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Xiuzhu Chen Ms. Rand English 1102 4/16/2014 The Regulation of Social Network for Teenagers What is social networking in our modern society to teenagers? In my opinion, it can be specified as Facebook and Twitter. Definitely, Facebook is the most popular social network right now. Most teenagers have the account because it is the most world spread social network. Twitter attracts teenagers to share videos and pictures with their friends and updating the last news. For example, where do they travel and what is the interesting thing of today. In traditional communication style, teenagers would talk with friends face to face. Some teenagers also use mailing as a way to communicate with their friends. Sometimes it takes a long time to get the friends responses. Social network does not have this kind of problem which is the reason why Social networking totally changes the traditional communication way. In social networking, things get to be easier and fast. But I do not think it is a good thing especially to teenagers. Recent years, teenagers just need to log in their social networking account. Then, they would talk with their friends at everytime and everywhere. It is free to use social network to chat with each other. In recent years, if you ask teenagers how to make friends, most of them will answer make friends online. Few teenagers would make friends during in class time because they think it is a kind of stupid and out of style (Lenhart, Macgill, Madden, and Smith). It is a real statistic

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research from Teens and Social Media. Teenagers would like to make friends online because it makes them feel more comfortable and easy (Lenhart, Macgill, Madden, and Smith). Teenagers can not only make friends by social networking, but also watch movies, play games, update blogs and so on. For example, teenagers would use the social network to update status right now, share the last news and post photos and videos. Most teenagers would not talk about the social network with their parents because they think social network is their privacy and they do not like to share opinions with adults. Social network is a whole new world to teenagers which can make them do everything as they want. But, social network negative influence outweigh positive influence. I find a survey which is on the connection of teenagers and media. Some 93% of teens use the internet, and more of them than ever are treating it as a venue for social interaction a place where they can share creations, tell stories, and interact with others(Lenhart, Macgill, Madden, and Smith). 55% of online teens ages 12-17 have created a profile on a social networking site like Facebook; 47% of online teens have uploaded photos where others can see them, though many restrict access to the photos in some way; and 14% of online teens have posted videos online (Lenhart, Macgill, Madden, and Smith). After reading through this survey, I am so surprised about the result of social media influence on teenagers. It is kind of lower than I thought. But these statistics definitely shows the influence of social networking in teenagers. Teenagers who often use social network are kind of addicted in it. For example, 85.7% teenagers said that if they do not check the social networking, they will feel uncomfortable because they might miss some interesting and important things which related with their friends (Lenhart, Macgill, Madden, and Smith). Social networking influences teenagers life and habit.

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They do not want to spend time on studying because of social network and even do not sleep to always check the last news. In: Secrets and Dangers the World of Today's Teens, some teenager would even care about the number of people who see the homepage to see if they are popular or not. If the number of people increased, they feel very happy. However, if few people watch their homepage, they do not want to go to school or even do not want to eat anything because in their opinions, they are not popular in their friends (Secrets and Dangers the World of Today's Teens). Actually, the negative influence of social networking on teenagers is not only the habit, but also leads to a series of problems. I divide them into four parts. The first one is the privacy. It is about sharing the personal information on social network. Secondly, the social network has the negative influence on family relationship. Thirdly, the violence in social network can influence teenagers behavior. The last one is the crime rate increased by social networking. Most teenagers are involved with the social media and they also would like to share personal information with to strangers from social media. Teenagers use Facebook to share their photos and make friends. They would like to use their real name in Facebook and allow everybody to visit their homepage. Actually, the content produced by users may be revealed to both intended and unintended audience (Van and Emam). Since anybody can register on the website, anybody can view the content on the site. For example, any person may create fake accounts in order to obtain data from unsuspecting users (Van and Emam). This can cause a serious problem because the private information leaks to some strangers. The social media to teenager also can influence the family relationship. iFamily: Internet and Social Media Technology in the Family Context shows that the teenagers use more social media causes the less communication between family members. Teenagers spend more time on social

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network and they are addicted to it more. So, they would spend less time to talk with their parents. Finally, it will lead to a serious problem because teenagers do not want share anything with their parents. The relationship between teenagers and their parents is changed by social network (Williams, Amanda, and Merten). In my opinion, I also have the same experiences when I overuse social media. I do not like to talk with my parents when I use social network because I feel they do not understand me at all. The negative influence of social media can also lead to violence and crime. In Secrets and Dangers: The World of Todays Teens At school, Twitter is an online community that is wildly popular with teens, where online diaries and personal profiles are posted for public perusal. There are many violent videos which influence teenagers on social network. In Secrets and Dangers: The World of Todays Teens At school, there is a true story about the violent video influence. A 13-years-old boy posts a video about street fight which related with a group of boys who are 13-14 years old. After posting this video, around 150 friends in his Twitter page rate this video as interesting. Some of his friends even comment this kind of fight is awesome and cool. It is really a serious issue because the violent video can spread widely and quickly on teenagers social network. The most dangerous part of the negative influence of social media is crime. In recent years, the teenagers crime rate increased 12% than ten years ago because of the social media (Ferguson 9). Some videos in social network contain much illegal information which influences a lot of teenagers. Teenagers do not have the ability to understand these illegal information and they follow these tips. In the end, they are arrested by police, and then they realize that they make a crime. Teens talk about finding parties and illegal drugs using social network. For example, in Secrets and Dangers: the World of Today's Teens In my opinion, a teenager buys some

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medicine because he sees an advertisement about this medicine in social network which can make teenager energetic. Actually, this is not medicine but the drug. Then, he is arrested by police because of using drug (Secrets and Dangers: the World of Today's Teens). From this issue, we can see that people need to regulate the social network information for teens. So, it is a very emergency issue to help teenage regulate social network. How to regulate social teenagers? It is not an easy work because it should be related many aspects. We should take some actions to help teenager regulate the social media. It is not the personal work, but also whole peoples responsibility. In my opinion, the responsibilities can be divided by 4 parts. Firstly, government should take actions to deal with this problem. For example, they can take some advertisement to suggest teenager use less social network. Secondly, school should take measures to persuade teenagers spend less time on social network. Thirdly, parents should have a good relationship with their kids. Last, it should be based on teenagers themselves. They should make a schedule for themselves about social network to regulate the time. The government control should be considered as the most effective way to help teenagers to regulate social network. Firstly, Government should make policies to regulate social networks contents. Social networks contents should strengthen the supervision. Secondly, It can make a series of polices to help teenagers to regulate social network. For example, government can make policy to limit the time in social network especially in school. So, teenagers can get involved a lot of activities than spending time on social network. Thirdly, government can also make advertisements about social network to persuade teenager put less time in social network. For example, save your time is save your life. In my opinion, government should pay money to set these programs because government should pay more attention about this serious problem.

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Schools also should take actions to regulate social network on teenagers. School can give speeches to teenagers about the negative influence in social network to persuade them use less social network. School can also make a lot of activities to get involved teenagers. For example, school can open a lot of course about sports. It can not only help teenagers to enjoy the fun of sports, but also to improve their physical fitness. Schools should also limit to use cellphone or technology devices during in school because most teenagers use technology devices in social network. Most classes should not use technologies devise except computer classes. As parents, they should care about their children and they should make rules for their children. For example, do not log in social network during in meal time or watching TV. Most teenagers log in social network cannot concentrate on eating dinner and watching TV with family because they put their focus on social network. Parents also should have a good communication with children everyday. Communication can not only help to change family relationship, but also can give some advice and suggestion to teenagers. The last solution should be based on teenager themselves. They should make a schedule to regulate the time in social network. If they exceed the time which they limit, they should ask for parents permission and tell the reasons. I saw a joke about social networking in journal. It says, People invented social network only for chatting with your neighbors. It is really interesting, but it makes me to think deeply. Do teenagers overuse social network? To me, I would say yes. Based on the solutions of helping regulate social network, in my opinion, all of us have a responsibility to do this job for teens.

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Reflection The most interesting in this inquiry project is searching different kinds of information. Finding these information to support my opinion can make this argument paper more professional. When I was searching these information, I could find the different opinions about social networking. I struggled with the relationship chart with 5 different sources because it is really hard to make connection between each other. After I finished the first draft, I went to Writing Resource Center to ask for some help. But in the end, she did not give me some good suggestions to solve this problem. So, I asked about Ms. Rand to see if she can help me about the relationship chart. After finishing the relationship chart, it is much easier to finish this paper because I can develop the relationship of the argument paper. Yes, I changed the inquiry question. At first time, I would like to inquiry the influence of social networking. But after peers discussion, I found this inquiry project was too huge to explore. So I needed to modify my project and I focused my project on teenagers. Also, I only focused on the negative influence of social networking. Then, the inquiry project is much easier to me to gather information. It is important to look at historical view of my topic because it shows my progress of the argument paper. A good paper is revising many times. In my opinion, my analytical skills changed a little after finishing the inquiry project. When I was gathering information about the inquiry project, I would like to see others thoughts about this question. My evaluation skills improved a lot by the citation. From those citations, I can think more deeply about my project. During this progress, I am so proud my organization of this paper because I thought I cannot finish well about the inquiry project. Actually, I really want to

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do a survey about the negative influence to teenagers. So, I can know more about teenagers thoughts about social networking.

Work Cited Lenhart, Amanda, Rankin Macgill, Mary Rankin, and Aaron Smith. Teens and Social Media. ArrayPew Internet & American Life Project (2007):2. 19 Dec 2007. Web. 23 Mar 2014 Van,Der and Emam K. El. Not All My Friends Need to Know: a Qualitative Study of Teenage Patients, Privacy, and Social Media. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (2013): 16-24. 28 May 2012. Web. 23 March 2014 Williams, Amanda L, and Michael J. Merten. Ifamily: Internet and Social Media Technology in the Family Context. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal. 40.2 (2011): 150-170. 4 Dec 2011. Web. 23 March 2014 Secrets and Dangers: the World of Today's Teens. Lawrenceville, NJ: Films Media Group, 2006. Ferguson, Christopher J. Adolescents, Crime and the Media: A Critical Analysis. Springer, New York 4.12 (2013): 143-167. Print.