This document discusses the impact of social media on youth, emphasizing both its positive and negative effects. While it facilitates communication and social interactions, it also leads to issues such as addiction, poor academic performance, and risky behaviors related to sexual health. The paper aims to explore these complexities and presents references to research supporting the findings.

1. Running head: FINAL PROSPECTUS
FINAL PROSPECTUS
6
Final Prospectus
Argosy University
September 26, 2018
ABSTRACT
Social media is a dissenting topic, especially today. Some
people have had the view that social media ruins human
interaction not to mention real life human relationships. On the
other hand, in the era of everything instant, the idea of living
has drastically changed. Initially, people held the idea that life
is too hard but with the advancement in technology it has now
become a saying that life is easy. All this is attributable to
modern technology and equally important globalization, in the
sense that people are becoming more independent and
interconnected. Social media has changed the world as people
used to know it in the sense that people can do everything in an
interconnected world that enables instant communication. Some
of the most popular social networking includes Facebook, and
Twitter among others. Similarly, in this era of social networking
people’s idea of reality has greatly changed and people handle
such things as relationship differently. This being the case, the
objective of this paper is to develop a final prospectus regarding
the impacts of social media. Mainly, the paper will focus its
attention on the impact of social media and some of the ways
that can be used to define the controversy between social media
and youths below the 23 years of age.

2. Impact of Social Media
As mentioned in the discussion, there are many social networks
to choose from such as Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram among
others. In understanding how social media impacts the youth, it
is imperative to look at both the pros and cons of social media
on the youth. Essentially social media has reduced the world in
a global village which means youths can share and interact
easily and instant. Conferring with Ahn (2011), addiction to
social media has resulted to poor performance in leaning
institutions. Many bright students have resorted to bad
behaviours because of social media. Ideally, social media has
captured the attention of youths to an extent of not focusing on
studies. The issue of mobile phones in learning institutions has
invited an endless debate currently. Teachers have complained
that students are using phones to connect with their friends and
families through such networking sites like Facebook. This idea
of using phones in classrooms has deteriorated student
performance.
Additionally, youth are so addicted to social media that they do
not study at home. Normally, students are supposed to maintain
impartiality between social media and studies. This obsession
with social media is detrimental to the youth lives. It is
estimated that 70% of the district school block have access to
social network sites. The rationale behind this is that online
communities allow youths to build social capital. In other
words, youths are able to access information, seek advice and
share ideas through a network of relationships. Most of these
SNS offers privacy control. This is a privilege because it allows
them to take control of their own lives in terms of content they
share and people they interact with. Studies have also shown
that youths are less likely to engage in unwanted sexual
solicitations unlike chat rooms. Researchers posit that the
Internet widens peoples’ social networks and equally important
provide positive benefits in the form of social capital

3. (Valenzuela, 2014). Various scholars’ finds to create a
connection between the Internet and the psychological well-
being of people. Social networking is a two-sided issue in the
sense that it adversely affects the youth positively and
negatively.
Social media is everywhere. It is a powerful tool because it is
an inseparable part of every teenager’s life. Sometimes back,
newspapers were the common media but nowadays electronic
devices like phones and laptops have taken over all forms of
communication. Teenagers worldwide depend on social media
for communication, interaction and information. At this point, it
is right to say that social media has indoctrinated the youths.
Additionally, teenagers spend much time on social media
without the knowledge of their caregivers. From a psychological
point of view, social media can result in mood swings or
increased obesity to name a few. Similarly, studies have shown
that due to the excessive use of social media violence
behaviours are on the increase. In respect to academic
achievement, teenagers to tend to spend too much on these sites
and further away from school work not to mention homework
that cripples them academically.
Correlation between social media use and protest behavior
According to xxx, there is a clear link between social media and
protest behavior. Recent investigations have found that the
number of revolutions has increased in the recent past due to
advancement in technology. Social media plays an adamant role
in today’s society. As evidence depicts social media is the best
platform to initiate social change and more so combat social ills
that are somehow considered normal patterns. According to the
study, such social media as Twitter or Facebook, are proudly
shaping political participation, particularly in regard to protest
behaviours. As aforementioned in the discussion, social media
allows the exchange of information that facilitates the
coordination of protest. Social media has been used in the past

4. in learning institutions to instigates protect or condemn certain
action in society. Furthermore, social media also facilitates the
exchange of not only emotional but also motivational contents
to propel protest activity. It has been claimed that social media
resources are profoundly promoted protest behaviours. In, deed
social media provide protester with useful and vital information.
In summary, social media like Facebook or Twitter serves as an
important tool for disseminating information and at the time
receiving feedbacks (Valenzuela, 2014). For example, it allows
the exchange of important information to the success of a
protest such as transport logistics or police presence. Further,
social media is used to transit both emotional not to mention
motivational messages in favor of or against the protest.
Social Media Effect on the Sexual Health Behavior
Based on the information provided in the Young and Jordan
article, teenagers and children form an important part of social
media users and as studies show much of their free time it
consumed in different social media. Teenagers and children
interact with known and strange peers to maintain social
connections. Social media communication provides a unique
interaction that allows adolescent to foster relationships with
other people. According to research, risky sexual behaviours are
highly prevalent among many leaning institutions in America.
Based on statistics despite the common knowledge that condoms
can reduce the risk of STI infection a large number of sexually
active college students reported to use condoms. The study
affirmed that because of the growing influence of social media,
teenagers are more likely to engage in sexual health behavior. It
is no doubt that photos or content that is sexually suggestive is
likely to increase student’s intention to engage in sexual
behaviours. The study by Young & Jordan (2013) firmly
illustrates the connection between social networks and the
perception of risky behaviours among the youths. On the other
hand, the perception of peer norm is another fundamental aspect
covered by the study. Findings suggest that peer norms can

5. influence teenagers, as well as children, own risk behaviours.
References
Ahn, J. (2011). The effect of social network sites on
adolescents' social and academic development: Current theories
and controversies. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology, 62(8), 1435-1445.
In this article, the author seeks to explain through a
comprehensive study, the correlation that exists between social
media and the psychological well-being of users, academic
achievement, and social capital benefits and youth safety. The
article presents the positive and negative implications of social
media on youths. To a great extent, this article is useful in the
research paper given it will help to understand the subject in
depth. Similarly, it will help to address the critic side that
supporters of the view that social media is perfectly good and
maintain the paper’s main argument.
Valenzuela, S. (2014). Facebook, Twitter, and youth
engagement: A quasi-experimental study of social media use
and protest behaviour using propensity score matching.
The study examines the correlation between protest behaviours
among the youths and the use of networking social sites. The
author affirms that there is a very high relationship between
social media use and protest behaviour. This study is relevant
considering the fact that it has considered two main social
networks that dominate the society, FB and Twitter. The work is
also important because it shows how social media can influence
social behaviors in a society.
Young, S. D., & Jordan, A. H. (2013). The influence of social
networking photos on social norms and sexual health
behaviours. Cyberpsychology, behaviour, and social
networking, 16(4), 243-247

6. The authors of this article conducted a study to establish
whether social media has any correlation with sexual
behaviours. The article onset by admitting that teenagers and
children form an important part of social media users and that
they spend much of their time interacting with these platforms.
Through testing, the study shows that sexually explicit materials
like photos and images can increase the user’s likelihood of
engaging in sexual behaviours. The study is relevant in the
sense that it entailed a study of behavioural change as instigated
by social media content. The study reliability is increased
because it puts into consideration the population of interest that
it the teenagers and the youths.