Whether you’re out in public, sitting on your couch, or surrounded by a group of your friends, you are constantly on your phone. Regardless of what’s happening around you, your phone always has to be in your hand. Smart phones, texting, and social media have brainwashed teenagers today into thinking that they cannot live without their cell phones. Unfortunately, cell phone use has a stronger communication between teenagers than actually talking to the person face to face. Typically a teenager is actually too scared to confront someone unless it is behind a cell phone.
It’s a scary thought that a teenager, including myself sometimes, actually feels confident enough to pick up their cell phone while driving, place it in their "texting hand," and continue to risk sending a message while not paying attention to the road. Potentially putting yourself at risk and everyone else on the road, texting while driving is much too common of a thing. Every time you’re on the road, you’ll pass someone with their phone clearly in their hand, sending a message that most certainly can wait. That tweet that you’re dying to send can wait, the text message that supposedly “has to be sent right now” can wait, and changing your music can wait until you’re at a stop. Nothing on a cell phone is as important as your own life and the others on the road.
Whether or not we want to admit it, our minds are constantly thinking about what’s going on inside those apps we have. Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Yik Yak, you name it. With constant notifications popping up on one's screen and constant "likes" popping up, we are always dying to check out who liked what. It’s strange to believe that we live in a world where going an hour without your phone feels like a lifetime. And knowing that you have a text message and not being able to answer it right away is one of the most annoying feelings ever. It seems to be a constant pressure to be on these applications 24/7 to keep up with everyone around you. Making sure you know what was happening at 8:00 p.m., making sure you are caught up with the drama, and making sure you didn’t miss anything for the next day of school where everyone is going to be talking about it.
Exhausted with eyes struggling to stay open at 11 p.m., a teenager is bound to stay awake, browsing every social media site until they physically cannot keep their eyes open. Regardless of how tired they are, they make sure to stay awake until the news feeds are "dead." It isn’t until midnight when a teenager realizes they have class in the morning and proceed to wake up too exhausted to even function. Social media effects a teenager's school work and relationships due to lack of sleep and energy.
The social media applications also affect a teenager because of body image issues. The media is always posting articles based on body image and how to maintain the "perfect" body. With models always having to be a size two and the media posting photo-shopped pictures to make models look flawless, the pressure to be perfect is most certainly on. While the "perfect" body is made out to be a size two, the "plus-sized" model is said to be a size eight. Now, that gets teenagers minds racing at the fact that they need to hit the gym to get any size they can below a size eight. On most social media sites, pictures of girls' role models will be posted with flawless skin, a toned stomach, and curves that every girl dreams of. Realistically, these role models don’t look like this and are putting a negative impression inside teenagers brains. Recently, American Eagle promoted a male body image campaign, with men of all sizes modeling their underwear. This promoted the fact that men can also be deeply insecure about themselves. We need to stop targeting just the women and notice men too.
Overall, social media and texting is taking over the lives of us teenagers, and whether we want to admit it or not, we're letting it. The world would probably be in a lot better shape if social media did not exist and communication was a lot stronger. But unfortunately, our hands are glued to our phones and our eyes are glued to the apps.
