Social Media and Screen Time Addiction In Teens

Teens today in middle school and high school struggle with a problem that most adults may not relate to. Social media has taken over the attention span and thinking process of young teens. According to the Washington Post, fifty percent of teens admit to being addicted to their smartphone. Most young teens tend to spend an upwards of nine hours a day on social media. That is well over one third of their day. This much screen time cannot be good for a young teen’s learning ability. Electronics are a great way to further education but can also be a major distraction especially to young teens in the classroom. Some researches may also argue that the use of technology is hurting the youth more than helping. There may be a simpler fix to this issue than many believe. Here is a list of how social media and screen time affects young teens:

· Shortens attention span.

· Distracts from the lesson being taught.

· Leads to teens reading less.

· Leads to teens becoming antisocial.

· Eye sight damage.

All these outcomes can be devastating for a teen. For a teen to have a shorter attention span means that they will not feel so engaged by what is happening around them. For instance, say a teen is walking in New York City and is too busy looking on social media to notice that there is a uncovered man hole on the sidewalk that has not been roped off yet by the workers and the teen falls down it. This situation could be avoided if the teen would have waited till he/she got home or to wherever they were going before looking on social media.

For a teen to be distracted by the lesson being taught in class may not be as psychically harming it can be mentally harmful in so many ways. If a student is too busy on social media and does not pay attention to the lesson, then the student is likely to get behind. From personal experience and observation, it is safe to say that being distracted during class can lead to a total blank space in the brain when trying to answer questions on a test. After the test is over, if the teen cares about their grades, the teen would be stressed out and worrying about whether he or she got a good grade on the test. When they get the test back they may see that they got the right answers after all or they may be upset at themselves for not paying attention and getting the questions wrong. This seems to play a big role in emotional well being of young teens.

The next issue identified is teens reading less. This may not seem like such a huge issue, but it will be when the teens get into college and must read their textbooks and online articles to help them when they are falling behind. If the teen is not able to read more than a page, then there are going to be major problems to come. In todays society this seems to come across as less important, the whole reading in general thing, because its almost like parents do not stress the importance of reading books or articles anymore. It seems like since everything is switching over to electronics that reading from physical documents is almost completely out of teens lives.

Another major issue is teens becoming more antisocial. Its already tough for young teens to find a group of friends or a clique that they can hang out with and be themselves without being consumed by their phone all the time. Although friendships can be formed through social media these types of friendships may not be the healthiest. One big thing in the early 2000’s was pen pals. Teens would talk to other teens all over the country or world and it was very unlikely for the two pals to physically meet. This can play an emotional role on how teens interact with others. There is a chance it could make them more sociable if they find a friend and connect with them over some shared interest on social media such as cars, gaming videos, or fashion post. The more a teen looks into social media the deeper they can go and the further away from the surface of reality they get. They may miss opportunities to make new friends or have meaningful conversations with others.

Studies show no statistically proven evidence to suggest that near sightedness is caused from too much screen time, but professionals do speculate it. Some proven side effects from too much screen time consist of:

· Sore heavy eyes.

· Headaches

· Nausea

· Dry eyes

Electronics produce high energy light known as blue rays that enter the eyes easily. Too much blue rays can cause pain from dry eyes and headaches from the high intensity of the rays constantly entering the eye. Blue rays are also known for stimulating the brain so teens who spend time on their phones before bed and while in bed, especially in dark rooms, tend to have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep.

On that note lets talk about the simple solution that can help cut down on this serious teen issue. An idea that could help, depending on if the parents want their children to cut down on their screen time, would be a simple app. Its kind of ironic that one solution for cutting down on screen time and social media is another app on the already overused smart phone. This app would have to use a screen lock system that has programmed times in the app that the parent can set. Say a teen is struggling in a class from 9am to 10:30am; the parent can simply put in the time that the class takes place and essentially lock the phone for that hour and a half the child is in class. This would make the phone unusable. Now, what if there is an emergency; the parent’s numbers and whoever else’s they choose to program into the app would always be able to be accessed. It’s essentially an override for if the teen really needs to get in touch with the parents. This app is basically a child lock or parental control, like on a TV, to keep teens from using their phones during class or family times such as dinner.

Overall the use of smartphones and computers to access social media or play games can be a devastating situation for teens. Especially teens who do not have the maturity to put down their devices to pay attention and complete what they need to do when they need to do it. There is nothing worse than getting behind in school work because social media is much more interesting. This concept or situation may not seem like such a big deal to adults who are not in the education field but think about what it is going to be like when these teens who are already addicted to electronics grow up and become the parents in the current situation that many parents find themselves in today; “how do I get my child to interact with what is around them?” This is going to continue to grow and become a bigger issue so as a reader, if you made it this far (short attention span from electronics), how do we as a society get in front of this never-ending issue to maybe dull the effects for teens and future teens to come?

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