Adolescents: A Decade Of Research

In today’s society, social media has started to consume the teenage population. Each year the number of people on social media increases, because of the advancements in technology and the variety of websites to use. Not only has the percentage of teens becoming involved with social media increased, but the extent of time at which they are online is increasing. The first social media website began in 1997 called Six Degrees, which was generally a instant messaging and blogging site. It began expanding along with technology and by the early 2000’s social media included websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, this trend is relevant because teenagers are beginning to conform to society and fall into obedience people are risking all having the same opinions. In their article, “Social Consequences of the Internet for Adolescents: A Decade of Research”, University of

Also, the Pew Research Center, which conducts demographic research polls, reveals statistics of Internet usage and their graphs exemplify the rising number of adolescents using social media in “Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015”. Within today’s society teenagers are beginning to be consumed by the idea of social media, and due to obedience they are conforming to this online community. This excessive use of online social networking seemingly emerging results of spiked anxiety and a lack of social skills within society’s youth. First, social media is beginning to rapidly consume the population, whereas in the early 2000’s the percentage of users was less than half of the population, however now the percentage is nearing 100 percent. The explicit number of teenagers using social media sites has dramatically increased since 2005 according to the Pew Research Center in their article “Social Media Usage: 2005-2015”, “Today, 90% of young adults use social media, compared with 12% in 2005, a 78-percentage point increase”. The rising sum of Internet usage can be traced