Teens and Technology: Teen girls can be adversely affected through their use of cell phones and social media

Ruth Gilbert

Teens and Technology: Teen girls can be adversely affected through their use of cell phones and social media The use of cell phones and social media websites can cause serious problems for teen girls such as cyber bullying and sexting. The anonymity of this technology has made it easier for girls to participate in cyber bullying and sexting. Cyber bullying is very hard to stop since the anonymity of social media and texting makes it very hard to identify the bullies. Girls are also finding it easy to send sexual images and messages to boys using their cell phones, iPods or computers. What they fail to realize is that these messages can be easily shared with many people, and then the girls are humiliated. There have even been occasions where girls have ended their lives because they were so harassed they couldn’t see any other solution. This paper details how girls are finding their social identities through the use of technology and how cyber bullying and sexting can hurt them. A teenage girl gets into some trouble and her punishment is she is not allowed to go to an event with her friends. The mother thinks she is doing her job and punishing her daughter; unfortunately keeping the daughter home isn’t enough. The mother happens to walk by her daughter’s room later that night and sees a weird glow coming from her room. She enters the room to find her daughter texting away on her cell phone way past the time she was supposed to be in bed. Getting even madder she removes her daughter’s cell phone and iPod. It occurs to the mom that maybe she needs to do a little investigating to find out what was so interesting that her daughter needs to be checking with her friends in the middle of the night. What the mom finds is completely beyond her belief. There are conversations and photos that she would never have dreamed of having or sharing with her friends when she was her daughter’s age. The mother realizes times have certainly changed and probably not for the better when it comes to teens and electronics. It used to be that when you got in trouble you could easily be grounded and you would be kept away from all your friends and would be forced to follow the rules until you were released from restriction. Today grounding is not enough. Teens are in communication with their friends through their cell phones and social media sites constantly. Unfortunately it’s not just their friends that teens are inviting in the house, but they are also being duped by predators that are impersonating other teens. This would not have been the case 40 years ago; it was much easier to protect your teens because the bad guys had to actually be in physical contact with your teen to be dangerous. Mark Bauerelin writes in his article “Their So called Life”, “If you lived in Atlanta and came home from school on May 18, 1970, here is what you would find at 3 p.m. Channel 2 presented Another World, channel 5 The Secret Storm, and channel 11 General Hospital, three soap operas a teen couldn’t even consider” (74). Bauerelin goes on to describe at least ten shows that teens can choose from today (74). Because of these shows Bauerelin believes that these shows are leading teenagers to create their own value system as opposed to looking to the adults in their lives as mentors (Bauerelin 74). Most of the adults that are in these shows are portrayed as bumbling buffoons that are just obstacles that need to be worked around for the teens to obtain their goals; namely to create their social lives and be popular. Bauerelin points out that every teen has a cell phone or uses social media (75). He also states, “You can’t have a social life without one, and to sustain it, you have to use it often and vigilantly” (Bauerelin 75). Without realizing it teens may pave a path for predators to enter their home by giving too much information over their cell phones or social media websites. The anonymity of the internet has created a whole other problem for teenagers. Unless the teenagers know the people they are friending on social media sites in person it is easy for a predator to create a fake profile and began speaking to the teen. And once they become “friends” on social media, it is easy to get the teen to trust them, and before you know it the teen is sharing personal information including their phone numbers so they can text each other from their cell phones. But it just isn’t predators that can cause a teenager problems, it can be their own personal friends. In "Indirect Aggression, Bullying and Female Teen Victimization: A Literature Review", Mary Catanzaro writes about bullying and how harmful it can be to young girls. Catanzaro talks a great deal about how hurtful bullying can be to a young girl’s self-esteem since they view their personal identity on how they fit in with their peers (93). And once a girl has become the target of cyber bullying it is very hard to end the problem. Catanzaro points out that technology has created a very big problem that is hard to combat, “Years ago, people who were picked on or gossiped about in school could graduate, move away and start afresh. These days the gossip follows them” (Catanzaro 92). And young girls are just not mature enough to handle such emotional situations; especially since girls define themselves so much by their social circles, unlike boys who usually find their identity on the sports field. Some adults would even have problems handling cyber bullying at extreme levels. It was not very long ago that singer Leanne Rimes was hospitalized because she claimed she was stressed because she was a victim of cyber bullying by her husband’s ex-wife. If an adult that has been in the public life since she was a young girl couldn’t handle aggressive cyber bullying, there is no way a young girl would just shrug off such a situation. Unfortunately, cyber bullying is a very common occurrence these days. The anonymity of the internet has actually made teen girls more aggressive. Catanzaro states that 80% of children have experienced bullying at some time in their school years (90). Brown University also did a study where they found out that “22% of teens admit that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive” (Brown University 1). And just like the predators it is very easy for a teen’s friends to create fake personalities and cyber bully each other and it would be almost impossible to catch the culprit. This kind of aggression is causing emotional problems with our teens. Without the proper help teenagers can began to feel isolated because of cyber bullying. In extreme cases teenagers have decided to strike back against their tormentors in very violent ways; including taking weapons into their schools and harming people. In some instances the teenagers will end the bullying by taking their own lives. Sadly this bullying can start because someone just doesn’t like someone else. Some teens can also cause themselves some trouble by not protecting their own privacy. Some teenagers are using their cell phones to send naked pictures to each other. In the same study by Brown University they found that 22% of teen girls and 20% of teen boys have sent nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to their peers (Brown University 1). 38% of teens think that sexting will make it more likely that they will achieve the important status of having a boyfriend or girlfriend. Of course, the teens think they are sending their picture to someone that they trust and the recipient will keep it private. That is hardly ever the case. In a matter of minutes these pictures can be forwarded to many of the teen’s friends and before you know it the teen has a real problem on their hands. Some teens have even faced criminal charges because they have sent pictures or they were in the possession of nude pictures of minors. Teens do not think of these things before they hit the send button. Also the shows they are watching on television rarely discuss such serious problems on their “happy go lucky programming”. So how is parent going to protect their teenager? Brown University talks about telling your teenager that they are responsible for the content of their electronic devices (2). They also suggest that parents should not wait until an incident occurs, but take preventive action and explain to your teenager the consequences of what can happen when they get involved in inappropriate behavior on social media or through their cell phones (Brown University 2). As a last resort parents should take away all their electronic devices. In conclusion, today’s technology is making it very easy for teens to communicate with their friends with their cell phones and social media. Teenagers are developing their differing values from their parents because of their exposure to the media. Teen girls are very dependent on their cell phones and social media to create their identities and their place in their social group. Cyber bullying and sexting are becoming more prevalent because anonymity of the internet and it is causing horrible problems for today’s teens.

Works Cited
Bauerelin, Mark. "Their So-Called Lives." Commentary 132.2 (2011): 74-76. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.
Catanzaro, Mary F. "Indirect Aggression, Bullying and Female Teen Victimization: A Literature Review." Pastoral Care in Education 29.2 (2011): 83-101. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.
"Teens And Sexting: What Is It and What Can Parents Do?." Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter 28.(2012): 1-2. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.