Today, social media is a key part of a teenage life that offers long – term mental health advantages and disadvantages. Nevertheless, a large amount of focus has been put on presenting the negative influence of social media that creates anxiety and concerns the mental well-being of adolescents. For teens, the frequent use of social networking sites can lead to many negative or even harmful effects. Researchers have presume that there is a paradigmatic change that has led adolescents to become vulnerable to humiliation, bullying, damage to one’s name or credibility, or even victimization by others due to inappropriate posts or online exposures. Others have said that the use of adolescent social networking sites (SNS) has risen exponentially, with little research to analyze the effects on adolescent involvement in technology. I say that I agree, adolescents who often use social networking sites more than usual tend to experience such behaviors that are usually noticeable based on the kind of content they are viewing on social media. Since adolescents are mainly the ones that entertain the media, it’s easy to acknowledge the behaviors that they encounter and learn what types of text or post that teens might see that can cause such behavior. In discussions of behavioral changes among adolescents, one controversial issue has been that adolescents bring their offline behavioral issues related to identification, autonomy, peer relationships, sexuality, and risk taking and experience seeking to the social media context. On one hand researcher Justin W. Patchin, hypothesized that in terms of what they share and with whom they share it, there are significant changes in the form of personal content made publicly visible over the two time points and a pattern in which teenagers are becoming increasingly more cautious and discreet on what they share on the media. Although, on the other hand, another researcher, Katherine M. White, contends that to predict regular SNS use, the validity of an expanded theory of planned behavior model (TPB), including the additions to group norm and self-esteem influences within adolescents. Others even maintain to realise the use of SNS and the way teens use it on friends, family, or close relatives for better communication. Some may say that it causes a teen to develop behaviors like drinking or even smoking. My view towards SNS and behavioral changes is that social networking sites are the immediate cause of why most teens start to act out but show positive motives towards teens who use social media daily. I think that teens know the bad effects of using social media but still choose to do so because they know how to handle negative media. I also think SNS use can show effects that can affect their health that adolescents may experience throughout their teenage life.

       Adolescents have a history of using the internet for purposes that includes emailing, gathering information, school work or even communication at most. Over time, the internet has changed into having a big impact on adolescents for social context. Although, social networking sites like Facebook,Snapchat, Instagram, etc., allow adolescents to connect with other users, and view their list of connections and those made by others within the system and have become common online destinations. In the article “Predicting adolescents’ use of social networking sites from an extended theory of planned behaviour perspective” by Rosland Baker and Katherine White, they are predicting the use of social networking sites from adolescents, based on a theory called the Theory of Planned Behaviour. This study is testing whether the Theory Planned Behaviour, a theory initializing that individuals goals are the proximal factors of their conduct, with expectation conceptualized to catch people’s inspiration to play out a given conduct. Researchers are using group norm and self esteem as forms of behavior to predict the engagement of the recurring use of social networking sites (SNS) by adolescents and to explore the influence of self-esteem from the use of social networking sites. They hypothesize that group norm and self-esteem would add to the success of the Theory Planned Behavior in determining the intentions of adolescents in frequent Social Networking Site use. The TPB argues that the motives of people are the distal factors of their behavior, with a constructed intention to capture the motivation of individuals to perform a particular behavior. I agree, because what you see on social media might trigger different kinds of behavior like self esteem, attitude or even mood changes just from what they see on social networking sites. According to Baker and White, says “these findings suggest that adolescents who have more favourable attitudes towards engaging in frequent SNS use, more confidence in their ability to access and utilise SNSs, and believe that frequent SNS use is normative among their friendship group will have stronger intentions to engage in frequent SNS use.”. In other words, the results indicate that adolescents with positive behaviors that engage in frequent use of SNS, have greater pride in their ability to access and use SNSs, and believing that frequent use of SNS is normal among certain friendship groups must have stronger intentions to engage in frequent use of SNS. This shows that teens that use more social networking sites have good intentions when using SNS, especially when they are in friendship groups. 35% of the variables in the study, predict the intentions of adolescents who consistently use SNSs and were stated by the TPB ( theory planned behavior) variables, with attitude and PBC (perceived behavioral control) emerging as the major predictive variable, until all the variables were entered into the regression equation. 

     Adolescents have fully embraced online social networking, by most reports have recently viewed overtime. In the article, “Changes in adolescent online social networking behaviors from 2006 to 2009” by Justin Patchin, discusses the multimedia refinements allowing people to post and connect with relative ease to photos, videos , and audio. Communication features within the site promote easy interaction among a public site that is constantly multitasking and, while doing so, wants speed and efficiency. MySpace, a social media site, that allows users to post a variety of information on who they are and what they are interested in. Generally speaking, to protect themselves when communicating on MySpace, it is hypothesized that young people have become more restrictive with their data. In particular, they suspect that in recent years, adolescents have decreased the extent with which they are either posting revealing images, swearing on publicly viewable pages, demonstrating the use of cigarettes, alcohol, or marijuana and sharing personal details that could be used to locate them. According to Patchin, says “The current research also found that youth are more frequently restricting access to their profiles and less frequently revealing personal information on public profiles. While it is impossible from the current study to know exactly why teens are becoming more concerned about their privacy, it could simply be that messages warning of the consequences of disclosing too much online are being heard and applied”. The author’s point is that adolescents are more likely to have private accounts to hide personal information or picture/videos from people who don’t apply to their friends or close relatives. Privacy is more of an effect towards protecting themselves from unknown users that could be trying to frame them or simply bully them that can be for numerous reasons. The article also mentions that “This also supports the call being made by researchers and Internet safety advocates that promoting education and awareness about these issues – as opposed to increased punitive legislation or reactive technological solutions – is the best preventive tack to take among this population” In which the author is saying that the Internet gives off positive recognition towards teens which shows how responsible teens are when it comes to the internet and how they handle themselves while using social networking sites like MySpace. This study shows that social networking sites have some advantages for adolescents to be using it for a frequent amount of time. Yet on the other hand, there could be disadvantages towards adolescents using social media for a frequent amount of time.

    As the behavioral mechanism of adolescent risk taking and aggressive behaviors has been shown to shift concerning wider social and cultural influences throughout history, the co – existing trends of increased social media usage and changes in risky behaviors among adolescents over the past decade may be connected. According to the article called “ Social media use and risky behaviors in adolescents: A meta-analysis” by Anna Vannucci, Emily Simpson, Sonja Gagnon and Christine Ohannessian, these authors discuss the connections between the use of social media and risky behaviors during adolescence and evaluated features of the study. In the article, the authors, Anna Vannucci, states that, “social media use to important aspects of psychosocial development during adolescence, including self-esteem, social connectedness, peer victimization, internalizing problems, delinquent behaviors, and sexual self-exploration” In making this comment, the authors are trying to tell us that such media from SNS use can encourage others to act a certain way differently like, drink or smoke which connects with mental health issues. This shows the bad behaviors towards social media use towards teens and the negative effects it can cause. Although, I do agree that social media can cause teens to act out of such behavior, I disagree because I believe teens know how to protect themselves from negative problems on the internet. With them having more privacy when it comes to social media, it helps control who you socialize with and prevent issues from strangers.

  So why should teens/adolescents or even parents care? They should care because it is important to know how to protect yourself when using SNS frequently. They should care because it’s good to be aware of what goes on, on the internet. Adolescence is a developmental phase defined by extensive use of social media, high risk behavior rates and increased peer salience. So, the larger issue here concerns millions of teens who are experiencing this on social media now. I think that with knowledge of these sites, adolescents can be more aware when they are online and know what to expect when they are on social media. Although some may have risky behaviors that are negative such as drinking alcohol or smoking, it’s more frequently controlled as to how we socialise online. I think with that with more awareness, adolescents will have positive motives when using social media daily.