NextGen Day

Concerned parents, therapists, researchers, and lawmakers have been raising alarm about the effects of social media on young females for years. But what are girls’ own opinions on social media? It’s overwhelmingly positive.

According to a study released today by the Bay Area-based group Common Sense Media, more than 80% of adolescent females responded that social media has a positive or neutral impact on themselves and their peers.

The majority claimed that it gives them opportunities to make new friends, develop a sense of belonging, and be exposed to encouraging messages about sexual orientation and race. They can also use it to obtain information and resources on mental health.

Supreet Mann, director of research at Common Sense Media, which assesses the efficacy of educational technology, said: “From a policy standpoint, it’s really encouraging.” “Although some social media features can have harmful effects, there are also many good results. It’s not always a terrible thing.

1,400 girls between the ages of 11 and 15 who use social media were polled by researchers on their usage patterns and opinions of various features and platforms. The females represented a variety of sexual orientations, socioeconomic classes, and races.

The majority of respondents claimed to enjoy social media generally, however, there were notable variations among platforms and features. Compared to TikTok and Instagram, for instance, YouTube and messaging apps like WhatsApp had significantly greater favorable effects. Also, while elements like appearance filters and location sharing had adverse effects, video sharing, and private chat were largely positive or neutral.

Senior Siurave Quintanilla Vasquez attends Oakland’s Fremont High School.

Siurave Quintanilla Vasquez, a senior at Fremont High in Oakland, claimed that she once suffered from social media, spending excessive time scrolling and even developed an eating disorder as a result of the countless images of “ideal” ladies who were skinny, beautiful, and typically white.

“None of those things describe me. I had acne, I was overweight, and I’m not white. My mental health suffered as a result. I started strict dieting,” she remarked. It was undoubtedly unhealthy.

But she also discovered an eating problem helpline on social media, which assisted her in forming better eating routines. She also came across a ton of messages that emphasized having a positive identity and body image, which she attributes to raising her self-esteem.

She no longer spends more than 10 minutes each day on social media, and she is cautious about the links she clicks. She claimed that as a result, her algorithms deliver a steady stream of encouraging signals. At UCLA, where she will enroll as a student this fall, she has also used it to meet friends and roommates.

Not everything you see on social media is authentic or beneficial, I advise other females, she stated. But, you are in charge of what you see.

In the Common Sense Media poll, not all girls had favorable opinions of social media. Although the results were varied, some people who were already dealing with depression or anxiety claimed that social media occasionally made them feel worse about themselves. Several females, both those with and without depression, claimed that giving up social media wouldn’t change anything and might even have negative effects in the long run.

Several females claimed to spend more time on social media than they would like, with over half claiming to be TikTok addicts. Girls claimed that they scrolled through TikTok for more than 2.5 hours each day on average, but spent less time on other sites.

One reason why many girls claimed they dislike location-sharing features, according to Mann, maybe that a majority of them indicated they’d been contacted by strangers on Instagram and Snapchat. Also, they held a poor opinion of public accounts, where users submit comments or photographs that are accessible to everyone.

With the pandemic, there is an increased emphasis on youth mental health, which coincides with the Common Sense Media results. Young people’s rates of sadness and anxiety have been rising, and research frequently attributes some of this to social media. According to a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research from February, 16% of teenage girls reported being bullied on social media, and nearly 3 out of 5 adolescent girls said they felt hopeless and depressed all the time in 2021, which is twice the average for males.

In response, lawmakers have introduced a plethora of laws intended to hold social media firms liable for their effects on young people’s mental health. State Senator Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, last week presented Senate Bill 287, which would target the algorithms and other aspects that cause social media addiction among young people and impose fines of up to $250,000 per infraction.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 587 last year, which obliges social media firms to publish their rules on hate speech, misinformation, harassment, and extremism on their platforms and to provide information about how they implement these policies.

Throughout the board, the U.S. The bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, which would address advertising directed at children and take other measures to safeguard children on social media, was the subject of Senate hearings in February.

The American Psychological Association’s chief science officer, Mitch Prinstein, issued ominous warnings about the negative impacts of social media on young people’s brain development and mental health at those hearings. He specifically mentioned how it could make loneliness worse, promote a negative body image, cause “digital stress,” and encourage addiction.

But, he also touched on some advantageous effects, particularly for young people who experience marginalization as a result of their color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Maybe most importantly, psychological studies indicate that young people create and keep friendships online, according to Prinstein. These intimate, meaningful interactions give young people vital assistance during stressful times since they frequently give them the opportunity to interact with a more diversified peer group than they would have access to offline.

Senior at Long Beach Polytechnic High School Onome Ituah has been using social media since she was a child and has mastered its use. She limits who she follows and puts her phone down when she’s had enough.

but surrender? Never. She relies on social media heavily to stay in touch with loved ones both near and distant and to express her creativity.

It’s up to you, she declared. Curbing it is not a good idea because it restricts access for children. It’s the way we speak. It is how we receive news. We express ourselves through it.

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