Social Networking and Adolescents: Issues and Concerns

Participation with technology for social purposes has become the mainstream communication method for many people in the past several years. In particular adolescents in schools have adopted these forms of communication as the paramount way to keep in touch with family and friends. Social networking is a current phenomenon that consists of both web-based communication with Internet users through websites (Face book, MySpace, YouTube) and interaction with others via cellular phones. Social Networking websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are the most popular places for these students to spend their time. These young people are the most prolific users of social network sites (SNS). Emerging studies find that youth spend a considerable portion of their daily life interacting through social networking. The rise of the internet age has enabled us to live a life at a faster pace. Because of the freedom the web provides, millions of people can communicate at the same time. Never before in human history, has there been a time like this. What’s most intriguing about this revolution is that children and teens are leading the way. And because of their limited capacity for self-regulation and susceptibility to peer pressure, children and adolescents are at some risk as they navigate and experiment with social networking. Present paper conceptualizes that there are frequent online expressions of offline behaviors, such as bullying, clique-forming, and sexual experimentation, that have introduced problems such as cyber bullying, privacy issues, and “sexting.” Other problems that merit awareness include Internet addiction and concurrent sleep deprivation.