The Impacts of Social Media on Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence is the transitional phase between childhood and adulthood; a period of some significant changes in physical, mental, emotional, and social behavior acting as basis to develop their self-concept and self-esteem. This paper reviewed relevant literature; aimed to
1) represents the current overall situation of adolescents’ social media usage based on survey result by Ministry of Digital Economy and Society
2) studies the positive and negative impacts of social media on the adolescents. The research findings are 1) the current overall situation of adolescents’ social media usage tends to gradually increase, spending time up to 12 hours on weekends. 2) the positive impact of the social media is that it facilitates and encourages the adolescents to represent their self identities, to build and maintain their interpersonal relationship, to connect with others networking, and to fulfill their needs of information and entertainment. However, due to the long period of time the adolescents spent on social media, reportedly could be up to half the day, the adolescents are at risk of its negative impact as following; impact to their brain, health, mental health. Moreover, the society was affected by the social media. These findings could lead to some suggestions beneficial to parties involved as follows; adolescents, families, schools, and social media content creators; to be aware of the positive and negative impacts of social media and coordinately seek for the solutions to encourage the adolescents to wisely use social media.