iGCSE Writing To Respond

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

On reading your article about teenagers and social media. I feel I had to share my views and thoughts with regard to this very important issue.

It is indeed very shocking to read about the amount of time spent by teenagers and young adults on social media. As a teenager myself I very often get carried away on Facebook and other on-line social sites or in sending and receiving text messages and forget time completely. But this is something that happens with face to face conversations. People in general, do not get together socially and think I will only talk with a friend or someone for two minutes but end up spending like 10 minutes every time they have to talk. People forget about time when socializing.

Technology and social media, i feel has just passed its pioneering stage, and is constantly being developed and improved. As a young person, living in a modern developed country, i need to keep up with these developments or i will end up being left behind by my peers and developing technology. This will affect my social life and my chance of getting job to do with ICT when i am older.

Also, I am growing up in a society where families sometimes live great distances apart. For example, my grandmothers, cousins and such live many thousands of miles away and the only other way is sending of a letter which will take a long time and may be very expensive.

The danger present to teenagers of disclosing too much information about themselves is a serious problem , but if children are taught about this at a pre-teenage, it may limit into risks. Jonathan Frazer despair of info technology and his concern is that teenagers are to become enslaved social inadequate’s has a little truth to it, but there are many people who are socially inadequate due to a variety of reasons not involving social media and its influences. That is just life.

Teenagers and children can be taught to differentiate between social media relationships and normal people to people in relationships, and therefore not became as the writer Susan Greenfield says, becoming detached from the real world. As for empathy, I feel this is a feeling that is cultivated through nurture and not nature and this empathise lies in a person early years and their development and upbringing

To conclude, I feel it is important that the young people understand the dangers of social media and the importance of developing social media friendships other than on social media sites. I also feel that if this technology is available, youth should be able to use it, not only for on-line socializing but for research, exchange of ideas and information. To be able to use the technology for study, to keep up to date with the world news and current affairs. It is quick and available at the press of a few buttons, and everyone should have the opportunity of using it .

Kind Regards

Harry Robinson