Notes

Over 94% of teenagers interact with their phones every day, meaning over 76% of teens have at least one social media account. ¼ of those teens are almost on their phone 24/7 and hardly ever put it down. To the mall, to your grandparents, you name it; they always bring their phone around with them. People nowadays are avoiding sleep due to being on their phone so often. The typical teen spends more than 44 hours on their phone a week, causing them to become isolated from their friends and family. The average teen sends more than 2,000 texts a month. Technology tears young teens relationships apart as it creates a loss in friendships, creates tensions through hurtful acts, and causes teens to focus on the wrong things.

Over phone can cause you to ignore your surroundings and get caught up in social media or games. “Often, even when kids are together, they are interacting with their phones instead of with each other (Tarshis 19).” They watch the amount of followers rise or lower every day, and get concerned about their popularity online. They block out their friends for who is online. Online people have been shown to be bad people in multiple cases. “…Kids might mistake the “friends” on their social media feeds for true friends” (Tarshis 19).

Online, people can say hurtful things that personally, would never be able to say to someone in reality. Some say things they don’t mean, and it causes suicides constantly in the real world. Kids are taking people online so seriously, even to where they hurt themselves, or someone else. Although, in a “click” of a button, the account could be deleted, and no more mean or hurtful things would pop up on screen. People take others for granted online, saying things such as “go kill yourself…” or “nobody likes you...”

People on their phone daily, argue that “You can keep up with your friend who moved to Texas or send a good-luck text to your brother before his soccer game. You can watch your baby cousin grow up via Instagram and stay up-to-date on hundreds of people at once (Tarshis 19).” But online, things can come out different ways online than in person. In person, emotional facial features and movements show it all. But online, you can’t see someone’s emotion, while behind the screen, that person might be crying and weak. Somebody might be saying sarcastic things, and the receiver may take it personally. This is why people should stop using technology and spend more time with friends in flesh.