(All statistics used in this article are responses from 20 different people from an anonymous survey)

 Have you ever wondered what the most and least popular social media sites among teenagers are? If you are a teenager, you probably know your own, but what about others? Everyone has different opinions on what they like and dislike about social media, and I wanted to see the variation of different responses people would answer.. I put up a link to a google form on my social media to get the answers to my questions. The questions asked were,”What is your favorite social media platform?”, “Why is it your favorite?”, “What is your least favorite social media platform?”, “Why is it your least favorite?”, “In your opinion, what are positive aspects of social media?”, “In your opinion, what are negative aspects of social media?” and “What is something you would change about social media?”. There were twenty wonderful participants in this form who provided very insightful and perspective widening answers. Students were allowed to give open responses on all questions except for the favorite and least favorite social media question, which were multiple choice. The most popular least favorite response was Facebook by 70%, and the common reasoning was because young people don’t want to be on a social media platform mainly dominated by the older crowd, or they just don’t know how to use it. The most popular social media seemed to be Snapchat, at 55% of people with the typical reason having easy access to talk to your friends and share funny memes with fun filters to send to your friends as well. Students had a variety of different responses to the positive and negative aspects of social media. 

Positive (each response is from a different person):

“Connecting with friends and family very easily and quickly. I also like how you can use some of these platforms to video-chat with friends, especially during Covid.”

“Personally, social media is positive because I can communicate with my family overseas which is helpful. Also it helps me to keep up to date with current affairs and helps me with my school work.”

“the ability to connect with people you would’ve never met if it weren’t for the media”

“spreading positive messages quickly”

“I mean you get to see things that make you laugh and you get to keep in contact with friends”

“You’re able to raise awareness on important issues, make it easier to raise money, and help circulate news.”

“Learning new things”

“Socializing with others the apps can let people express themselves and have fun”

Negative: 

“It causes some people to waste time, and distracts people from focusing.”

“Social media is a horrible place at times, it can cause mental conditions which lead to negative physical effects. Also a lot of the newer generations start to lose the touch of reality because of always being on their devices.”

“teens and young adults having their perception of beauty standards change and wanting to look more like the people on these platforms. crushes people’s self esteem and creates insecurities as well”

“The toxic cancel culture and bullying”

“Fake news, causes depressed mental states.”

“Social media gives a lot of fake information sometimes or unrealistic expectations of what you’re supposed to be like which are damaging to your mental health.

bullying, discrimination, homophobia, etc”

“Bullying, stalking, weird people on internet”

“People comparing themselves to others and feeling worse because of it”

And Lastly, students were asked what they would change about social media: 

“I would make it so news reporters wouldn’t be owned by the government so the news reports wouldn’t be biased because they fear of being silenced”

“No likes and no follower count. Also a time limit for everyone.”

“I would change how everyone is always against each other and are close minded when we should try and listen to other people’s opinions and be more accepting of one another.”

“If I could change something I would make it so you couldn’t bully someone by using sentence recognition software.”

The quotes chosen from the survey are accurate representations chosen to emphasize the perspective of social media from a teenagers eyes, to aid adults in developing an understanding of the pressures of social media on teenagers. In my opinion, I like social media because I can communicate easily with my friends, but on the other hand it negatively affects my mental health from time to time. The responses from the survey helped me develop a wider range of perspectives, and hopefully closed the gap between different views that people have on social media. I hope that all of your changes can become a reality one day. I believe it is possible, and we need to have the courage to make movements towards these changes. 

 If you are one of the people who I quoted in this article and would like to have your name put into the article, email me at [email protected] !