Turns out teens aren’t sharing as much on social media as we thought
We’ve all experienced a Facebook post, Instagram or tweet that has made us cringe. Younger siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins or even kids of friends who’ve grown up on the Internet and seemingly have no concept of its reach. We scroll past quickly, trying to read as little as possible and hope that these do not become the Amanda Todd or Tyler Clementi news clips of the future. That they get lost in the barrage of silly cat videos and endless status updates, forgotten, at least for now.
Despite these uncomfortable instances, a new study suggests that teens are more aware of what they are sharing than we think. The Pew Research Center recently conducted a study looking at social media and teen romance to try and makes sense of the effect the one has on the other.
Pew Research Centre
To some extent, the results of the study were not that surprising. There is no doubt that teens are using social media to express themselves romantically and more than half admitted that social media made them feel more connected to their significant other. A little less than half viewed social media as a place to show how much they care about their significant other.
What was perhaps more interesting was that a surprising 69 per cent of teens surveyed were aware of how public their social media posts were, and felt that social media allowed too many people see what was happening in their relationship.
One high school boy explained: “A lot of people kind of don’t like it on social media because it doesn’t need to be on there. ‘Cause as long as the two know how they feel about each other, I feel like if you have it on social media, it’s like more drama. Because like more people ask questions and stuff like that.”
Another voiced concerns over parents finding out about the relationship.
“Sometimes if your parents find out, I mean, my mom lets me have a girlfriend, but some protective parents … they sometimes don’t even let them out with their friends.”
For most teens, they understood that the more they shared on social media, the more “drama” and criticism they set themselves up for.
An editor at Yahoo Canada described their own teen’s behaviour on social media, touching on this awareness and need for validation. They described how their teen is so conscious of what they share on social media that if something does not receive a certain number of “likes,“ they remove it.
This concept of support and validation by peers plays into another part of the study that looked at the way breakups are handled by teens on social media. While most teens are apt to share the successes of their romantic relationships with peers, when it comes to breakups, 78 per cent keep it private with an in-person face to face.
Though some may argue that teens are still putting way too much out into world via the Internet, these findings suggest that we should at least take some comfort in knowing that they’re doing it with consciousness and thought – even if it doesn’t always seem that obvious.
Do you think teens are setting themselves up for cyber bullying (or worse) by sharing too much online? Let us know by tweeting @YahooStyleCA.
