Imagine living a life without Social Media. It would be pretty different, right? In a lot of ways, it would be better for teenagers. Teenagers are still figuring out who they are, and social media interferes with that. Social media has been proven to be harmful to teenagers because of dishonest portrayal of their lives, harassment, and mental health issues. 

Social media promotes a very dishonest portrayal of teens´ lives. Teen feel pressured to lie about their lives so they can get the most likes and followers. For example, in the song, Jealousy, Jealousy by Olivia Rodrigo, she says, “Cause all I see are girls too good to be true.” She is cementing the point that the author makes in Teens are more anxious than ever: is social media to blame? that we don’t usually see people as they are, because they want to look perfect because we ”measure our worth to our likes and followers.” In the Commonlit Text, Social media: What's Not to Like? The author states, ”More than adults do, teens present idealized versions of themselves online.” the word idealized means the PhotoShopped versions of our selves we want people to see. Because we compare ourselves to the likes and followers of others, we measure our worth by our own, twisting our image into an idealized version of ourselves, the result being all of the ''girls too good to be true''.

Although there are ''Report'' flags and block buttons, harassment still happens. It doesn't just go away with a click of a button. Pew Research Center sent out a survey about online harassment to 743 teens, and 1,058 parents of teens. 59% of the participants said that either themselves or their child experienced online harassment. 42% experienced offensive name calling. 32% experienced the spreading of false rumors about them. 25% received explicit images they didn't ask for. 21% were constantly asked where they are, who they're with, by someone other than a parent. 16% were physically threatened. 7% had explicit images shared of them without consent. 1063 of the participants have been harassed, or their child was, online, through social media. What stopped these predators? Absolutely nothing. From the article, The State of Online Harassment written in January of 2021, Pew Research Center surveyed 10,093 U.S adults in September. One of the questions asked where they experienced the online harassment. 75% said they experienced harassment on social media, the highest number.  That’s 7,569 people. According to a study done by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center, “A survey of more than 6,000 10-18-year-olds from June to August last year found that about 50% of children had experienced at least one kind of cyberbullying in their lifetime” That’s about 3,000 kids.

 All of this can lead to mental health issues, constantly feeling like you're not good enough. In the text, “Your Brain on Social Media: How Instagram Affects Your Brain” the author cited a study done by the University of Pennsylvania, where the researchers took two groups of people, and for one group, they limited the time on social media they could use to one hour, but for the other group they had no limit. When they finished the study, they interviewed the participants. The group with a limit said that they felt “less depressed and lonely than those without the limit.” This evidence is relevant because the people without limits on social media felt depressed and lonely. These feelings come from the comparison that people make between themselves and the flat, two dimensional lives of those they see on social media. In the article, “Teens Say Social Media Isn’t as Bad for Them as You Might Think” it is mostly based around how teens think social media isn’t all bad, but they argue the other side also, saying that “45% of teens say that they feel overwhelmed by the drama on social media, and 26% percent (a minority, but a sizable one) say that it makes them feel worse about there own lives.'' Because they feel so overwhelmed by the ''drama'' on social media, they develop stress issues. From the article, Social Media: Whats not to Like? It has a section titled Online Drama where the author talks about the drama and how  ''Social media seems to turn up the drama. That’s because others can watch the performance simply by hopping online. And they can encourage that drama by liking particular posts or comments.'' so, not only is it turning up the drama overwhelming them in the first place, others can encourage the drama, stoking the fire, making it worse. 

Social media has been proven to be harmful to teenagers because of dishonest portrayal of their lives, harassment, and mental health issues. Constantly lying and having to keep up with the lies, just so you can get a few likes, maybe a follower or two, causes a lot of stress for nothing. Harassment is the same way. You know you can’t stop it, that it will just keep coming, no matter how many times you click the flag. Both of these lead to and even worse problem, mental health issues. Please, don’t post on social media. Keep it if you want, but don’t post, or close the comments on each one you do. It will save you lots of stress, and it will keep you happy.