It’s difficult to argue with the facts. Online friendships are on the rise in teens. Social media and texting being the two main causes. In a world where the accent is put more and more on staying connected, a lot of naysayers are commenting against the power of the internet. This new report comes to prove them wrong.
You use Facebook to express yourself. You use Twitter to send minute messages to the world. You use Instagram to show the world that you have killer photo instincts. And filters. Lots of filters. And you use Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Wechat, Snapchat, as well as classic texts to communicate directly with one or more friends.
The above paragraph has become a reality. Give it to a man of the last century and he might give you an awkward blank face and the run along screaming to the police. Yet here we are. Still, there are people who hint at the man’s behavior even now.
Recently, a bundle of articles booed social media and the online medium n general as spawning a perfection oriented culture that isolates teens from those around them, thinking themselves inferior due to the fewer like-count on their page. One might argue that TV has had a far worse effect and yet look at us now: we’re still standing tall.
Teenagers do not agree that online interaction is ruining their lives.
A recent report included in the Teen Relationship Study by the Pew Research Center has offered an in depth look on how adolescents use tech in their daily routines, and how that tech helps them interact with their existing friends, or make new ones.
The study focused on 1,060 teens between 13 and 17 years old. They were surveyed online as well as in-person and were asked a few interesting questions. The results: 83% said that social media helps their friendships in that it keeps them connected with their closest friends, 70% said that it gives them hits to their friends’ feelings, and most of them said that social media is a positive thing overall.
Opposed to the aforementioned arguments, 78% said that they don’t feel bad about themselves when they see what others post. 68% even said they had used their profiles to ask for support from their friends.
Also, the research found that texting took up the bigger part of their connected experiences.
Still, there are people stirring up drama, 68% said they have experienced them. And there are those who post things that you weren’t invited to. Best response to this? The obvious: indifference.
Image source: guim.co.uk
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