TED ATAKENT ESENYURT COLLEGE / 8-A
The
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How Social Media Changed Teen Voices
Defne ÇEŞMECİ ‣
Over the past decade, social media has had a major impact on how teens express their thoughts, feelings and personalities both online and in real life.
In our present day, with the help of thousands of applications such as TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest and many more, teens find it easier to feel like they belong to a community. Being able to speak up and express opinions anonymously helps teens feel seen and understood by their peers.
Another thing is having the luxury of meeting other teenagers with the same interests as you, which makes it so much easier to make friends and not feel alone. As much as there are pros, there are an equal number of cons to social media. Since saying your opinion is so easy, when teens post something on the internet, they feel the pressure to look perfect, they feel a fear of judgement because bullying is so normalized on social media platforms. When teens want to post themselves or their interests, unintentionally they start thinking“ What if people think I’ m weird?” or“ Will I get hate or any judgement if I post this?” because teens care about other teens’ opinions about them and they also start comparing themselves to other teens even though it is so easy to fake things with the use of advanced technology and AI these days. So, teens start doubting themselves. They start not wanting to express themselves in real life too because they are afraid of the same thing happening in real life too, even if that won’ t actually be the case.
Overall, social media has transformed teen self-expression, for better and for worse. This change continues to shape teen identities today and will continue to do so in the future.