Mahjoub 1

Ryan Mahjoub
Professor Adam Padgett
ENGL: 1102
3-31-2014
Social media Vs. Youth
What has social media done to you? Social media has cause more changes than
many think. Social media offers a distraction from life and giving you an outlet to
express yourself in a different way, also allowing you to see the way others wish to
portray themselves. Youth primarily is affected by its glamour and appeal. Social media
has been seen to affect the way young adults learn, interact with one another, and the way
they feel about one another and yourself.
Technology has changed the way young people learn. In the past, students would
read books to gather information, however today you see students reading content off of
their iPads and Kkindle. They are able to gather information off of ebBooks and apps,
which offer social reading options, such as note sharing, social highlighting, real-time
book discussions, ratings, tags, and links to Facebook and Twitter. People are able to
communicate instantly with one another on a broader view. Social media incorporates
numerous diverse views on topics. Social media is also considered a source of knowledge
today. Young people give feedback on relevant new topics in the media offering
information to the public through social media highlighting, real-time book discussions,
ratings, tags, and links to Facebook and Twitter. With this new technology it bring a new
social way of learning, where you are able to use other people to gather information,
Ninety percent of school-aged youth now use the Internet regularly, with over 75% of
Comment [AP1]: This is an odd question,
Im not sure what you mean by it.
Comment [AP2]: What glamor?
Comment [AP3]: This is a very passive
sentence. Seen by who? Be more specific
and active than this.
Comment [AP4]: What are social reading
options? seems like an odd phrase.
Comment [AP5]: Youre getting a little
redundant here. Get to the point sooner.
Mahjoub 2
adolescents aged 12 to 17 using social media. I can see social media as a way to gain
information due to the overwhelming amount of people whom use it. There are
connections between high school student and college-aged youth using social media, and
to cognitive, psychological, and social factors of adolescent development that
educational researchers, educators, parents, and administrators presumably care about,
such as learners development of self-identity, self-confidence, reading, writing, civic
engagement, and social capital. It has been seen to sometimes hinder adolescent social
behavior and develop learning disorders. I feel that social media can affect peoples self-
confidence, the psychological disposition, and the way they socialize. Due to their
overwhelming use of social media I feel it could change the way young people grow up.
Social media develops the mindset of how the youth view what is cool and what
is lame. Social media broadcasts their views of how people should look and what they
should do if they want to be popular by offering celebrities as role models for them to
follow. Often times social media displays celebritys scandals and put them in the spot
light. Giving the idea to the youth that they have to fit the social norm. Social media
portrays sexting as cool. I think that with the availability media gives young people to
send naked pictures of themselves to others, is an instigator for pictures to be sent.
Studies show there have been correlations between young people whom have been seen
with more sexual photo on social media, or ones whom have sent nude photos of
themselves, to have a high rate of teen pregnancy. There seems to be a correlation
between how sexual someone is and he attention they receive. I believe there is a
correlation between what pictures girls post on their social media cite and how/what
attention they receive. In my own experiences people whom posted photos of themselves
Comment [AP6]: Where is your in-text
citation?
Comment [AP7]: How so? Can you be
more specific? Im not sure how social
media promotes sexting. I mean to say that
Im sure that it does, in some ways, but I
need you to explain in what context you see
this happening (while avoiding the gory
details).
Comment [AP8]: Syntax here seems off.
Comment [AP9]: Okay, so what social
media sites?
Comment [AP10]: Okay, so are you just
conjecturing here?
Mahjoub 3
with their bodies hardly covered, by what they call clothing, they are more likely get
more likes on that photo or more comment than if they were fully clothed. With more
attention it pushes girls to be more sexually active due to pressure by others.
In order to study virtual communities, it is important to examine this cultural and
social phenomenon in the context of American history. Social media allow for virtual
communication, creating a world, which only exists on the web. The Internet allows for a
safe place for young people to communicate. Offing a change for people to be themselves
without the pressure of pleasing others. There are webpages, which allow for people to
communicate anonymously about topics. People in North and South Korea bonded over a
blogging website where they are able to share their life stories with one another and are
able to build intimate relationships together through the though times each of them have
been through with growing up through a war or being homeless. Many other examples of
this can be seen in various social media. Social media allows for people to communicate
and relate to one another and allows them to learn from others success and also their
failures. When people going through the same troubles as me, share stories of their lives
and all the hardships they endured and strived through, it gives me hope for the future
and helps me see the light at the end of the tunnel. I use their story as my strength in the
future to push through to the end of the longest tunnel. These social media pages give
support to the youth whom go through the same troubles.
The type of social media, which that you are exposed to, makes the most
difference on the effect it has on the person. Barbara Wilson concluded that the content of
the media with which the children would be exposed to would have more influence over
their action than just the sheer amount of time they spend in from the screen. I disagree
Comment [AP11]: How? And why? Im
confused here.
Comment [AP12]: Im having trouble
identifying the point/purpose of this
paragraph as it relates to your thesis.
Mahjoub 4
that with everything there is a point of time to invest in something, and with everything,
too much is a bad thing. Wilson begins by reviewing evidence on the link between
media and childrens emotions. Children can learn about the nature and cause of different
emotions from watching the emotional experiences of media characters and those they
often experience empathy with those characters. As a child you are more likely to pick up
information of what you are exposed to. It matters what you are exposed to the most
however the amount you are exposed to can cause a greater effect on youth. Children
pick up on what they see around them, what they see on social media creates a mold for
childrens thoughts. It is hard for children to distinguish what to think and not to think at
early ages, and they just go with whats going on around them. If bad habits repeatedly
keep happening around them will have a more likely chance of sticking with them than
that of something, which happened once. When looking at comments of people bulling
people for one reason or another on social media it is hard for them to think for
themselves and not just follow what everyone else is doing. Even as young adults you see
students in middle school picking on someone over social for a reason or another. It could
be for that person being over weight, or too skinny, or the fact that they are pale.
Teens spend up to half their waking hours on some form of social media. Bring up
the idea that social media has a negative effect on youth while studding, creating a
distraction, Experimental studies confirm that young people who do school work with
either a television or music in the background tend to perform more poorly than students
who do not. I agree that students who try and multi-task with media while trying to
study often do worse than those who do not. When writing a paper with my phone out
checking Facebook or with music playing in the background I notice that I forget to insert
Comment [AP13]: Im not sure what you
mean by this.
Mahjoub 5
words into sentences and misspell more words than if I was just writing a paper and
nothing else. I also makes a connection with Adolescents who are heavy consumers of
mass media forms targeted to young audiences are more likely to report that they engage
in risky behaviors, that is, activities that are linked to outcomes such as teen pregnancy,
juvenile delinquency, and early school withdrawal. I see how they could make this
connection, normally student with bad grades tend to fall within the terms of engaging in
risky behavior more than those of people I know with good grades.
Over using social media can result in a negative affect on youth grades. Often
times people who spend too much time on social media tend to have lower grades in
their classes, and are more socially aware of their surrounding. They seem to care more
about what is going on around them then they do about why or how. Over using social
media has caused the attention spans of many teens to go down. Social media has a
control on the teen population, in that it seems that they have to always cheek social
media whenever they do something. Social media is taking away from peoples days and
replacing once family time with Facebook and twitter. Social media seemed to must be
checked everyday. Many teen state, I could not go a week without my phone, or forms
of social media. We are the generation of people who are plugged in. It is hard for us to
not be reliant of the use of technology, and social media. It seems that there are more
positives to not participating in social media than there is in participating in it. It would
be a good idea for all of youth to take some time away from social media and reflect on
the hold it has on them.

Mahjoub 6
Ryan,
You discussion here is wide and certainly takes a particular point of view on social
media: one that is largely negative. Though, upon reading the respective paragraphs, you
seem to be stitching together vaguely related, but ultimately disparate, discussions on
social media. You dont seem to be supporting one singular central thesis, and Im not
sure what your ultimate goal is here. Also, the syntax on several sentences seem to be off,
and I think this largely has to do with a lack of proof reading.

Work Cited
Greenhow, C. "Youth, Learning, and Social Media." Journal of Educational Computing
Research. 45.2 (2011): 139-146. Print.
Hasinoff, A.A. "Sexting As Media Production: Rethinking Social Media and Sexuality."
New Media and Society. 15.4 (2013): 449-465. Print.
Mastronardi, Maria. "Adolescence and Media." Journal of Language and Social
Psychology. 22.1 (2003): 83-93. Print.
"Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Altruism." The Future of Children. 18.1
(2008): 87-118. Print.
Sooryamoorthy, Radhamany. "Communication, Youth, Social Change and." International
Sociology. 26.5 (2011): 604-612. Print.



Mahjoub 7