A Student's Perspective on the Dangers of Social Media

Matthew  

Laura Chiaravalloti
Remington Middle School        
628 Washington St
Franklin, MA 02038

February 12, 2015

RMS Community
Remington Middle School       
628 Washington St
Franklin, MA 02038

Dear RMS Community:

My name is Matthew and I am a sixth grader at Remington Middle School in Franklin, MA. I am writing this letter because I’d like to let people know about the dangers and risks that come with social media.

Lately, there's just been more and more social media platforms. With all these new social media platforms, there’s so many new ways to communicate. Unfortunately, social media is actually hurting people more than its helping. One reason for this is that social media can be a great place for bullies to “hideout”.  A second reason would be that some people are using it at unhealthy rates. On the other hand, it is possible to meet a lot of new people, but, the risk is much higher than real-life. In conclusion, social media is indeed doing more damage than it’s thought to.

One way social media is hurting teens is that, being behind a screen makes it easier to bully another person. For instance, studies show that “58% of kids say that they’ve been bullied online, and 53% of kids say that they’ve been bullied online” (pg.3 Is Facebook Making You Mean?) This means that 53 out of 100 kids have been bullied online, that’s a huge problem. A second way social media encourages bullying is that over the internet, kids can talk about whoever you want, to whoever you want. For example, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook etc. all have a direct message option. This option allows you to send a message, picture, hyperlink etc. to whoever you wish. Now, “approximately 300,000 direct messages were sent last year. An estimated 35% of these direct messages are in somehow related to bullying” (www.stopcyberbullying.org), whether it be rumors, embarrassing secrets, or even name-calling. By using social media, some kids are bullying other kids behind their back.  

A second way social media is hurting teens is because it’s making them put the internet on a higher scale than reality. For example, kids are texting a lot more than they should be. The average teenager sends about 3,339 texts a month! (mashable.com) Some students even have unlimited service, this means that they have unlimited access to social media, texting etc.  and if the student can access it whenever they want, then it’s most likely going to lead to overuse. This evidence shows how teens are texting more than they should be instead of studying, or even just playing outside.   

 Secondly, is some teens are using social media and even just the internet at an unhealthy rate. Another way kids are social media is hurting teens is that some teens are using it too much. For example average teen uses his/her phone 60 times a day. For instance, there has been more combined screen-time on our devices than the total time that humans have existed! This evidence proves how kids are using their devices so much that the combined usage is longer than humans have existed, jeez, unhealthy much? The last and final reason that supports that kids are putting the internet on a higher scale than reality is Google. Guess how many times us humans have used Google last year. You probably guessed like 1 Billion times right?  No, not even close, last year Google was used more than 1 Trillion times! This shows how often Google is used. If you do the math, that equals 2,739,726,028 times a day! That just pure outrageous. All in all, with the web constantly growing, pretty soon people are going to be relying on the internet!

On the other hand, you can meet a lot of new people online but still has the risk of dangers. For example, a major danger of being online is that “hackers” could access your personal information. Some evidence to support this is that “an estimated 300,000 people in the U.S. had their credit card information stolen in 2014”(www.lifelock.com). All in all, meeting people online can is somewhat equally  as risky as meeting someone in real life.

In conclusion, social media platforms are actually hurting us. One reason is that bullying is happening a lot online and is affecting a lot of teens, even going as far as leading to suicide. The second is overuse, this is actually this is not good. Take overfishing for example, it’s not good for the ocean, just like overuse is not good for you. Sure you can meet new people, but that doesn’t mean they’re friendly quite frankly it’s the opposite. The message in this piece of writing is is that life doesn’t revolve around the internet. Teens can do other things! I hope that some teenagers will keep these things in mind, because if not then they may end up relying on the internet for communication.

Sincerely,
Matthew