10 Ways to Praise Social Media Use for Teen Girls versus Struggles, Regrets and Selfies

10 Ways to Praise Social Media Use for Teen Girls versus Struggles, Regrets and Selfies

Let’s encourage teens to use social media for more than just selfies. Show them how to use it as a tool to affect the world.

A quick check on Google with the topic teen girls on social media brings out a flurry of reports such as The Lonely Burden of Today’s Teenage Girls in Wall Street Journal saying “amid our huge, unplanned experiment with social media, new research suggests that many American adolescents are becoming more anxious, depressed and solitary.”

There are so many psychology reports about mental breakdowns, depression, anxiety, even suicidal behavior among teen girls, more so than any other group, including boys. As a teacher, noting the early body images and sexual hyperinflation of teen girls minus their normal social rites to adulthood, I wrote an e-book …a timely tale of struggles, regrets and survival on social media as a teen girl’s first-person narration.

But this internet revolution, this virtual world, does not need to be a Bad Monster that swallows up its young generation and regurgitates carbon copies of an inflated and hypocritical society; along the way, denouncing our cultural values and heritage.

We just need to learn how to use one of the most powerful tools ever encountered by the masses … and respect its power, keep it more benign, beneficial than malicious.

Here are 10 ways that the internet and social media can offer many benefits to teenage girls:

1. Connect to various educational components. Access information with teachers, experts, peer groups … answer any question at your fingertips. 
2. Break down physical, geographical, or cultural barriers … easier to make friends worldwide, connect with favorite people … there is no visible handicap 
3. Communicate with diverse communities to open doors to more experiences and dialogue…diversity helps to develop more informed personal, political, and cultural outlooks….avoid cultural biases … celebrities … athletes … nonprofit organizations
4. Discover more about your own community, make new friends … participate more …when, where, and what is happening … keep in touch with old friends
5. Create programs about issues that impact them or their friends … teens gather information to help each other: examples: eating disorders, drug addiction, climate change, elections, poverty in Africa and more    
6. Be able to access every kind of educational resource with or without libraries … listen to a variety of viewpoints … what is relevant and reliable … become a more critical thinker
7. Provides opportunities for online education or distance learning if students can’t attend a regular class, usually flexible and low cost … no marginalization of any student
8. Prepares for possible careers or professions which require knowledge of internet and social media
9. Share talents in many areas:  singing, writing, acting, fashion, craft projects, etc … Self-expression is important which develops self-confidence … positive feedback helps to boost confidence with Likes and nice comments
10. Claim your own identity … the personal profile and comment box are opportunities to be, say, and figure out who you are … time to talk out confusions or vent frustrations …even help to fight depression or prevent suicide

And that is the KEY to success on social media for teen girls. 

Self-expression and self-confidence are directly connected. Teen girls need to be given avenues for being authentic and true to themselves, to find satisfaction and happiness with whom they are they … not a simulated Selfie to fit Social Media demands for exposure and exploitation.

I believe, teen girls must apply a new mindset about getting a better balance between social-media use and other age-appropriate activities. It may help if they can see their timeline and respect that their time OFFLINE is as important, if not more important, than ONLINE time. This is the moral of this e-book Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand by Annemarie Berukova.

Can you live without your cell phone? We are all caught in this Social Media web with both positives and negatives and we must all learn to be well-informed with good digital etiquette and safety rules.

Questions and comments are always important. Please share some of your other positive experiences on social media. How do you balance your Online time with Offline Time? 

Sincerely,

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com

833 471 4661 (please leave a message and the best time to call back) 

Excerpt: "As a teenager I haven't learned yet how to manage conflict where both parties might be right but if others are wrong about something, there’s a good chance I will do wrong to do right by others.

There is no satisfaction now to realize that my brain is thinking differently at 19 years than at 14. Thinking back, there is no training how to deal with changes in technology when my brain's biology remains unchanged  A teenager is still young, still curious, experimental, still wanting to be liked, feel attractive, praised and rewarded again and again.

They buy into the electronic Hall of Mirrors where everyone is watching and comparing themselves, trying to find some piece of wisdom in a crowd or mob, not sure how not stop  suckling from an alternative reality not their own."

  

Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand … TimelyTale of Struggles, Regrets and Survival on Social Media with Super PowerTool  (Plus Kindle)