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Judith Niyimpa
Dr. Adrienne Cassel
ENG 1201
30 November 2017
What impact does social media have on teenage girls?
Teenage girls now days spend most of their time on social network sites (SNSs), such as

Instagram, Facebook, where they post images of themselves (selfies), share outfits of the day

(ootd), and other etc. This is how these teenage girls get followers, likes and comments from

their peers as they do the same with their friends. In another words, they compare themselves

with peers in the context of beauty. These teenage girls seek to present a good image of

themselves but are anxious about how other people perceive them (Chua). Teenage girls need to

be taught how to be authentic when they post their profiles on social network sites in order to

reduce a negative impact on social media.

When interviewing my seventeen years sister she mentioned that to some girls, these

SNSs are part of their life because thats how they get to talk to their friends, thats how they

know whats going on at school, etc. If ones not on these SSNs they feel left out because they

never know whats going on at school. They post everything on these SNSs, and it gives them

something to talk about at school. It all starts on these SNSs, thats how ones make friends and

become close to one another. (Nishimwe).

It has been proven that using these SNSs affect ones self-esteem. Social network sites

has its own way of defining beauty for teenage girls, having a pretty face, thin body, wearing

makeup etc. This puts a pressure on these girls of how theyre supposed to look like. Some of

them present themselves as a totally different person as they are in real life. Most of these

teenage girls edit their own pictures before posting them, dress differently on these SNSs, wears
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makeup, because they want to fit in and they care about their friends or followers feedback

(Chua). When ones sees that his/her friends are getting more followers, likes, and comments,

they try to be like them so they can get the same feedback (Nishimwe). Teenage girls on social

media who has low self-esteem issues show their skin and wear revealing outfits so they can get

more feedback and feel better about themselves. This may improve their self-esteem temporarily,

but once they log off those SNSs, their self-esteem really hasnt improved (Nishimwe).

The other big danger that comes from kids communicating more indirectly is that it has

gotten easier to be cruel. Kids text all sorts of things that you would never in a million years

contemplate saying to anyones face, says Dr. Donna Wick, a clinical and developmental

psychologist who runs Mind to Mind Parent. She notes that this seems to be especially true of

girls, who typically dont like to disagree with each other in real life. You hope to teach them

that they can disagree without jeopardizing the relationship, but what social media is teaching

them to do is disagree in ways that are more extreme and do jeopardize the relationship. Its

exactly what you dont want to have happen, she says. Dr. Steiner-Adair agrees that girls are

particularly at risk. Girls are socialized more to compare themselves to other people, girls in

particular, to develop their identities, so it makes them more vulnerable to the downside of all

this. She warns that a lack of solid self-esteem is often to blame. We forget that relational

aggression comes from insecurity and feeling awful about yourself, and wanting to put other

people down so you feel better. (Ehmke)

Teenage girls who are bullies tend to do it more on these SNSs because they might create

fake accounts so ones will not know who they are. Number of cyberbullying is growing and Commented [NJ1]:

many teenage girls are suiciding because of it. ChildLine, a British counseling service, reports an
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increase from 2,410 cases of cyberbullying in 2011 and 2012 to 4,507 cases of cyberbullying in

2012 and 2013- and astronomical 87 percent increase (Miller).

The main reason why these teenage girls spend most of their time on these SNSs is that

they want to fit in. The number of teenage girls who are using these SNSs is rapidly increasing

and those who are frequently using these SNSs tends to not do well in school. However, the

results can be different depending on how youre using these SNSs. They can be useful when

youre using them to search for more information, posting some useful information,

communicating with your friends about school work, creating group so you can discuss about

your project, etc. (Chua).

To answer the question, What impact does social media have on teenage girls? Social

media has a big impact on teenage girls. It can lead to indirect communication, cyberbullying,

low self-esteem, etc. Teenage girls need to be taught how to be authentic when they post their

profiles on social network sites in order to reduce a negative impact on social media.
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Works Cited

Chua, Trudy Hui Hui and Leanne Chang. "Full Length Article: Follow Me and Like My

Beautiful Selfies: Singapore Teenage Girls Engagement in Self-Presentation and Peer

Comparison on Social Media." Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 55, no. Part A, 01

Feb. 2016, pp. 190-197. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.011.

Daniels, Elizabeth and Eileen Zurbriggen. "'It's Not the Right Way to Do Stuff on Facebook:' an

Investigation of Adolescent Girls' and Young Women's Attitudes toward Sexualized

Photos on Social Media." Sexuality & Culture, vol. 20, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 936-964.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s12119-016-9367-9.

MILLER, KIMBERLY. "Cyberbullying and Its Consequences: How Cyberbullying Is

Contorting the Minds of Victims and Bullies Alike, and the Law's Limited Available

Redress." Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, Spring2017,

pp. 379-404. EBSCOhost,

Ehmke, Rachel. How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers.

https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/ Accessed 26

October 2017.

Nishimwe, Fortune. Personal Interview. 2 November 2017.