Psychological Impact of Social Networking Sites on Teenagers

I. INTRODUCTION

In spite of the initial invention for the adults, computers, and computing devices are now engrossed by teenagers, especially for their social objectives. They are now the smartphone-laptop expertise of the families that also include social networking. In Facebook, MySpace, the maximum chunk of the users are teens and young generation where parents sometimes follow their kid's activities in social networking sites. On the basis of current information, maybe an underestimating figure, 73% people use these social networking sites [1]. Furthermore, in spite of regulations that no kids under 13 are allowed, Facebook has almost 7.5 million younger kids as users [2]. Most importantly, the duration of the use of Social media is more astonishing, on average 11 hours in a day is spent over these sites by teens from 11-18 years of ages [3]. Young adults use half an hour on just Facebook itself. It has become a habit for teens to check Social media posts in the morning after getting up, and at the end of their days. Their solitary actions are hampered majorly and make lives indisputable. Although the effects on teens mentality, lifestyles as well as personal growth are now comprehended primarily. The research on puberty has been aimed at the growth of one's identity and creation of friendships and social connections mostly [4]. Making an identity for own and fitting into that shell is two major jobs of teenagers people. All these to get affiliations easily and gaining popularity among friends [5]. In spite of the divergence, the interrelation between the necessity of one's individual identity for better private bondings and stronger group acceptances is omnipresent as far as teenage lives are concerned [6]. These evidently intervene with Social Networking site use. The literature about these social networking sites and teens‘ interest in fitting investigates if social networking utilizes widens and intensifies their existing social bondings or broadens acquaintances in novel ways. The childhood buddies and associations are still there in shared actions and ideas; on the other hand, teenager‘s friendships are engaged in terms of faith, expression, Self-revealing and sense of commitment. Besides, social networking sites can

association with the advantages teens might get from such social networks. Novel and fresh scopes along with challenging avenues are offered by social networking sites to showcase own ability. In case of one-on-one conversations like Facebook messengers, teens can speak of their choices, what they like, what they don't, their ideas about some aspect, and receive an impromptu response. Social networking sites enable them to make a conversation with a known or an unknown about a particular subject [7]. In spite of the existence of different types of patterns to communicate in social networking sites, the young teens can choose from the range depending upon what kind of self-representing information they want to share. Hence, as these social networking sites get advanced, maximum teens will circulate or share personal data widely in terms of different intensities of authenticity, honesty, and frankness which were earlier shared with a handful of close friends or kept as private. The question is do the teens project themselves properly or correctly in these social media and if overuse of such virtual sites can influence or hamper their identity formation? Apart from these two growing works, teens can add online groups showing their identity-oriented factors which they think of exploring. In this way, Social Networking Sites may increase factors of self-discovery and expand group identities as well. Furthermore, social networking sites build ways for teens to indulge in works, teams, and convictions as per their preferences. In terms of teenage influences, Social rivalry or comparing attitude is a vital aspect of social networking impacts. Inviting or getting invited to parties and gatherings for celebrating some good achievements like winning a game or admission in a reputed institution is showing off one‘s own successes apart from just sharing with others. It creates comparative mentality among teenagers. Likewise, false or problematic news like bad or objection images, wrong or disturbing information (mishaps or police issues) get viral through social networking sites within a fraction of seconds. Teenagers people's impulsive nature of spreading the news through Social Networking Sites rapidly may create negative impacts and also disturb their private space as well [8].

In this literature review, the way through which social networking sites influence teens‘ and young adults‘ social and identity creation is discussed. Firstly, the summary of hypotheses and views in terms of providing a network of Social Networking Sites utilization and consequences for young generation along with (b) identity creation. Lastly, recommendations for upcoming researches are given which demand more concentration and work on the processes of social networking sites impacting the teen's psychological states instead of just studying the good vs bad effects.

To look at the crossing point of social networking utilize and pre-adult improvement, we led an inquiry on PsycINFO and Google Scholar utilizing a few consideration criteria. To begin with, we hunt down articles looking at utilisation of social networking sites from 2006 to the present, as 2006 is the year that Facebook opened to any person more than 13 who had a legitimate email address [9]. Watchwords looked incorporated the blends of "immature" with "Web correspondence," "electronic correspondence," "informal communication webpage," "PC intervened correspondence," "Facebook," and "MySpace," in conjunction with seek terms identified with the key errands of pre-adult improvement, including "peer connections," "kinship quality," "character," "closeness," and "self-sufficiency." We additionally analysed related articles from reference arrangements of the subsequent investigations from the above inquiries. In this writing audit, we incorporate articles that address the connection between social networking utilize and errands of juvenile advancement, concentrating on peer relationship and character improvement, particularly, with an accentuation on considers including pre-adult examples. Also, select articles analysing school tests were incorporated that connection social networking use to results pertinent to juvenile advancement. Since this writing is developing at an abnormally quick pace [10], our survey distinguishes and blends agent articles of the present themes of the audit. With the continuous presentation of new innovation and applications, attributes of social networking sites additionally change quickly. Though "MySpace" was before the social networking of the decision and the subject of early research [11], this social networking is once in a while utilized today. Facebook is presently the social networking of decision, yet this, as well, is conceivably losing ubiquity [12] with different social networking sites quickly grabbing hold, e.g., Formspring, an inventive, more mysterious social networking that began in 2009 and after that close down in spring 2013. Specifically for this examination area, the quickly advancing adjustments in innovation and subsequent modifications in youths' utilization of the innovation show challenges when outlining, directing, and looking at thinks about on social usefulness.

Most of the empirical works till now, about teen use of social networking sites are focused on the researcher-devised questionnaire. This extract response from the participants through self-reporting. The behavioral questions mostly included and investigated about the duration of social networking use (on average basis) [14], amount or intensity of usage (e.g., Chou & Edge, 2012), and, on fewer instances, time of use, for example during bedtime [15]. Internet addiction test was used to assess the internet and allied behaviors which were a 20-item scale analyzing mandatory use, alteration of mentality, and operational impediment because of Internet use ―Do you feel depressed, moody, or nervous when you are offline, and it vanishes once you‘re back to it?‖). Less or shorter list of questions is also there, in case of Morahan-Martin and Shumacher‘s (2000) 13-item scale. It evaluates alike aspects, covering mental pressure, inattentiveness in studies and poor marks, as well as interpersonal issues in association with internet usage. Such ways judge internet use generally, not exclusively Social networks [16]. Many researchers understand possible restrictions, related to self-report partialities. For instance, if someone is asked about the number of their Facebook pals, it might be some illusionary or false number as it reciprocates the degree of popularity among teens [17]. They also could ignore the distracting or interfering aspect of social networking on their day-to-day lives, and may not report properly on other behavioral issues. Moreover, they might not calculate exact time given to social networking as they might do studies or seeing TVs or have dinner at the time of doing social networking. Another aspect is often teens like to remain online all this while even though they do some other works.

Experimenting situations were utilized by other researches which alter a few characteristics of the social networking sites for exploring influences of that aspect. One work by Gonzales and Hancock (2011) was used to study and extract the public attributes of social networking utility where the researchers questioned the respondents to finish question sets either standing in front of a mirror or by looking at their Facebook profile [18]. Thomaes and colleagues (2010) altered the responses (positive vs. negative) while getting responded to a private homepage they made casually [19]. Their self- responses from people assessing their profiles. Contrarily, Haferkamp and Kramer (2011) focused on the social comparison factor of social network sites through analyzing the impacts of seeing others‘ profiles in terms of success and physical attractiveness [20]. The researchers put forth the respondents with online profiles with respect to those who had been successful or not-so-successful and those who were either physically attractive or unattractive. Such standardization oriented virtual communications are information-rich in separating precise aspects of social networking sites, however, becomes insufficient in terms of environmental authentication, especially in terms of exploration that seeks through the real documents of young people‘s social networking habit.

Although fewer now increasing the number of social networking sites related researchers investigate the particular topic of social networking communications, covering those from teen Facebook feeds. One of such studies used people‘s ten most current Facebook feeds, stated by the respondents themselves and used organized coding of those feeds for positive, negative and number of likes as an assessment [10]. Generally, when profiles remain public, observatory attention is known of on those profiles. However, the genuineness of the information can still be doubted and this may not go along with the Facebook rules or self-describing. Nowadays, teenagers are boosted and informed to use privacy settings to keep private information safe.

Teenagers seem to get involved in social comparing aspect, whether it‘s upward or downward and such things may influence their minds and self-esteem to great extent [15]. It‘s the bunch of social networking sites that make teens prone to draw a comparison between themselves and their friends, just by seeing through some images or posts on Facebook. For instance, a survey of 425 undergraduates showed that according to them, their Facebook usage intensity is associated with the happiness or pleasure belief. In spite of spending considerable time with pals at outside, those people using the Facebook for prolonged time or duration felt that they were less happy compared to others [1]. Physical look or beauty is one more vital aspect to compare where teenage girls reporting somewhat negative response after watching at elegant against less attractive images on a social media platform [19]. Success comes after this as a factor where boys or

Very less is reported regarding the real-time influences on teenagers when they get to know about other people‘s social lives, works, mostly about images on social networks where they weren‘t allowed or. Young generation loves to flaunt their cool images and share attention-seeking information about them and virtual comparisons make things worse beyond their imagination.

Young adults grow a feeling or start knowing themselves by means of their social and personal connections and many of them want to find these on social networking sites. A few may want to know persons or connections out of their day-to-day communications. While some other teens may not feel easy in direct communications as they prefer to be anonymous of the social networking. Some even like to be around those whom they can‘t see regularly. NS groups include those teens that have a certain feature that might empower others with respect to news and support.

If some teenagers are going through the chronic illnesses, there are support groups that can be quite significant means where they can discuss about their experience or try to do something about the pain and obstacles they go through. Environment of internet is ideal for support groups as they can provide resources to the teenagers who cannot stay away from their home. McLaughlin et al (2012) developed a social networking which was modeled after Facebook [21]. On that social network site, young cancer survivors made their respective profiles, upload their pictures, stories and additional information. Young adults who were most active on that website were the ones who had very less support from their family and friends and the ones who felt different. There was a research conducted where ill and healthy teenagers were involved in an online focus group. The advantages were shown for ill teenagers related with sharing stories online and being provided with the active support. Sharing stories was a kind of an educational purpose too for the healthy teenagers where there was understanding for the ones with illness. These authors have stated that the teenagers that had the courage to share their stories regarding their illness expressed themselves and were heard and read by others while the ones who read and heard their stories online had a chance to learn from them [5].

Social Networking Sites have a significant part to play in expressing the ethnic identity and tolerance issues which American Indian teenagers go through [22]. It can help teenagers in being involved in e-commerce of culturally based craft products. There are also people who use Facebook where they can express ethnic identity as there are Facebook accounts of African American, Latino, Indian, Vietnamese and Caucasian college students where the ethnic minorities have included detailed ―about me‖ section in their profiles. Ethnic minority people in this research have emphasized their culture while giving their description and there is use of historic quotes by well-known personalities of same ethnicity. According to the authors, the social networking sites allows the minorities the way through which they can express positive self-portraits where ethno-racial identity is focused and that might contribute to a more positive self-concept. Tynes, Giang, and Thompson (2008) had a report where self-report ethnic identities were measured, and it was seen that there was stronger ethnic identity in ethnic minority social networking in comparison to the European American social networking[23]. Although European Americans had an opportunity where they could connect with diverse groups online.

Social Networking Sites (social networking sites) are also used by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) teenagers as they can express themselves through it. LGBT teenagers had stated that Internet is pretty beneficial as teenagers can talk about sexual orientation with more comfort in comparison to face-to-face discussion and can connect with LGBT peers in a proper way [24]. There was a research lately which evaluated the use of social networking sites as a tool to reach out to LGBT youth as there is a possibility of suicide among them. It was shown by social networking network mapping that online intervention can connect with more than 100,000 LGBT youth ranged 16 to 24 years of age. As far as we know, there has been no study so far which has clearly evaluated whether the teenagers using social networking sites to connect with other sexual minority teenagers deems this as useful and if they do then how it is useful. Social networking is a place where one cannot just develop their identity but can also get a response which might change their self-perception. Even though Social Networking Sites make it easier for those people to come out, according to the research, youth should not reveal about themselves to just about anybody. Youth is seen constructing the information which they share in indirect ways, so they can attract various kinds of people. Social networking can also be called as an active process as self-perceptions of people are they can express themselves in an accurate way and can know response of other people which can possibly cause indirect changes in them and make quick movements in their identity which are not within their alterations. Initial outcomes have shown that there is a possibility of social networking sites providing an environment that can ease the interaction of teenagers with their peers who are not like them which would create understanding, compassion and sincerity [25]. Teenagers can also take parts in the groups which show various elements of their identity. There are a few ethnic, racial and sexual minority teenagers who take help of social networking sites, so they can explore their identity related problems and look out for help, assistance and social connections which are not face-to-face. There is a connection between individual expressions of identity, which can be via a Facebook profile, and the group affiliations of teenagers online and that connection is an active element of identity development which has not yet been associated with the literature. There are social comparisons being made online which can strongly affect the self-perceptions of teenagers. Positive or negative response to someone‘s profile can have a connection with the self-esteem of an teenagers. The things that teenagers reveal online, the people to whom they reveal and the way they are affected with the response are the things which can make a big difference in understanding social-emotional development of teenagers.

Social networking sites have the capacity to offer valuable, economically valid information regarding the nature of computer mediated communications of teenagers but it stays intact. Transcripts from Facebook posts are effective opportunities which should be followed and it can be seen by some researches that evaluate the types of computer-mediated communication. Coding Social Networking Sites for the assistance of peers, co-rumination, disapproval or cancellation are the significant ways for studies and have been the focus of research which evaluates teenagers peer interaction. The social networking interactions are authenticated and acknowledged and can show how teenagers talk with each other which is an advantage of social networking interactions. There have been studies where the focus was on frequency and duration of the use of social networking and the actual content of social profiles visible to public had stated that they were very much comfortable with use of their profiles for the study purposes. There have been researches where some of them are still in process and in those researches Facebook applications have been used as a feature which permits researches to download and evaluate online social exchanges of teenagers. Such researches provide authentication though they impose certain obstacles especially if the teenagers are communicating with other identifiable people. There are ways which keep increasing that can help in de-identifying an individual and remove the information of a specific content but later there are restrictions posed on the capacity of researcher to associated social networking information with other known information regarding the participants. Researching about the content can lead to the disclosure of significant changes in self-presentation, interests, likes and motivations for use of social networking in those ages. There are longitudinal comparisons for same people who are probably confused by social networking guidelines development, formatting and options and security and access controls which changes quickly and the group comparisons can be helpful in identifying the resemblances and dissimilarities in the style of how the people interact and communicate.

Global measures of friendship quality and happiness cannot show the time-linked connections between use of social networking and the current mood, thoughts or behavior. There are approaches like Ecological Momentary Assessment and daily report data which can assess within-person co-variation between use of social networking and relevant teenager‘s outcomes and they can display the role of use of social networking in everyday life of teenagers in a better way. The way those sites can have an impact on the current mood and teenagers‘ sense of peer support can be explored. Bi-directional effects like the degree to which teenagers turn to social networking sites when in a negative or positive mood can be explored too. There have been some cases of ―Facebook depression‖ where it was seen that use of Facebook can cause depressive symptoms in certain teenagers but not every research which evaluates use of social networking and depression consider this true. Individual differences in the beginning were taken into the consideration where a research on young adults shown that the young adults who used social networking sites and had low levels of social acceptance in the beginning at the age of 21 had decreased internalizing symptoms by the time they were 22. The social networking users who had high

who increase their stress by themselves via rapid-fire exchanges even when they are in emotionally unstable condition. There should be in-depth research on within-day spillover of interpersonal stress and support between use of social networking and face-to-face communications as that would be of much help.

Teenagers spending a little bit of time alone and by them have been proven ideal as the ones who spend sufficient time along have a better adjustment to display in comparison to those who rarely spend time alone or not at all. There has been some focus towards the outcomes of social networking sites‘ violation on the alone time of teenagers. Even though majority of the teenagers do not prefer spending alone time and would rather be in constant contact with friends or family, some along time can be quite helpful for teenagers so they can develop emotion regulation abilities and sense of self-efficiency once they come through stress psychosocial experiences. In the past, teenagers used to spend most of the day where they could not be in contact with friends and would depend on their own thoughts and individual resources so they can pass the day but nowadays as the use of internet has increased, teenagers spend more time finding support and response from friends which is inversely related to internal locus of control and would most probably have an effect on teenagers‘ development of emotion regulation and autonomy as they all are quite significant for identity development and can have some effects later on. Teenagers expect themselves to always be available to their friends and are worried about offending a friend by not responding quickly and these can drive them away from other activities. The researches in future should be covering the topics such as the degree to which teenagers are involved in use of social networking due to interest and desire against peer pressure and the subject of identifying the teenagers who are most pressured to stay online.

There are significant new directions such as using internet as a tool to improve knowledge of teenagers and to get involved online. There are bits of significant data in post-hoc examination of social networking sitesof teenagers who have tried to suicide. There can be use of better documentation and understanding of that information to enhance public and professional knowledge regarding the initial indications of dangerous behavior. There might be some social networking behaviors which can be useful for youth in identifying their increased risk for

It is difficult to find a balance between autonomy and connectedness in the age of adolescence. With the use of Internet and Social Networking Sites, there are new perspectives through which one can try out new identities to learn and try new social skills and make connections. There are a few positive effects of social networking sites upon psychosocial development of teenagers which is pointed out by literature. Those effects comprise of improved poor relationships, increased chances to connect, being involved in groups which are not easily accessible inside traditional social background and more events where self-revelation can be done, and all of these can improve the comfort. As per the previously seen data it can be seen that especially the socially skilled teenagers are benefitted from the use of social networking. There were a few possible costs of use of social networking such as pressure for self-revelation, possibility of unequal amount of negative response, possibility of unhealthy social comparisons. The introduction of television was a strong technological innovation which changed the society and changed how the children and teenagers spend their time and due to that the beginning of the study of use of social networking mainly emphasized on recognizing positive and negative influences. There has been decrease in concerns associated with use of social networking, upcoming studies can now find out about the ways to use the potential for adaptive psychosocial development of teenagers.

1. Lenhart, A. (2009). Teens and mobile phones over the past five years: Pew Internet looks back. Pew Internet and American Life Project, pp. 1–17. 2. That Facebook friend (2011) might be 10 years old, and other troubling news. Consumer Reports Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/june/electronics-computers/state-of-the-net/facebook-concerns/index.htm. 3. Kaiser Family Foundation (2010). Total media exposure, by age. Media and Health. Retrieved from: http://facts.kff.org/chart.aspx?ch=1368. 4. Institute of Medicine (2010). The science of teenagers risk-taking Summary of a workshop. Workshop Highlights. Retrieved Taking/Teenagers%20Risk%202010%20Highlights.pdf. 5. Brown, J. (2008). Managing the media monster: The influence of media (from television to text messages) on teen sexual behavior and attitudes. Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. 6. Crosnoe, R. and Johnson, M. K. (2011). Research on adolescence in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, pp. 439–460. 7. Collins, W. A. and Steinberg, L. (2006). Teenagers development in interpersonal context. In: Damon W, Lerner R, Eisenberg N, editors. Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development. 6th Ed. New York: Wiley, pp. 1003–1067. 8. Forest, A. L. and Wood, J. V. (2012). When social networking is not working: Individuals with low self-esteem recognize but do not reap the benefits of self-disclosure on Facebook. Psychological Science, 23(3), pp. 295–302. 9. Abram, C. (2006). Welcome to Facebook, everyone. The Facebook Blog, 26. 10. Wilson, R. E., Gosling, S.D., Walther, J. B., Liang, Y., DeAndrea, D. C., Tong, S.T., Carr C. T., Spottswood, E. L. and Amichai-Hamburger, Y. (2011). The effect of feedback on identity shift in computer mediated communication. Media Psychology, 14, pp. 1–26. 11. Kujath, C. L. (2011). Facebook and MySpace: Complement or substitute for face-to-face interaction? Cyber psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(1–22), pp. 75–78. 12. Guynn, J. and Faughnder, R. (2012). Some teens don‘t like Facebook as much as older users. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com. 13. Yen, J., Ko, C., Yen, C., Wu, H. and Yang, M. (2007). The comorbid psychiatric symptoms of Internet addiction: Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, social phobia, and hostility. Journal of Teenagers Health, 41(1), pp. 93–98. and adolescence. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 29, pp. 253–269. 14. Van den Bulck, J. (2007). Teenagers use of mobile phones for calling and for sending text messages after lights out: Results from a prospective cohort study with a one-year follow-up. Sleep, 30(9), pp. 1220–1223. 15. Morahan-Martin, J. and Shumacher, P. (2000). Incidence and correlates of pathological Internet use among college students. Computers in Human Behavior, 16, pp. 13–29. 16. O‘Keeffe, G. S. and Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The impact of social media on children, teenagers, and families. Pediatrics, 127(4), pp. 800–804. 17. Gonzales, A. L. and Hancock, J. T. (2011). Mirror, mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of Facebook exposure on self-esteem. Cyber psychology, Behavior & Social Networking, 14, pp. 79–83. 18. Thomaes, S., Reijntjes, A., Orobio de Castro, B., Bushman, B. J., Poorthuis, A. and Telch M. J. (2010). I like me if you like me: On the interpersonal modulation and regulation of preteenagers‘ state self-esteem. Child Development, 81(3), pp. 811–825. 19. Haferkamp, N. and Kramer, N. C. (2011). Social comparison 2.0: Examining the effects of online profiles on social-networking sites. Cyber psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(5), pp. 309–314. 20. McLaughlin, M., Nam, Y., Gould, J., Pade, C., Meeske, K. A., Ruccione, K. S. and Fulk, J. A. (2012). Video sharing social networking intervention for young adult cancer survivors. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, pp. 631–641. 21. Markstrom, C. A. (2010). Identity formation of American Indian teenagers: local, national, and global considerations. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(2), pp. 519–535. 22. Tynes, B. M., Giang, M. T. and Thompson, G. N. (2008). Ethnic identity, intergroup contact, and out group orientation among diverse groups of teenagers on the

23. Hillier, L. and Harrison, L. (2007). Building realities less limited than their own: Young people practicing same-sex attraction on the Internet. Sexualities, 10, pp. 82–100. 24. Junco, R. and Cotton, S. (2012). The relationship between multitasking and academic performance. Computers &Education, 59(2), pp. 505–514.

Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow Uttar Pradesh vivekbiet0@gmail.com