Impact of Technologies on Teenagers Essay Example

In the past few years, technology’s impact on society has grown drastically, and although there are quite a few pros, the cons may outweigh them. Teenagers are especially vulnerable to the downsides of technology and its sub category, social media. The pressure to be online all the time is a challenge for today’s teens and has led to an increase in mental and physical health issues. In the last decade, the number of young people with mental illnesses, like depression and anxiety, has risen and that may be linked to social media. Around 30% of teen girls suffer from anxiety and an even larger amount have been cyberbullied. Teens are also addicted to their cellphones and are losing sleep and trust to them.   

Depression is one of the biggest issues teenagers suffer from that can be linked to their time spent online. An official cause and effect relation between the rise in depression and social media has not yet been discovered. However, it can be blamed for a deepening of the symptoms. These include less social activity and more loneliness. Furthermore, one study uncovered people who use multiple social media applications are more likely to develop depression. Individuals who use over seven social media apps have a concerningly higher risk of the mental illness. Additionally, an overuse of technology and social media can be associated with lower self-esteem, on top of depression. To summarize, too much time online can lead to depression, especially in people with developing brains.    

Like depression, anxiety can also be linked to an overuse of technology. People have become attached to their social media profiles and now feel a pressure to respond quickly. They also experience a need to be perfect. In one video, a mother reported her teenage daughter always tries to be perfect. All of these pressures added up can cause heaps of anxiety. Additionally, keeping up with the unspoken rules and ever changing trends of each social media app can require effort and sometimes results in stress. Moreover, many teenagers are terrified of what others may think of them and this fear can lead to anxiety, as well as caving to peer pressure. Another fear linked to social media and teenagers is the fear of missing out, also known as FOMO. A multitude of teenagers, and people in general, have stated they would delete social media if they didn’t have anxiety linked to being left out. All of this shows the connection between social media, anxiety and today’s younger population.

In addition to trends and missing out, today’s teens also have to worry about sleep because of technology. A multitude of teenagers are sleep deprived due to social media. They spend so much time online they lose sleep and this sometimes leads to moodiness and a worsening of their existing problems. Further, during an experiment one in five teens said they regularly wake up during the night to check their phone. This issue might be a result of FOMO and it is causing them to be more tired, less happy and is adding to phantom vibration syndrome. Additionally, losing sleep can be harmful to a teen’s physical health. Sleep deprivation can weaken one’s immune system and make it more likely for a person to fall ill. Those are some of the ways sleep deprivation is attached to social media and how it is impacting a ton of teenagers’ mental and physical health.

Another issue caused by social media, which is impacting teens’ mental and physical health is envy. Jealousy and envy can cause a teenager’s mind to go crazy and social media is full of things to be jealous of. People tend to only post the positives in their lives and this makes others reflect on their own. A lot of teenagers don’t realize they are only seeing a side of a person’s life online and it makes them miserable and angry. In addition, teenagers comparing themselves to others through technology can lead to bullying and depression. Furthermore, the never ending comparison game can be linked to an increase in suicide. People see a multitude of great things on social media and they wonder why their lives aren’t like the ones they are seeing. This comparison and jealousy leads to depression. That is how jealousy caused by social media is impacting teenagers.

Communication issues are also being caused by social media and technology. Many teenagers believe that likes can replace physical human interactions. They are also forgetting to live in the moment because they are too attached to their cellphones. Moreover, communicating online is very different than in person. It can lead to a large number of misunderstandings. People cannot see one another’s facial expressions or hear each other’s tone of voice online. In addition to this, lots of teens overuse social media to the point they forget to interact with people in real life. This hurts their relationships. Teens are spending so much time online looking at other peoples’ lives they are forgetting how to live their own. Briefly, people are so addicted to technology they are losing their ability to communicate. 

In conclusion, technology’s impact on society has increased significantly in the last decade, but even though it has impacted many peoples’ lives positively it has caused a great deal of damage. Teenagers have become more prone to depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, envy and communication issues. I believe that people, especially teenagers, need to limit the amount of time they spend online daily if they want to fix these issues technology has promoted. Further, I think that if people don’t fix their issues related to technology now, they will only continue to worsen. To fix the problems, I think that everyone should slowly decrease the amount of time they spend online everyday. Maybe they can take an hour away from their screen time each day until they are down to one. My final thoughts on this issue are that people need to change their habits related to social media now and that individuals shouldn’t be spending more than two hours on social media per day. I predict that if people refuse to change now the number of young people with mental and physical health issues will continue to rise.