User:Kaitlintowill/sandbox

Positive impacts
Social media may positively affect adolescents by promoting a feeling of inclusion, providing greater access to more friends, and enhancing romantic relationships. Social Media can provide adolescents with support in a non-traditional way. Today many adolescents go to social media to get advice and answers about everything from people all over the world. Through one simple click, adolescents are able to connect and support one another without ever meeting one another in person. Social Media is proven to allow people to communicate with people, no matter how far away they are from each other. Some adolescents with social and emotional issues feel more included with social media and online activities. As social media usage has risen during the last decade, the typical adolescent in the United States has become less socially isolated and more likely to linger in public spaces, because social media have changed the ways that they are able to interact in public spaces. Social media can give people a sense of belonging which can lead to an increase in identity development. Adolescents that post pictures on social media can look back on his memorable moments and this positive emotion can be related to a sense of their true identity. Social media provide a way to communicate with friends and family when alone. Being alone and or experiencing feelings of isolation can have negative effects on adolescents mental and physical health. Social media can facilitate an environment that helps adolescents feel less isolated and alleviate feelings of loneliness.

Adolescents who use social media tend to be more outgoing and interact more with others online and in person. According to Newport Academy, teens who spend more time on non- screen activities, such as sports, exercise, in-person social interaction, or any other in-person activities are less likely to report any mental issue, sucah as anxiety or depression. Vivek, Hans. (2019) The Effect of Social Media on Teenagers. Social media provide adolescents within the United States the ability to connect with people from other countries. As adolescents' ability to connect expands beyond their immediate circle, their awareness and interpretation of the world around them is able to expand and their sense of identity evolves. Being involved in social media typically improves communication skills, social connections, and technical skills. Furthermore, adolescents who are students can use social media to seek academic help. The appropriate usage of social media has developed favourable academic environments for both, the students and the teaching faculty, offering them potential benefits in the process of learning information. Skillfully applying social media to an academic environment can not only enhance learning objectives and provide access to academic resources, but also aid in alleviating student isolation as communications becomes more accessible.

Social Media also allows for the expression of creativity and can display people's interests and talents digitally. For example, high schoolers can feel more connected with their community by seeing what everyone is being involved in. When adolescents use the app Instagram, what they are reading and who they follow is based on their interests. When engaging in this, they are exploring and learning new things regarding their interests. According to the Mayo Clinic, these platforms can expose teens to current events and teach them many things, such as developing healthy habits. Mayo Clinic Staff. (2019) Teens and Social Media Use: Whats The Impact?.

Some social media platforms are also used for entertainment. For example, the app Vine consists of videos that are intended to create a positive response from the audience.

T hrough representation on social media, these people and the identities they belong to become better known and in future better understood. This allows for groups of people within social media to be given a level of agency and empowerment to share their story and who they are with the world. Adolescents are still in the processes of navigating their identity and developing personality traits and ideals. Social media creates a space for adolescents to broadcast more than one aspect of themselves that they may not feel comfortable expressing to their peers or family. Being able to explore different avenues of one's self with the help of social media allows for a deeper understanding of one's identity and can generate new forms of thought.

Positive representation of individuals from various genders, ethnic groups, classes, geographic regions, race, abilities, ect can help to challenge and break stereotypes which may be associated to them. Adolescents are able to benefit from the usage of social media as it has the ability to connect individuals on a much broader scale.

Social media can act as a hub for those with individuals with disabilities to connect with and help cultivate relationships between those with similar disabilities. In addition to fostering connections, social media platforms can be a place where individuals or groups can bring attention to the reality of certain disabilities and combat certain societal stereotypes. Social media has the ability to connect groups of people that would not otherwise be able to, be that due to distance or other forms of inaccessibility.

Social media has become a way for youth to express themselves in ways they may not be able to in their life off-screen. Social media as a form of self-expression has become a very powerful wave for social change. “Social media for social change” is used as a successful grassroots movement allowing for lesions and understandings from the screen, to be translated into everyday practice. Adolescents play a vital role in social change and movements because of their impressionable state of mind. What adolescents are exposed to on social media can have a greater effect on their interpretation of society and the world around them because their identity is still developing.