KATHMANDU: Social media is a digital platform to share ideas, feelings, and emotions. Mostly, the users of social media are younger generations. Younger students are the heavier users of Social Networking Sites. This research critically explores the study on the effects of social networking sites on adolescence to examine the status or the effect of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube on adolescence between 10 to 19 years (Maharjan, 2000).
This study is limited only to the Kathmandu district, especially for the teenagers of Guheshwori Higher Secondary School, Sinamangal. The participants in this study were 55 students from high schools and colleges. They are given questionnaires that are both open-ended and closed-ended. The conclusion of this research is that, adolescents are attracted to social networking sites very deeply. They know the drawbacks of it; besides that, they are using it.
The research on social networking sites highlights a significant attraction that adolescents have toward platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. These sites have become an integral part of the lives of young people, shaping their interactions, self-expression, and even their sense of identity.
While most are aware of the potential drawbacks of social media, including issues like cyberbullying, excessive screen time, and negative impacts on mental health, many continue to use these platforms. This addiction to social media can create challenges, as young users may become overly reliant on virtual validation and interaction, often at the expense of their real-life relationships and personal development.
One of the more concerning issues associated with excessive use of social media is its connection to unhealthy content, including exposure to pornography. As adolescents explore online spaces, they may inadvertently come across inappropriate material, which can lead to addiction.
Recognizing the impact of such exposure, many individuals seek support to help with porn addiction, especially when it starts to interfere with their daily lives or emotional well-being. For those struggling with these issues, RehabToday offers effective strategies and professional resources to break free from unhealthy habits. Their programs are designed to help individuals regain control, offering counseling, therapy, and personalized treatment plans to support long-term recovery and a healthier relationship with both social media and personal well-being.
Keywords
Social Media, Adolescents, cybercrimes, virtual world
Introduction
Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media. Some examples of popular social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more (Rouse, 2019).
In 1999, the first blogging destinations ended up mainstream, making an online life vibe that is as yet well known today. After the innovation of blogging, online networking started to detonate in prevalence. Locales like Myspace and LinkedIn picked up noticeable quality in the mid-2000s, and destinations like Photobucket and Flickr encouraged online photograph sharing.
YouTube turned out in 2005, making an altogether new route for individuals to convey and impart to one another crosswise over incredible separations. (Kaplan, 2010)
Technology has taken an important place in our society. Smartphones and laptops have become very important tools for us. Before the invention of tools and technology of media, people had to do hard work to communicate. Before the invention of social networking sites (Paudyal, 2070) radio and television were in practice. Due to the high price of radio and television, normal people were not able to buy radios and televisions in the beginning phase. But slowly, Social Networking Sites (SNS) came in 1990 (B.Ellison, 2007) the communication process became easier. Social Networking Sites are a useful tool of communication for us.
Social networking sites rely on web-based technologies to turn discrete, usually rather short, user contributions such as status updates or comments into an activity team (Cann, 2011).
There are significant benefits associated with the use of Social Networking Sites including: delivering educational outcomes; facilitating supportive relationships; identity formation; and, promoting a sense of belonging and self-esteem (Collin, 2011). In Nepal, information technology has flourished. Nearly everyone is introduced to the means of communication like E-mail, Facebook, websites, Twitter, Skype, etc (Pokharel, 2071).
Adolescents, in particular, use Social Networking Sites to get information. Facebook, Twitter has become the major source of information for them. Instead of searching on television, newspaper and radio they directly go for Social Networking Sites.
After the increment of more users on the internet, like 60 percent (Nepal Telecommunications Authority, 2074) on Social Networking Sites. There was a time in 1995, before the invention of the internet, when students used to find out information on television, newspapers, radio, but now the time and the methods have changed for pieces of information and news. According to the Nepal Telecommunication Authority, 2074, more than 60 percent of people receive their news from Facebook. Advanced technology has changed their concept of finding out information and it has made them comfortable with turning the news on social media.
According to internet expert, Simon Kingsnorth the trend continues, every facet of human knowledge will be on the network in less than 10years from now. (Ray, 2006). In particular, teenagers choose social media for information. Facebook, Twitter has become the major sources of information hubs for them. Instead of searching on television, newspapers, radio, they directly go to Social Networking Sites. (Lenhart, 2015).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) adolescence is the age between 10 to 19 years, which was published in a book named Health and Physical Education (Maharjan, 2000). According to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook requires everyone to be at least 13 years old before they can create an account.
The number of internet users in Nepal has been growing rapidly. The total population of Nepal, according to the Central Bureau of statistics, is 28431494. But the internet users of Nepal are 61.58 percent. People are habituated to the internet as they find it an easy medium to share their opinions with the help of social networking sites. (Nepal Telecommunications Authority, 2074).
The Internet has turned the world into a global village, where the whole world is combined into one society that is a global village. (Mc Quail, 2010). Marshall Mc Luhan coined the world, the global village, and said the medium is the message. People don’t see the medium through which they are getting information, but the message is important to them. The internet and the social media are ruling society and the people. The government of Nepal has promulgated the Electronic Transaction Act (ETA) 2063. According to the Electronic Transaction Act 2063, the new legislation has not only legalized all forms of electronic transactions and digital signatures, but has also clearly spelled out ways to regulate various computer-based activities and punish cybercrimes. Besides the legal validity of electronic records and digital signatures, the new act has made a provision for the comptroller of certification. The act is divided into 12 sections with 80 clauses.
Cybercrimes such as hacking, piracy, copyright violation, fraud and all other deceitful activities have been clearly defined and punishments are set accordingly. The action against such crimes and punishment will be in the range of a minimum of fifty thousand rupees to a maximum of three lakh rupees in cash and six months to three years of imprisonment. But this act has not been implemented fully.
Prior to 2004, cybercrimes were dealt with under the Public Offence Act. The Electronic Transaction Act 2063 was passed in 2004, which is known as the cyber law. It protects users online against cybercrimes. Although the law is present, it serves little to protect users online. The law has not been adequately amended due to the need for time. The elements and dynamics of the web have been changing over time, whereas the ETA remains constant. (Pandey, 2012).
Pros of Social Networking Sites
Social Networking Sites educate, persuade, and provide awareness to people in a broader way. Even low-income families often see social networking sites as a useful skill, enhancing literacy and providing a route to alternative, informal channels of education. Social Networking Sites allow users to focus on specific sets of relationships: those between school children, between teachers and school children. A major effect of social media is that human communication has become more visual at the expense of oral and textual modes. (Miller, 2016).
People have an extrovert nature, which means they cannot share their feelings and emotions with the mass. Suppressing emotions endangers health and well-being, both physically and psychologically. So, on these social networking sites, they can share their feelings and emotions to reduce stress.
Parents in the 21st century are working in offices. They don’t have enough time to help in their homework. And students can learn and complete their homework by watching YouTube. There are some sites on YouTube like Math Guru, subject matter where students get to learn many educational informative things which they are unaware of (Yusuf, 2014).
Social Networking Sites are like Pandora’s Box where we can explore the world while sitting in our house. By seeing YouTube and Google, we can travel the whole world. Even places in the world like mountains and temples can be seen in the virtual world. Students like to visit various places; their wishes keep on changing. For them, this is one of the best options.
Social networking offers many benefits. It is now easier than ever to keep in contact with old friends and colleagues. The professional networking site Facebook even allows users to request introductions to businesspeople that are known to their contacts. The potential of this enhanced connectivity is huge; whereas once you would be left sifting through business cards after a networking event, trying to remember details about each person, you can now easily look up a connection’s credentials and business interests on their social media profile (Gurcan, 2015).
Social Networking Sites incorporate an instant messaging feature, which lets people exchange information in real-time via a chat. This is a great feature for teachers to use to facilitate classroom discussions because it lets them utilize the vast store of information available on the Web. This can be a great time saver for the teacher – since students no longer need to visit a library to conduct research- and it can be a great way to engage distracted learners. Although Social Networking Sites can be used to spread a company’s message for free, fee-based advertising options are also available. One of the best aspects of Social Networking is the ability to deliver your content only to those users with the most potential interest in your product or service (Todi, 2008).
Cons of Social networking sites
Although social networking sites are taken as a useful and beneficial source of information, It has some drawbacks. They hang and stick to it even when they don’t have any work or study. And adolescence is regarded as the emotional period during which people engage in bad behaviors such as cyberbullying if their friends compel or praise them. They forget to do their homework, and even forget to eat food, which reduces the emotional attachment of children to their parents. In the past, while having dinner, everyone used to share ideas with their whole family, but nowadays, the time has changed.
Teenagers have their dinner watching YouTube or chatting with their friends (Westenberg, 2016). As we communicate most of the time with people on social networking sites, it has become our habit. We are slowly and gradually forgetting to do face to face communication with people by showing our facial expressions to them. By talking to people on social networking sites, we feel uncomfortable talking to people face to face. And teenagers feel free to communicate with strangers on Social Networking Sites, but they cannot talk to them through face-to-face communication (Dorsch, 2011).
Human beings are hypnotized by social networking sites, especially during adolescence. They cannot live without their cell phones. Even for a safe side, they carry a power bank with them so that they won’t feel miserable using their cellphone. It has been one of the compulsion habits for them. Adolescence can’t think of their life without social networking sites.
Due to the rapid growth of users on social networking sites, the number of crimes related to the internet has been increasing day by day. The free flow of information can be used for good. But when people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them. (Duivestein, 2013).
Social Networking Sites are very engaging and lead to teenagers spending a lot of time on them. They may neglect their schoolwork, extra-curricular activities, and even their friends and family so that they can play a game or chat about various things not related to schoolwork. This clearly reduces their productivity levels. Such kids even start failing in schoolwork and may end up being addicted to social media platforms. Social Networking Sites have a way of making teens disclose a lot of information that they would not disclose face to face. By giving out too much information, for example, about where one lives, where they go to school, and other personal details, the teen could inadvertently make it easier for those who want to do them harm.
Research Questions
a) To study the influence of social networking sites to the teenagers.
b) To evaluate which social networking sites they use the most
c) To know why they use social networking sites
d) To evaluate their behavioral change after using social networking sites.
Theoretical Framework
The hypodermic needle theory graphically suggests that the message is a bullet fired from the media gun into the viewer’s head. The hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. It was promulgated by Harold Lasswell in the 1920’s.
The “hypodermic needle theory” suggested that the media had a direct, immediate, and significant impact on their listeners. According to the theory, the mass media may directly and universally influence a huge group of people by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’ them with appropriate messages. They believe that the media is a hazardous tool for communication.
There is no escape from the effect of the message in these models. The population is seen as a sitting duck. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot of media material “shot” at them. People end up thinking what they are told because there is no other source of information. (Singh, 2017).
People have a practice of grabbing whatever they see, without finding its negative and positive impact on people. They take what the media gives them. In the case of social media, they accept whatever they see in the media (Bhandari, 2008). They trust the information without cross-checking it. Similarly, in remote areas like Mugu and Dolpa, the reach of the media is harder. Because of this, the media is not able to create awareness among the people. Social Networking Sites have a greater number of audiences. So, the content and the subjects it covers are diversifying. According to this theory, people take all kinds of messages, like information, education, whatever the media gives them without filtering them.
Social Networking Sites are more convenient in nature than other traditional media like print and electronic. They publish news very slowly. If anything happens in society, people will get a chance to know it rapidly. And the audience also reacts very constantly by commenting, sharing the news or by tweeting on Twitter (Chao-chen, 2013). The main advantages or the positive side of social networking sites is that they can reach a larger audience. Because in Nepal, almost 61percent (Nepal Telecommunications Authority, 2074). It’s like an injection. It works in a sudden period, within a second.
The Hypodermic needle theory is a very sudden process and the reaction people get is too immediate. In adolescence, they don’t know the news, which they get should be cross checked while receiving it, and they take it without cross checking because of lack of knowledge of finding out wrong and right information.
But today they make groups on Social Networking Sites and consult one another by writing and answering questions in that same group. Which has lessened the emotional attachment or the closeness of their friends with each other (Einarsdóttir, 2015).
Methodology
It is a kind of descriptive type where quantitative and qualitative approaches are taken. This research evokes the negative effects and positive impact of social networking sites on adolescence in a detailed way. And the research is presented in a descriptive way. Qualitative and quantitative data are used as the tools for this study. Primary and secondary sources are also used to collect data and information. Primary studies are conducted while distributing the questions. There are some limitations to this research. Limitation is based on the situation of the research, which is listed below: This study is limited only to the Kathmandu district, especially for the teenagers of Guheshwori Higher Secondary School, Sinamangal their parents and teachers. The participants in this study were 55 adolescents aged 10 to 19 years old who were asked to complete open-ended and closed-ended questionnaires.
Interactive Platform
Social Networking Sites are a platform where all youngsters share their feelings, emotions, and happiness with their family, relatives, and friends. Everything has positive and negative side effects. Varinder Taprial & Priya Kanwar (2012), have described the positive benefits of social media for people. According to them, social media empowered people to express their thoughts and opinions and share them with others. Social media has become an inevitable part of our daily life and, like it or not, it’s here to stay.
It is one of the mediums for sharing, expressing, and searching for knowledge or information through various social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. According to the book by Denis MC Quail (2010), ” Mass Communication Theory”, the media are rarely the only source of social learning and their influence depends on other sources, such as parents, friends, teachers, and so on. There are strong collective influences on social learning theory that hold that the media can have direct effects on people and their influence does not have to be mediated by personal influence or social networks.
Due to the advanced development of the internet, its direct impact has been on social networking sites. Adolescence had been seeing television and radio programs as informative and aware of the different issues. They used to be limited or confined to certain TV channels and TV programs. Amit Koirala has done research on “Exploring the effects of social networking sites on school students”. He has classified his limitations by categorizing the class limits. He took the data from the class ten students, who were teenagers too. According to him, in recent years, social networking sites have become one of the most prominent networks in the digital world. Sharing of others’ private
Photos and videos bring cyber-crime and a negative impact on society. These sorts of cybercrime also have negative effects or consequences on school going children. The results of his study are: social media is an addiction to them, especially, Facebook, which is a very good means to engage students in writing text, making comments, and uploading photographs. They frequently think about who liked their photo and stop reading. Unnecessary comments and status bring mental harassment and conflict.
Social Networking Sites contain interactivity, multi-modality, and hyper – textuality. Social networking sites are gaining popularity among adolescents because of their special features and the blend of audio and visual communication. Terry flew (2007) defined in his book “understanding Global Media” the capacity of mass broadcast media distributed worldwide to contribute to a global village (Mc Luhan,1969) with the capacity to appeal to sensory experiences.
The “Handbook of Communication” written by Elleen Scholes (2003), mentioned the strengths and weaknesses of computer-based communication. According to him, social media, where letters are generally more private than many other methods. And they carry complex information. He mentioned that social media is a mixture of audio and visual communication and it helps us do our work very well.
The media of mass communication “written by John Vivian (1991) mentioned the positive effects of the Internet in his book. According to him, from a dizzying array of new technologies, the World Wide Web emerged in the mid of 1990s as a powerful new mass medium. It is the people browsing the web, not editors and programmers, who choose which on screen pages.
Because of social networking sites, creativity has been lessened. They do copy and paste while doing their assignments. In an earlier time, they used to do their homework and assignments by themselves by doing hard work, by using creative things, and by consulting with their friends and family. But today they depend upon social networking sites by doing copy paste and completing their school and college work.
According to Hana S. Noor AL-Deen and John Allen Hendricks book “Social Media Usage and Impact”, “they mentioned how college students use Facebook. According to him, college students, often living away from home for the first time, may engage in social interaction in the college community. Social media provides opportunities for users to engage in self-presentation of identity. He said online social networking typically offers opportunities for expression.
Among all social networking sites, Facebook is the most popular social networking site among adolescents. Mike Kent and Tama Leaver have mentioned the positive effects of Facebook. According to them, Facebook offers a low-cost platform for interacting with a huge audience. Facebook has emerged as a key space for informal and formal communication among students and between students and universities, which has made it easy for students to do collaborative learning.
Feldman (2000) suggests that in the new millennium we are witnessing a movement from the age of the individual to the era of community, face to face and virtual, supported by social media. Some of the features, like phone calls, reaction, video chat, help to have face to face conversations. By making groups in messenger, adolescence creates their own world and they have conversations about their studies and they can ask about their unknown homework.
Results
The Internet is known as media convergence, involves cooperation among broadcast, print and online journalists to tell stories effectively in appropriate media to a wide-reaching audience. According to Claudette Guzan Artwick people don’t have to rely on traditional media like print and television to see news and information. But after the development of the internet, it has been the blender of both print and electronic media.
Table 1: Uses of Social Networking Sites
Social Networking Sites Students
Number Percentage
Facebook 35 60
Twitter 10 20
Instagram 10 20
Snapchat 0 0
Total 55 100
Social Networking Sites are the medium for people to learn, discover various materials. Social media is limited to consuming what other people post it is not that different from any other web content. The above data illustrates that the number of adolescents who mostly use Facebook. Facebook is a special social networking site where there are special features such as liking, commenting, reacting, and sharing. Due to the popularity of Facebook, many of them don’t know about snap chat. Whereas 20% of adolescents know and use Instagram and Twitter most of the time. Due to the popularity of Facebook among friends, they might take, Facebook as the most favorable social networking site.
According to them, Facebook is a mixture of information, entertainment and hilarious things. Whereas 40percent of teachers choose Twitter as the most usable social networking site, because only useful news and information is shown over there.
Table 2: Purpose of using Social Networking Sites
Purpose Students
Number Percentage
Information 10 15
Time pass 15 30
Chatting 10 25
Uploading Pictures 20 40
Total 55 100
Social networking sites are not only for you to communicate or interact with other people globally, but they are also an effective way of business promotion. Social media can play a significant role in making this happen. Having an active, engaging presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube is essential if you want your name or brand to be in the public eye.
The above table depicts that, 15percent of adolescence using social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to upload photos rather than get information. Changing profile pictures and cover pictures on social networking sites has been used on social networking sites excessively by adolescents. Similarly, 25percent of youngsters use social media to chat with friends and relatives. And 25percent of youngsters do time pass to avoid boredom. And 15% of youngsters, they find informative materials on social networking sites. And 30 percent of adolescence use social networking sites to pass time.
Figure 1: Complain in Cybercrime department
In our society, we don’t protest or complain about things we don’t like. We are taught in a way that we have to digest everything because everyone has a different perception. So, we fear or hesitate to complain if something negative happens to us.
The above pie chart shows that 50% of adolescents will not even dare to talk about this, either with their families or their relatives. Instead, they will tolerate torture. 25percent of adolescents are willing to complain, but they are concerned about their families’ reputation as society has created such an environment for them that will not allow them to go against their parents’ will. 10 Percent of adolescents are also willing to complain but are scared of revenge as there is no proper security in our country and we do not have a better cyber law. 15% of them are only willing to complain, which is quite low only because of their family environment.
Table 3: Facing mental pain in the social networking sites
Options Students
Number Percentage
yes 25 40
No 5 10
Sometimes 15 30
Not really 10 20
Total 55 100
Mental torture is taken as that kind of pain people send on social networking sites by messaging or tagging posts. It includes vulgar messages, spam pictures or videos. And which is given as the term called a virus on social networking sites.
Mental torture is known as the torture where vulgar messages and pictures are sent to the users of social networking sites, which are very much in use today. The above table shows that 10% of youngsters have been facing mental torture. According to them, unknown people send them obscene messages and pictures. 40 percent of adolescents say they receive vulgar messages from strangers. Whereas 10 percent of youngsters say they haven’t faced these kinds of problems, nor have they received vulgar messages. As well as 30%, they sometimes get this type of message, but they avoid it.
The students of Guheshwori Higher Secondary School, Sinamangal have provided several definitions of Social Networking Sites. For them, social networking sites are nothing more than a place to speak and look for information. It’s also a means for them to pass the time.
It is a place through which they can make an enormous number of friends and which can make their relationships deeper and better. And for them, social networking sites are only Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Due to the popularity of Facebook, they only take Facebook as a social networking site.
The number of users of Facebook is higher than on other social networking sites. Out of 55 students, only 15 students know about Twitter and Snap Chat. Otherwise, the remaining students, they only think Face book is a Social Networking Site and they only play a vital role in their lives. Due to the high use of Face book other social networking sites like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter are not that popular with adolescents. Positive sides of social networking sites by adolescence.
Doing homework with the help of social networking sites has a positive effect on adolescence. They share their homework by creating a group page and sharing it with each other, which helps them to solve their unknown problems. According to Habermas, Social Networking Sites have become a public sphere where people of the same age group share their feelings and emotions with the help of virtual communication.
Social Networking Sites have become a public sphere for adolescence too. They can share their problems and emotions and find out the solution to them. They don’t have to depend upon the tuition tutor where they teach them the knowledge. Nowadays, every adolescence is a teacher. They don’t have to depend upon anyone.
So, for them, it is very positive to interact and break their introverted and shy nature with the help of Social Networking Sites by talking and chatting with different groups of people and being extrovert and frank and fast like other adolescents.
Suggestions to the users of Social Networking Sites by adolescence
Almost 25 students said they don’t want to give suggestions to the users of social networking sites because they think social networking sites only have advantages and are fruitful for adolescence like them.
• The suggestion is that you don’t accept the friend request from an unknown person.
• Adolescence should control using social networking sites.
• Everyone should use social networking sites very carefully without misusing them.
• Everybody should stop cybercrime.
• To be aware of bad activities on social networking sites
Findings
After doing this research, the findings showed that out of 55 students, 45 students think social networking sites are useful to them. They search for different knowledge-based materials, like news. They do homework on these social networking sites. According to them, we have to stay far from its negative sides rather than complain about its effects.
35 of the 55 respondents said Facebook has helped them improve their social networking skills. Whereas, 20 respondents said that it didn’t do any progress. Out of total respondents, 34 said that the chat feature was the best feature on Facebook. 30 out of 55 said the reaction feature on Facebook was the loving factor.
It was found that those who responded to my research were well aware of some negative effects of social networking sites, but they were still using them more than an average amount of time. However, they said Facebook increased their social networking skills but decreased their social esteem.
It was also found that Facebook is one of the mostly used social media by most of the respondent as it provides many interesting features including chat, news feed and informative content. Many were unsure as if Social Networking Site made their work productive or not but looking at the responses, we can conclude that only excessive use of social networking Sites affects the health of adolescents negatively but if spend productively and for informative purpose.
Social Networking Sites are one of the platforms through which people interact and share their opinions with other people. It is one of the mediums through which we can communicate with people around the whole world. It has advantages and disadvantages too. So, parents have to make our children aware of its negative impact and what the negative result will be. They should be given an awareness program by their parents and teachers. Parents must teach them the cyber law, and according to the Electronic Transaction Act 2063, punishment is given to those who commit cybercrime.
The conclusion of this research is that, adolescence is attracted towards social networking sites very deeply. They know the drawbacks of it. Besides that, they ignore it. They are addicted to it. Due to this, they open a number of accounts on different social networking sites to contact and to make friends with the unknown person. And they want to become famous in their group. They don’t know the negative effects of it. They even make relationships with unknown people and share their confidential information to be close to them.
Due to the lack of knowledge and the inappropriate age, they don’t know which path they are going to take. People know that adolescence is the period where youngsters think themselves as true and strong. They don’t listen to anybody’s suggestions, which might spoil their future too. Everyone wants to become famous in society and the unknown people on social networking sites praise them, but the youngsters don’t understand, nor can they read their minds. They only think of them as good people.
Parents don’t take care of their children and they don’t see what their children are doing on the internet. They don’t see whether they are utilizing or misusing the internet. Because of this, many teenagers are facing cyber bullying and losing their lives. Our lives have become easier after the development of the internet. People don’t have to wait to communicate, like in earlier days, people had to depend upon traditional communication tools like the telephone, parrot, radio, and television.
Conclusion
Adolescence, they can’t tackle the problems and do whatever they like. After doing this research, it was determined that adolescent is overly reliant on social networking sites. They only know that social networking sites are only about uploading pictures, passing time and flirting with people all around us.
The opportunities provided by this medium are immense and many organizations are making use of this medium to improve their practices. Media houses, offices, and industry are no longer at the mercy of the media to advertise or convey their messages. With the help of social networking, they can advertise or communicate and interact in a more efficient way. For example, Twitter has started a very successful program in which a person from any part of the world can login to a website and write comments and discuss issues. Similarly, people don’t have to rely on newspapers or TV to get their daily dose of news. It can all be obtained from a social networking site. People can follow or get information from any part of the world. For example, Facebook allows users to follow anything on different issues and they get notifications from that page after posting new information on that page.
Social networking sites, unlike the common media, do not have a pattern as to how much information has to be conveyed and where to draw the line. Too much information may confuse users. Security might be another area of concern where people can get illegal access to a user’s information.
Parents of adolescence should be aware of the facts of what their children are watching and with whom they are talking. In our Nepali society, the relationship between parents and children has not been that much attached. Adolescence dares to talk to their parents about their problems. And parents also don’t feel comfortable talking about their problems. So, parents should be conscious of the way their children are going.
Recommendations
Social Networking Sites has positive aspects as they provide information about different situations. It is bad because it can destroy the lives of adolescents who are immature and who don’t realize the negative effects of social networking sites on their lives.
Adolescence should not accept friend requests in social media from strangers and they should not post anything which will harm their personal life and career. It may harm their careers not now, but in the future. And even if they delete it, it doesn’t count as there is a term called “Digital footprint” which tracks everything and nowadays, when they are in search of a job, those people will first check those digital footprints and then only give them jobs.
They don’t like others’ interference and they don’t trust others, even their family members, but they listen to their friends, which is really harmful for their future and when they grow up. They will realize and regret their mistakes when it is really late. And they need their own privacy. So, it’s better to be careful now so that they won’t regret it later in life and they can also be happy and live a prosperous life.
The users of social networking sites are accelerating in an immediate mode as compared to the past few years. It carries both pros and cons while interpreting its uses. People constantly check and interact on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Everything carries both advantages and disadvantages of its own. The positive impact is that it connects the people who reside at home, as well as friends.
It creates a memory that people cannot forget to live in the moment. Despite having pros, it carries a lot of cons, such as people spending their precious time on social networking media activities like chatting about unusual topics, which mainly interferes with daily life activities and reduces physical interaction too.
Being much addicted to social networking sites has affected the world. So, as for the requirements, some of the suggestions are: Those people who are mostly involved or passing time on social networking sites have been ignoring the notification that occurs on social networking sites.
Use social networking sites only to get needed information regarding adolescence studies or assignments. Adolescence can use social networking sites to utilize their leisure time, which won’t hamper their studies. Adolescence is really addicted, and then they could leave the phone, laptops, and other electronic gadgets. A cell phone is a portable device which makes it easy to carry everywhere we go. It may be in bags or pockets that are easy to use and hang on to for 24/7.
Instead of roaming on unwanted pages, they should find different educational pages like Khulla kitab. These kinds of web pages help them to be studious. And parents should be careful about what type of content their children are watching. Is it good or not? They should be able to see this. And adolescence also frightens us by seeing unwanted pages.
Adolescence has to understand that every beneficial thing might have some disadvantages. They have to be aware of the fact that social networking sites have both advantages and disadvantages and should always focus on the positive aspects of them.
Parents also must make open communication environment so that they are able to talk about their problems. And in Nepali society, there are restrictions on talking about sex, vulgar words and nudity. Parents must teach them about the effects of bad things. And they should teach their children about cybercrime. And the punishment for cybercrime, which can destroy their career and future.
As home is the place where they learn all the things and parents are the ones who always teach us to follow the good path and choose the right path. And adolescents should feel free to share their problems with their near ones. This creates awareness among them. And they won’t commit cybercrime when they find their parents with them and after knowing their parents are seeing their activities.
This way, adolescence must understand that everything in this world has both advantages and disadvantages. And that adolescence must be aware that adolescents are no longer kids and have matured enough to make correct decisions.
References
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