections: Middle
School Mental Health and the Effects of Social Media" ). “About 2.5 percent of children in the U.S.
suffer from depression and according to the National Comorbidity
Survey-Adolescent Supplement, about 11 percent of adolescents have a depressive
disorder by age 18 caused by social media pressures” ("Online
Connections: Middle School Mental Health and the Effects of Social Media").
Fortunately, with early diagnosis, medication,
psychotherapy, or combined treatment, most youth with depression can be
effectively treated. Parents, teachers, and school counselors can also help
middle school students navigate appropriate social media use and generate
awareness of the potential mental health effects. Social media can also be
accessed by smart phones, and all the above symptoms can also be reached by
access to any type of cell phones. More teens everyday are getting cell phones
“According to a recent poll… Seventy-five percent of teenagers own cell
phones--25 percent use them for social media, 54 percent use them for texting,
and 24 percent use them for instant messaging. Social media has radically
changed the childhood experience for many tweens, and the effects can be both
positive and negative” ("Online Connections: Middle School Mental
Health and the Effects of Social Media"). With teens being younger and getting cell phones it
exposes them earlier in life to stress or depression. When parents think that
it is just temporary phase being in the teenage years as they are, but it is
actually mood swings brought on by stress and depression. Teens are tied to
their phones, and always around them especially if they are accessing social
networks on them. One upsetting or happy phone call, text, instant message,
status, or tweet can change a teen’s mood in the blink of an eye. Some say that
whatever is going on in the social media can determine anyone’s mood, just
think how teens try to cope with it not yet quite knowing how to problem solve.
In teens, having easy influenced fluctuating moods is not healthy and can cause
some to “problem solve” their own way by committing suicide in result of social
media ("Online Connections: Middle School Mental Health and the
Effects of Social Media" ).
On the contrary of negative effects, come the positive ones
and social media use is associated with many benefits for adolescent
health and development. Most teens say
they do not feel the pressure of social media networks and are just on them to
extend their friendships. One
major benefit of this is that social networking can help shy teens become more
comfortable and outgoing. It is also known
that Social media can provide a supportive
environment to explore romance, friendship, and social status, while
also providing teens an opportunity to share and discuss their taste in music,
knowledge of television and movies, online videos/games, and other aspects of
teen culture. Teens also look to social
networks as a key source of information and advice. In a critical
developmental period with 57% of teen social networkers saying they look to
their online social network for advice (Turgeon ). Looking through the eyes of the creators of
Social networking sites, their sites “provide a way for teens to experience
connectedness and opportunities to learn from each other” (Turgeon ). According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, social
media sites can help develop a child’s communication, social interaction, sense
of community and technical skills ("Online Connections: Middle
School Mental Health and the Effects of Social Media" ). For teens, social networking is much like
"training wheels for life,"( Larry D. Rosen).
Teens that watch television and read
magazines are more likely to have a physical health problem ranging from
anorexia to obesity. The teens in our young aged America are struggling to keep
up with looking a certain way to be able to be accepted into society. The way
the media and television make it seem is that if the tiniest thing is wrong
with you, you are going to get made fun of, have no friends, and you are just
considered flat out ugly! To be “normal” per say you have to look and be
perfect just their idols. But since close to all teenage girls are not a size
0-2, do not have flawless skin, long hair, or tan skin they think something is
wrong with them. They try to fix these problems by either and eating disorder
or by hurting themselves because they think that they are not good enough.
Media has put so much emphasis on physical appearance, so girls look to TV, movies, and magazines for the gauge of
what they should look like or what is ideal in physical features. "Adolescents with negative body image concerns are
more likely to be depressed, anxious, and suicidal than those without intense
dissatisfaction over their appearance, even when compared to adolescents with
other psychiatric illnesses, according to a new study by researchers at Bradley
Hospital, Butler Hospital and Brown Medical School" (Cassidella). That shows how deep the issue of negative body image
really is and how it can affect mental and emotional health. On the physical
side of the matter, there are girls who feel such pressure that they engage in
starving themselves (anorexia nervosa) or bingeing and purging (bulimia) to
obtain some real or imagined ideal look. In other teens it has a totally
opposite effect on them. In other pre-teens and adolescents they are addicted
to watching TV; when teens get addicted to TV they preform no physical activity
and since there is nothing else to while watching TV, they eat (Diaz,
Evans, and Gallagher ).
From
the data presented in my lit review, my readers can easily see that teens are
at a higher risk for different health issues because of harmful exposure to
social media. There have been many cases of suicide due to harmful exposure to
Social media; one story reports a 14-year-old freshman, Jamey Rodemeyer, from a little high school just outside Buffalo
called Williamsville North High School. According
to his parents, Jamey was bullied through middle school too. He had told family
and friends that he had endured hateful comments in school and online, mostly
related to his sexual orientation. For this reason, Jamey took his own life and
was then found dead on a Sunday morning in his yard (Donaldson James). Social media is getting out of
control and has done nothing but negatively impacted teens’ health by promoting
sexual activity, causing depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, and by
promoting negative body image to increase chance of eating disorders or
suicide.
As
we all know, teens are way too young to be having sex. By having social media
exploding sexual activity is not contributing to the cause of prevention of
sexual activity in our youth today. Today, when teens are exposed to this, it
is actually promoting sex, sometimes even sex with multiple partners at this
young age. Teens that see and hear a lot about sex in the media are more than
twice as likely to have early sexual intercourse as those who are rarely
exposed to sexual content(1). Regardless to race or gender, teens that are
exposed to this engage in what they see because of their curiosity of what is
so great about it. “A new study shows that 12- to 14-year-olds exposed to the
most sexual content in movies, music, magazines, and on television were 2.2
times more likely to have had sexual intercourse when re-interviewed two years
later than their peers who had a lighter sexual media diet” (Warner ).
Being a teen, as I am, I have witnessed this first hand growing up with the
class that I have teens in my class that engaged in sexual activity happened in
about the 9th or 10th grade being 15 to 16 years of age
but now while we sit back and hear the news that travels around the school we
hear of lower classman even in 7th grade having sex that means that
they were 12 or 13. Seeing this is just plain wrong: teens are not ready to
have sex and are paying with it in pregnancies and STI’s. As the age that
pre-teen and adolescents engage in sexual activity gets lower it is obvious
that the media is to blame since all you see on TV is sex or physical
attraction to opposite sex it is believed to endorse sexual drive for our
youth. When media is asked why they add scenes regarding to sexual activity in
teenage shows or movies they respond by simply saying “we are promoting healthy
sex by showing and proving the risks of having sex” (O'Keeffe and
Clarke-Pearson 800 -804). But we ask our self’s the question of
how is this going to prevent teens from having sex? In some cases it may be
promoting safe sex but seeing sex sparks an interest to it instead of not being
exposed to it at all. It makes them more likely to want to do it.
On
the counter argument of that, some might say that this is the completely wrong
way to look at it because they say when teens see sexual relations and the
risks that come along with it in the four main flashes of media (magazines,
commercials, movies, and internet) they might be hesitant when it comes to
their sex life. Since they know all the reasons how it can mess up their life
if something were to go wrong such as getting pregnant or catching an STI (Warner
). Professionals also say that by exploding sexual content in the
big four media,
information about their health concerns easily and anonymously Web sites
through which they can develop supportive networks of people with similar
conditions. One might say that by seeing the down sides of sex it will
in fact make teens think of consequences of having sexual intercourse at such a
young age and that is the only reason that it is exploded and emphasized so
much. To those teens that have absolutely have no education about what to do
when faced with a serious situation, they can join social networking groups and
ask anonyms questions to many hotlines, emails, or texts about what to do (Warner
).
Social
media has also been known to cause depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem in
teens and this is another reason that media is not healthy for pre-teens and
adolescents. Media causes depression by constantly being in contact with sexual
media because it can drastically change a teens’ mood. Constant fluctuation of
a teens’ mood is not healthy and can cause depression. Certain networking
sites, such as Facebook, can cause depression. “Facebook depression” is a real
and serious disorder. Facebook depression is caused by seeing friends’
statuses, feedback, successes, and number of friends. Events
or feelings that were once private experiences are now public and teens react
to this in different ways depression being one and anxiety being another.
Anxiety is a huge part of our American youth; Peer pressure from social media
will cause anxiety or worsen it in most teens ("Procon"). Media also causes cases of low self-esteem, this had been
an ongoing issue. Teenagers are targeted on looks, size, or popularity; any
issue that they may be struggling with is fair game for the media. Since this
is the case it is easy for the media to cause low self-esteem in teenagers if
they do not look a certain way, are not a certain size, not popular, or do not
own as much as others own. The people in media spend millions on tracking down
what seem to be peoples’ insecurities. Once this information is in their hands
they then turn our insecurities around on us to make sales. Esteem is the value
that we place in something, and self-esteem, the value we place in our self.
Esteem is usually measured by how much we think we are desirable to other
people. We look how characteristics that we have measure up against how they
are accepted and help us to be accepted socially, and that is proven why media
causes low self-esteem. All teens want to do is “fit in” so when it comes to
media, teens look to it for advice or guidance but come to find out it’s
impossible to look perfect when looking perfect changes every day ("Procon").
In contrast to these cons, there are benefits as well. I
will list the top and most researched benefits from social media. Online
social networking can help adolescents learn how to socialize in the safety of
various screens, ranging from a two-inch smartphone to a 17-inch laptop (The
Self Esteem Shop). It also creates new relationships and allows
teens to connect or reconnect with friends and family, and increases
communication, although online, it strengthens relationships. It opens
opportunities to explore creative expression in a new medium. Media sites
provide free messaging, blogging, photo storage, games, event invitations, and
many other services to anyone with access to a computer and the Internet ("Procon").
Social media also reduces health risks and promotes stroke recovery, memory
retention, and overall well-being (The Self Esteem Shop).
Social
media also negatively impact teens by promoting negative body image to increase
chance of eating disorders or suicide. An eating disorder is basically a compulsion to eat or avoid eating, which
in either case damages an individual's mental and physical health. Teens are
undeniably influenced by those around them, and by what they see on social
media from television to the internet. Such a behavior affects a person's life
deeply. It affects how they view their personal life, their professional life,
self-image and social outlook. Eating disorders occur with both men and women,
but it's more common in the earlier years of life and occurs in women twice as
much as it occurs in men. The common forms are Anorexia and bulimia. For many,
especially young girls, eating disorders are the result of conforming to peer
pressure or a widely accepted appearance. And this is where media plays it’s
not so healthy part. “The print and electronic media are overflowing with
images of celebrities and models who are unbelievably thin and promote the
concept of ‘health'.” But the fact is that all the celebrities have eating
disorders as well, and this is what the common people look past or just are not
aware of. Even top models admit that media pressure and the hype that
associates beauty with thinness has forced them into having eating disorders.
While pressure from eating disorders is eating away at teens, its killing them
inside by not being able to achieve how they want to look. This leads into deep
depression and causes most cases of suicide in teens today.() also with
cyber bullying comes the risk of innocent teens thinking the world is better
without them which is very untrue, but with social networking it makes it easier
to bully than face-to-face bullying. The have been many cases of suicide due to
media and social media.
Some
might say that the more teens are not corrupted as people may think with all of
the models and idols today admitting to eating disorders there is now
prevention programs in the social media that provide them with the intent to
reach out for help when they need it. They say that they have such programs for
Suicide prevention also. As well as a place to just vent frustration is
provides a place for teens to unite with all the same problems. These chat
rooms and hotlines are not just for prevention they are also for people just
having a really bad day, it allows teens to talk it out and problem solve about
things in a healthy way (Sandler). Facebook, a social networking cite, also has a form where users can report a friend’s
suicidal content for Facebook administrators to review. Signs of withdraws are
signs to watch out for when dealing with teens and depression, usually very
active people tend to have major withdraws from their social life and this is
when the need to be reached out to and provided that extra help that they need
and some social media networks allow you to get very helpful advice all
anonymously (Gerdeman).
As I led you through the comparison
and contrast of social media’s impact on teenagers today, hopefully you can see
that negative affects out way the positive. As you can see when private goes
public in social media it has some extreme results on teens’ emotions and
actions. Social media is getting out of control and lately in recent times has
done nothing but negatively impacted teens’ health by promoting sexual
activity, causing cases of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, and by
promoting negative body image to increase chance of eating disorders and
suicide. More teen’s everyday care more about what they look like more then who
they really are. The media is responsible for what it promotes and it should be
responsible about what it chooses to portray as healthy, because negative
influence on us separates individuals from negatively and causes us to do
strange things, in some cases anything.
