Seventeen year-old Becca Taylor, who spent her work experience
week with us, gives a personal perspective of social networking,
and how it affects her world.
The use of social media by teens has increased rapidly throughout the last 6 years. But why is social media the new hot topic?
Which Social Media sites?
For me, Facebook is the main site I tend to use, as well as my friends.
I think different social media sites are aimed at different age groups; Bebo aiming at a younger audience, as Bebo is a lot easier to use, while Twitter and Facebook are aimed at an older audience as the layout is much more sophisticated.
YouTube has a very high percentage of users, this website is well known around the world, it is easy to use and you can watch pretty much anything you want to.
I don’t really tend to use YouTube a lot, it isn’t something I’m interested in, I think a person’s personality influences the amount of time spent on YouTube as some people don’t enjoy watching pointless video clips.
Getting connected
Undoubtedly the use of mobile phones and computers is essential to today’s teenager, for me, the use of my mobile phone is important, teenagers want to socialise every day and having a mobile phone allows you to do this, whether you’re on the internet or simply just text messaging.
Really the use of text messaging is no longer needed, unless the person you’re contacting isn’t online.
These social sites are free to communicate; therefore it makes more sense to use these websites instead of spending money on credit to text or call.
Not only is it cheaper, but you know your friend is available to talk to if they are online, whereas with a mobile phone, you don’t, their phone could be switched off, have no signal or not with them.
Without communication each day with the people I enjoy talking to, would for me, be a big deal, and I’m sure most teenagers would agree.
People who don’t have Facebook may feel left out and excluded, for young teens, Facebook is a big conversation starter. But are people who haven’t got Facebook more secure than people who have? Is Facebook just a way of making people feel involved?
Ads and celebs
There is a lot of advertisement used on these social websites, for example on twitter, there are banners, encouraging people to ‘stalk’ celebrities.
However Facebook is more self-involved, there is only a small amount of advertising on each page, mainly advertising games for your own entertainment or promoting the use of Facebook on mobile phones. These adverts are shown on the right side of your profile, out of the way from your own information.
As a teenager myself, I believe this is a disadvantage for the companies that are being advertised, as people don’t pay much attention to them, they are small and insignificant.
Bebo, a page aimed at a younger age group, has a strange variety of adverts, such as ‘Capital One credit cards’ and ‘ cheap breakdown cover’, obviously this advert is not aimed at a young audience so children using the Bebo site will pay no attention.
MySpace is again, very involved in celebrities, most actors, actress’s, bands, solo artists and authors have their own MySpace page.
Before logging on to your MySpace this is obvious as there are a lot of banners and boxes advertising celebrity pages. I believe that these are noticed as they are large, bold and striking – this catches the viewer’s eye and encourages them to read the advertisement.
For these websites to advertise celebrities so much isn’t necessarily good, some people don’t enjoy hearing about celebrities, they don’t want to hear what colour their hair is that day, what they are shopping for or what time they sat down for dinner last night.
I believe this is why people prefer Facebook. Facebook lets you choose if you want to read about celebrities, you don’t get pointless celebrity trash shoved in your face.
Are social networks taking over?
In recent times there has been a small movement against the excessive use of social networks. Has social networking replaced traditional media? Do people log on to their Facebook page instead of flicking through channels on their TV? I really believe this is true, although Facebook advertises television programmes, people still tend to spend their time chatting to friends on the internet.
For me, I believe this is a disadvantage, the useful information shown on television, or in magazines, or in books are no longer noticed by teens, therefore they are jeopardising the opportunity to develop their intelligence and acquire knowledge.
Fears, parents and schools
People are starting to question how right it is to share intimate and private events with such a large number of individuals, many of them strangers.
Cyber bulling has also become a big issue; it can cause depression, self-harm and even suicide, this could be because of offensive websites made about an innocent person, mean comments passed on to an innocent person, posing as someone else or even posting insulting or threatening things on the web.
However, all this can be stopped, there is a lot of help and support to prevent cyber bulling but I believe that social media websites should be a lot more aware of cyber bullying, as they themselves don’t seem to do much to prevent it.
Some parents are worried about their child on the internet, so some have created their own profiles to check up on their children whenever they feel worried. But is this okay? Do children want their parents looking into their business? Do the parents want their children looking in to their business? I know I wouldn’t.
Schools also tend to have a problem with social networks, as they believe it distracts students from doing their work, but some schools believe that it enhances the education of students. As many student use their web pages to discuss work. For example, they could be finding out about missed work, finding out homework information or simply just discussing facts.
Global, local
Social networking is everywhere, but the popularity of sites varies from country to country. It is a global phenomenon and you can connect globally.
But surprisingly teens don’t. This may be because it is seen as dangerous to talk to people you don’t know. Most people from a young age are told not to talk to stranger.
The next big thing
Overall, it is obvious that social networking is becoming more and more popular, whether you like it or you don’t. I believe that the use of social websites could be educating depending on how you use it.
Advertisement on pages is obviously effective but I do think they should be relevant for each site.
I also believe that the use of these websites varies because of the different personalities teens have.
Social networking is fun and entertaining, not only that, it helps you to organise and share your interests.
From my perspective, it looks like social networking is the next big thing.
By Becca Taylor, July 2010
(c) Techdept 2010
