1. IMPACT OF MEDIA/INTERNET/MOBILE ON
ADOLESCENTS
Dr SAJEENA S
ICSSR Post Doctoral Research Fellow
School of Pedagogical Sciences
MG University
2. Children and adolescents spent a considerable portion of their time
watching television, movies, playing videogames and on the internet.
Media has proved to be a very useful tool in the fields of education,
arts, science, sports, and culture.
Over the past few decades, there has been a surge in the use of media
by the younger generations and concern has been raised about the
impact of media on children because of research reports of long term
harmful effects.
Media use is a double edged sword with both merits and demerits and
it is therefore imperative for parents to understand the effect of media
exposure on children in order to understand and handle problems
resulting from this exposure better.
3. It is becoming increasingly clear that social networks have become part of
people’s lives.
Many adolescent people are using their laptops, tablet computers and smart
phones to check Tweets and status updates from their friends and family.
Due to the advancement in technology, people are pressured to accept different
lifestyles.
Social networking sites can assist young people to become more socially
capable.
Social media is a web-based form of data communication.
Social media platforms allow users to have conversations, share information and
create web content.
Social media has different forms, together with blogs, micro-blogs, wikis, social
networking sites, photo-sharing sites, instant messaging, video-sharing sites,
podcasts, widgets, virtual worlds, and more.
4. The increased exposure to the media has profound effects on
the development and functioning of children and adolescents
today.
Media has been found to have a negative impact on the
physical, psychological and social development of children.
In particular, the effect of media in the areas of violence and
aggression; obesity, nutrition, and eating disorders; substance
use and early sexual initiation have to be taken into special
consideration.
5. Children cannot discriminate between reality and
fantasy. They lack adult reasoning abilities and may
perceive TV shows as being realistic and shape their
behaviours accordingly.
Media violence cannot be considered a lone cause of
violence in the youth of today. But the use of violence
to achieve goals and to settle conflicts is learned
behaviour.
Adolescents who are exposed to violence or are
victims of violence in their homes or communities are
more likely to use violence themselves.
6. This goes to show that witnessing of violence is an
important determinant of violent behaviour and media
violence represents the witnessing of violence in a very
explicit and graphic fashion.
Media and substance abuse studies have examined the
relationship between TV advertising of alcohol and
drinking knowledge, beliefs and intention to later
drinking in children.
The results showed that children with more exposure to
advertisements of alcohol held more favourable beliefs
about drinking and more frequently intended to drink as
adults.
7. Media and obesity: Children today tend to spend
their leisure time on the television, computer or video
games rather than playing or indulging in other
physical activities.
There is a significant association between playing
electronic video games and obesity with a twofold
increased risk of obesity for every hour spent playing
electronic games daily.
The mechanism of effect of media exposure on
obesity may also operate through the extensive
advertising messages for unhealthy foods targeted at
children.
8. Media and other behavioural problems :
The time spent on the television and other forms of
entertainment media significantly reduce a child’s time for
activities necessary for the healthy development like
playing, reading, storytelling and spending time with peers
and family.
Studies have demonstrated a deleterious effect of watching
more than one to two hours of television per day on
academic performance.
9. Excess television viewing causes poor peer relationships
and thereby increases the risk of social isolation, anxiety
disorder and agoraphobia.
Studies have shown that TV viewing may play an
exacerbating, if not causal, role in the development of
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and that excessive
TV viewing in adolescence is a risk factor for development
of depression in young adulthood.
10. Internet
Around the world more than eighty percent of our youths are spending a large amount
of time on internet.
For the simple reason that the internet was introduced at a very young age into their
lives, the new generation of children and adolescents became the first groups to use
internet on a large scale and among the first to begin experiencing problems associated
with excessive internet use.
Engaging in various forms of social media is a routine activity that has shown to benefit
children and adolescents by enhancing communication, social connection and even
technical skills.
The Internet is a research site for testing theories of technology diffusion and media
effects capable of integrating modes of communication and terms of content.
11. Due to their limited capacity for self-regulation
and susceptibility to peer pressure, children and
adolescents are at some risks as they navigate and
experiment with social media.
There are frequent online expressions of offline
behaviours such as bullying, clique-forming and
sexual experimentation that have introduced
problems such as cyberbullying, privacy issues
and sexting.
Other problems associated with social media
awareness include internet addiction and
concurrent sleep deprivation.
12. Today, for adolescents, the internet is acting as a new social environment
where their issues are being explored.
A transformation is being noted in how they communicate, establish and
maintain relationships and find social support.
Using social media becomes a risk to adolescents more often than adults
realize.
These risks fall into the following categories; peer to peer, inappropriate
content, lack of understanding of online–privacy issues and outside
influence of third party advertising groups under the following:
13. Cyberbullying and online harassment:
This is a process of using digital media to communicate false,
embarrassing or hostile information about another person.
It is the most common online risk for all teens and is a peer-
to-peer risk.
Online harassment is often used inter changeably with the
term “cyberbullying”.
Cyberbullying is quite common and can cause profound
psychological outcomes including depression, anxiety, severe
isolation and tragically suicide.
14. Sexting:
It is a sending, recording or forwarding sexually explicit
messages, photographs or images via cell phones,
computer or other digital devices.
Most times, these images are distributed through cell
phones or the internet.
In many circumstances however, the sexting incident is not
shared beyond a small peer group or a couple.
15. Facebook Depression:
Excessive chatting on face book have proposed a new phenomenon
called “Facebook depression” defined as depression that develops
when pre-teens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media
sites such as face book and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms
of depression.
Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of
adolescents’ life.
The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may
trigger depression in some adolescents.
As with offline depression, preadolescents and adolescents who
suffer from face book depression are at risk for social isolation and
sometimes turn to risky internet sites and blogs for “help” that may
promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices or oppressive or
self-destructive behaviours.
16. Defective social relationship:
Spending countless hours on the internet, children spend very
limited time with family and actual friends.
This weakens the family bond and limit interaction with actual
people.
These children miss out on real life interaction with different
relatives which results in distorted social skills and limited real-
life social network leading to social isolation.
The adolescents who do not have close friendships consistently
have lower levels of self-esteem and psychological symptoms of
maladjustment.
When people have more social contact, they are happier and
healthier both physically and mentally.
17. Distorted Senescence of reality:
Surveys showed that half of teens, ages 13 – 18 often communicate through internet
with someone they have not met in person.
Many social media sites display multiple advertisements such as banner ads,
behaviour ads that target people on the basis of their web-browsing behaviour and
demographic-based ads that target people on the basis of a specific factor such as
age, gender, education, marital status etc.
This influences not only the tendencies of preadolescents and adolescents but also
their views of what is normal.
It is pertinent for parents to be aware of the behavioural ads because they are
common on social media sites and operate by gathering information on the person
using a site.
18. Internet Addiction
DSM-5 has included Internet addiction as a disorder and it is a world-wide issue
now.
It can be broadly defined as a non-chemical, behavioural addiction which involves
human machine interaction. Internet addiction poses risks to youth’s mental health,
and may likely produce negative consequences in everyday life.
Internet Addiction Disorder referring to a condition where people who compulsively
and excessively use the internet, achieve a high from such use and continue to use
the internet despite of a serious negative consequences. In essence, the internet
controls the life causing severe disruptions.
19. Symptoms of adolescence internet addiction
Excessive time: Adolescents devote increasing amounts of time to the internet. This involves all forms of
internet activity.
Withdrawal from friends, activities: As the teen spends more and more time online and not in the physical
company of others, the pattern emerges that he or she withdraws from friends and normal activities.
Lies: When asked about time spent online, adolescents try to give elaborate and fabricated dissertations to
divert parental attention from the fact that they are spending too much time online.
Fatigue and other physical symptoms: Can see dark circles under eyes, blood shot eyes, looks and acts
sleep deprived. They seem tired all the time due to the fact that they stay up late or get up early so that they
can be on the internet
Denial: They won’t accept the fact that they are spending time for internet, instead they say that the time is
for study.
Poor grades: As a result of increased time spent on internet, decreased attention paid to activities and
responsibilities lead to poor performance.
Emotional outbursts: When asked about the time spent online, adolescents may erupt in an emotional
outburst, be angry or irritable whenever they are not online.
20. The main risk to preadolescents and adolescents online today is risks from each
other, risks of improper use of technology, lack of privacy, sharing too much
information, or posting false information about themselves or others.
These types of behaviour put their privacy at risk. When Internet users visit various
Web sites, they can leave behind evidence of which sites they have visited.
This collective, on-going record of one's Web activity is called the “digital
footprint.”
One of the biggest threats to young people on social media sites is to their digital
footprint and future reputations.
Preadolescents and adolescents who lack an awareness of privacy issues often post
inappropriate messages, pictures, and videos without understanding that “what goes
online stays online.”
21. Treatment for internet addiction
Professional counselling often proves effective in moderating internet addiction.
Such counselling may utilize various approaches, modelled after treatment for other additive
behaviours.
Psychological intervention may involve changing the environment in which the adolescents normally
interact with the computer.
It may involve altering the associations the teens have with the internet, or decreasing the reinforcement
that receives from the internet use.
Identification of triggers involved in internet addiction is another important area where psychological
counselling is important.
Training in social skills development and communications is also recommended as they are become
more addicted to the internet so socially withdrawn and lack the ability to communicate easily with
others on face to face basis.
22. Mobile Phone
Proponents of cell phone use strongly feel that cell phones are inappropriate tools for learning as
they are actually harmful.
Commonly cited negative effects of cell phone use in education include, chatting and texting
when students should be studying.
Public use of cell phones transforms our roles from social participants to observer or user.
In other words, it is not just the student using a cell phone who is affected but also the one who
is studying closer to the user thereby constituting a disturbance to proximate others.
Students who are preoccupied with their mobile phones tend to experience psychological
disturbances, depression, lower self-esteem and interpersonal anxiety when they study without
their cell phones.
23. The academic performances of students can get impacted very
badly.
Students get easily distracted and carried away by instant chats,
memes, watching Facebook and downloading apps.
This can invariably have its own set of consequences when it
comes to achieving robust performances in academics.
There are students who download educational apps too to help
them cope up with their studies in a better manner.
24. Indulge in Pornography
As mobile phone devices come to you with an open-ended email access system, there
are students who indulge in various forms of misconduct too.
Teenagers download porn videos or scintillating audio clippings too.
These can easily be circulated via FB messenger, WhatsApp and Snap Chat. Other
students get easy access to sex sites and porn stuff.
Again, this can leave a detrimental impact on the healthy well-being of society.
25. Anti-Social Activities
As mobile phones and data devices have come to each and every household, one
can easily say that terrorism is on the rise.
Anti-social militants just change multiple SIM cards to unveil their area of
operations.
As students get easy access to money, they indulge themselves in terrorist activities
as well.
Data hackers too stalk innocent victims or can steal confidential banking details of
innocent people.
Cyber-crime and anti-social activities are definitely on the rise, with easy access to
cell phones or mobile tablets.
26. Class-Hours Getting Disrupted
In schools or colleges, it can be found that students secretly carrying their cell
phones or mobile tablets.
These keep buzzing. Else teacher’s phone keep ringing. This can disrupt the
class hours.
Teachers or College professors are unable to continue with their classes when
phones keep ringing continuously.
As for students, they keep looking at each other and distract themselves from
what is happening in the class. Even the brighter students end up losing out
their grades when this happens.
27. Series of Health Problems
Most of the smart-phones emit radiation as against user-friendly LED
screens.
This can have a series of health hazards apart from eye-infections
alone.
Quite a lot of us put the hands-free while listening to news clippings,
watching videos or listening to music. For students and grown-up
adults, this can impact the delicate tendons, situated near the ear-
drum.
Quite a lot of teenagers buy invisible hearing-aids to combat this
particular issue.
Radiation impact can also lead to blockage of heart, coronary
disorders etc.
Cancers can also be caused when you are exposed to radiation over-
time.
28. Recommendation
Discuss with parents the importance of supervising online activities via active
participation and communication as opposed to remote monitoring with a “net-
nanny” programme to monitor the internet in the absence of parents.
Discuss with families the need for a family online-use plan that involves
regular family meetings to discuss online topics and checks of privacy settings
and online profiles for inappropriate posts. The emphasis should be on
citizenship and healthy behaviour and not punitive action unless truly
warranted.
Advice parents to talk to their children and adolescents about their online use
and the specific issues that today’s online kids face
29. Advice parents to work on their own participation gap in their homes by becoming
better educated about the many technologies youngsters are using.
Educators are expected to increase their knowledge of digital technology so that they
can have a more educated frame of reference for the tools their parents/clients and
families are using.
Families can be provided with information on challenging issues that kids face online
and reputable online resources like public education site, healthy children.org and
social media.
There is need for schools to incorporate topics in guidance and counselling department
that are related with influence of media on student behaviour. This will help students to
embrace both positive and negative impacts of media in their day to day life.
30. The Government, Non-Governmental organizations and other educational
institutions should work closely with Ministry of education to support
programmes in media related channels to enlighten schools and the general
public on risks and benefits associated with media use.
Parents should be in the forefront in monitoring media access by their
children, discussing media effects and reinforcing positive messages among
their children. More so, parents should act as role models to their children.
Teachers should closely monitor media use by students in schools to ensure
they access rightful information.
Students should be self-disciplined in accessing media content
