Middleton 1

Julia Middleton

Ms. Taylor

English 1106

20 February 2020

Annotated Bibliography Half Draft

Allen, Summer. “Social Media’s Growing Impact on Our Lives”:

Allen, Summer. “Social Media’s Growing Impact on Our Lives”, ​American Psychological
Association. ​2019. ​https://www.apa.org/members/content/social-media-research​.
Accessed 20 February 2020.

This article starts off by explaining that there has been an increase in social media usage
which has caused people to become concerned with how social media affects people’s lives. The
American Psychological Association says that a long-time concern is whether or not social
media affects has an impact on human relationships and decreases the amount of time that people
actually spend with each other in person. The article mentions Jeffrey Hall’s work, which proves
that time spent online does not have a huge effect on the amount of time that people spend with
each other in person. The article then goes on to talk about social media’s impact on teenagers. It
refers to Jean Twenge’s work which found that a group of seniors graduating in 2016 had an
hour less social interaction than seniors in the 1980s. Altogether this study showed that this was
caused by social media use as a whole, but individually face-to-face interaction was increased.
Jean’s study also discovered that teens who were on social media more than they interacted with
others face-to-face were more lonely. The article goes on to say that 81% of teenagers use social
media and numerous times a day. It explains that social media can be positive because it keeps
teens up-to-date with their peers and it can act as a creative outlet for them, but it can be negative
because teens can get cyberbullied and it is a way to post and see “hate content”. The ​Children's
Digital Media Center has found that social media has an impact on teen’s cognitive development
because teen’s use it as a way to display their lives and figure out who they are. In conclusion,
this article explains that there are a lot of questions regarding social media and if it’s impact on
our lives is good or bad.
Key words: ​social interaction, teenagers, development, relationships, social media
Citations: ​ ​2018 Common Sense Media Report
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/social-media-social-life-2018
Part 2 of this article
https://www.apa.org/members/content/social-media-research-series
 Middleton 2

Quotations:
“The study also found that adolescents who spent the most time on social media and the least
time in face-to-face social interactions reported the most loneliness.” -What about teens?
“​Social media benefits teens by expanding their social networks and keeping them in touch with
their peers and far-away friends and family.” -Risk of expanding social networks
Questions:
Are teens the most impacted by both the positives and negatives of social media?
How does social media end up changing the way that teenagers develop cognitively?

Bekalu, Mesfin A. “Social Media Use Can be Positive for Mental Health and Well-being”:
Bekalu, Mesfin A. “Social Media Use Can be Positive for Mental Health and Well-being”,
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 2​ 020.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/social-media-positive-mental-health/​.
Accessed 20 February 2020.

Bekalu starts off his article with questioning how unhealthy and healthy social media use
can be distinguished. He talks about their research that took a group of people and collected data
on how much time these people usually spend on social media and how much they care about
social media. They found that using social media regularly had positive effects and having an
emotional attachment had negative effects on social well-being, mental health and self-rated
health. These findings concluded that regularly using social media does not seem to be an issue
and that it can actually be positive. Bekalu then says that these results can be very surprising to
some people because we are programmed to think that social media use is bad for mental health.
Social media can be vital in maintaining a social network when face-to-face interaction is not
available when life gets too busy. Things such as long distances and bad timing get in the way of
people being able to see each other in person and social media gives people an alternative place
to connect with others. Bekalu does mention that other findings show that social media could be
the culprit of depression and anxiousness and therefore negatively affects mental health. As for is
social media is wholly positive or negative, Bekalu and his co-authors come to the conclusion
that social media’s impact depends greatly on the “​demographic, socioeconomic, and racial
population”. Bekalu concludes that social media may affect people with different ages,
education, and races differently.
 Middleton 3

Siddiqui, Shabnoor, and Tajinder Singh​.​ “Social Media its Impact with Positive and
Negative Aspects”:
Siddiqui, Shabnoor, and Tajinder Singh. “Social Media its Impact with Positive and Negative
Aspects”, ​International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/53391796/social_media_1.pdf?resp
onse-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DSocial_Media_its_Impact_with_P
ositive_an.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIW
OWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200221%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date
=20200221T031512Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Sig
nature=b6d1f1dff8d7495397bd910e4f5bac969579eb282783c04b5666d76a1cc62cf1.​
Accessed 20 February 2020.

This article starts by stating how big of a part social media plays in our lives now.
Siddiqui and Singh then discuss how social media now have both positive and negative impacts
on education, business, society and young people. They say that the positive impacts social
media has on education is that it encourages collaboration, allows teachers to post about the
class, and allows students to communicate their thoughts. They then say that social media has
negative effects on education such as, students not paying attention in class, students not
interacting in person, and students can learn false information from people who post wrong
information online. Siddiqui and Singh then go on to say that social media also have positive
effects on business, such as it being a way for the business to figure out what the consumer
wants, allows the business to promote themselves, and gets businesses out there where people
can see them. But, there are also negatives, such as a possibility of getting hacked, business
pages need to be continuously updated, and people can express their negative opinions freely on
the business’s account. They then talk about social media’s positive effects on society, including
how it is a way for people to meet new people, is a place people can express their thoughts, and
is a way that people can keep updated with current events. The negative effects of social media
on society is that people can become addicted to it, it can invade the privacy of the users, and it
can affect children’s behavior in a negative way. Finally, they say that social media positively
impacts young people because it is a way for them to stay up to date with each other, they can
find people who support them that they wouldn’t normally have, and they can get advice and
information. But, social media also negatively impacts young people because it can be hard to
identify “strangers” and it can be detrimental to their safety. In conclusion, there are many ways
that social media can positively and negatively affect people’s lives.