Proposal concepts and frameworks

¶ … Social Networks on Teenagers

The use of social networking websites has become a common phenomenon among the teenagers. In the society we currently live in, the use of social networks by teenagers is common and even among the teenagers in my society, this case is true. Over 93% of teenagers in the U.S. have a Facebook account with over 50% of them being on other social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and YouTube. A recent poll conducted in the U.S. shows that 22% of teenagers log in to their favorite social networks more than 10 times daily. "While there is no single person that can deny that Facebook has greatly altered social interactions, the study found that 50% of respondents log in at least once per day" Common Sense Media 6.

In addition to this, 75% of teenagers own cell phones with 25% using them for social networking Hinduja and Patchin 101()

and they state that "Facebook has become a large part of teenager's lives." These statistics together with common observations of teenagers talking about their activity or their friends' activities on social networks show that social networking has become a popular phenomenon among the teenagers. A large part of the teenager's social, psychological and emotional development take place on these social networks which creates societal problems related to the lack of self-regulation and peer pressure that comes from their use of these social networks. As a result of the use of these social networks being a personal issue, it can be best targeted by parents who will be required to teach their teenagers about how to behave appropriately in social networks and how they can use these for positive influences rather than the negative influences that they contain.

The common point-of-view is more focused on the negative impact of social networking than on its advantages. O'Keeffe and Clarke-Pearson (800)

argue that this is as a result of social networking influencing teenagers and adolescents more negatively and the positive effects that it brings. They state that "daily overuse of social media has negative impact on health, and physical growth of teens and preteens." Recent research also shows that teenagers are fond of expressing negative offline behaviors in the online social networks. These include the formation of cliques, sexual experimentation, peer pressure and bullying. In addition to this, there are other new behaviors that are introduced as a result of their use of social networks such as privacy issues, internet addiction, and "sexting." These teenagers feel comfortable in these social networks and thus are easily drawn to these behaviors and have difficulty in withdrawing when they are needed to. However, there are many advantages of their use of social networks which have raised concern on their importance and the need of changing the mind-set of teenagers regarding these social networks. Valentine and Holloway (303)