“Today’s teenagers are far from being a carefree generation, and in fact most report they live with significant stress in their lives.”(Teenmark Study) In today’s society, teenagers are faced with problems previous generations could not even imagine. With the growing development of social networking sites and technology their quality of life is suffering. Children born between the years 1993-2003, lead far more complicated lives then their 45-50 year old counter parts did when they were in their teens. With the new development of social networking sites, society is forced to change along with it. It is evident that with the development of social media society has changed. In a variety of ways, from how we write, communicate with others, and even form relationships. But does this have a harmful affect on today’s teens? During the 1970s, when the adults (45-50 years old) were teens was their quality of life a concern?
In a list compiled by the Youth Service Bureau in 2009, lists the positive trends, some cautions, and emerging concerns. Positive trends are things such as, health of children, lowest teen pregnancy rates since 1969, and slight decreases in crime and substance use(YSU). Cautions are listed as teen employment is low, the admitted use of substance, and one in ten children are diagnosed with a mental disease severe enough to impair development. The shortest list is the ones that impact society the most, emerging concerns. All of the concerns have something to do with the negativity of the media. In contrast the adults, who were teens in the 1970s, had problems but not the way the teens of today do now. So what has changed? There are still teenage pregnancies, and drug and alcohol abuse, which were major issues of the time. The only thing we have that they did not is the accessibility to the computer and a culture absorbed in the media. Clearly there is a problem. In a New York Times article called “Is Social Networking Killing You?” Lady Susan Greenfield, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University said, “My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.” How many times do teens today use that phrase, live for the moment? It is in songs and Facebook statuses all the time.
As early as 1998 there were studies that suggested the greater use of the Internet “was associated to the decline in communication between family members in the household, declines in the size of social circles, and increases in their levels of depression and loneliness ( Dr. Sigman). Dr. Sigman goes on to say, that in several measurable ways, people who are more social tend to be healthier, physically, than loners. This statement supports the argument to whether or not there is a direct link to the issue of suicides and other tragedies that seem to affect teens more and more. Statistics from the AACAP states that before the mid-1970s, suicide by adolescents appeared to be a rare event; but now one out of ten teens contemplates suicide. Today suicide is the third leading cause of death for high school students. If we start to think about all the recent tragedies over the last year that have happened in the United States, there is something wrong if we are not asking ourselves what effect the media has on our quality of life. With depression being one of the most common illnesses amongst people ages 15-24, what quality of life could the youth possibly have?
