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The issue
With the rapid rise over the past twenty years of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Line and similar technological tools for sharing our experiences and opinions with friends and others, questions have been increasingly raised about the pros and cons, both for users and for society more generally.
Although we probably all use some form of social media, we might nonetheless think that it causes more harms than benefits for some groups.
And if you are a regular social media user, you might even come across concerns about the disadvantages of social media for users and society on those very social media platforms that you yourself use.
Question: Where do you stand on the use of social media by young people?
What is your opinion on the use of social media by young people? Is it, on the whole, more beneficial or harmful?
What are the pros and cons of these modern technologies that support your opinion as to whether the advantages or social media use by young people outweigh the disadvantages?
Respond
Think about the issue for a moment, and then write a short comment to state your opinion and it's main supporting reasons for and against the social media by young people.
In this context, short means about 120 to 200 words. You could quickly plan and write one paragraph, or you might prefer to write two or three shorter paragraphs.
- Total time = 12 minutes.
- planning = 3 minutes
- writing = 6 minutes
- editing = 3 minutes (It is a good idea to at least quickly proofread before you click the blue *publish* button.)
Remember, as in the independent writing tasks in TOEFL, IELTS and similar tests, and in our writing generally, it's a good strategy to imagine you are writing a response for someone who has not seen the question: briefly paraphrasing it in your first sentence or two helps to make your writing a coherent piece of work that makes sense by itself.
To help you focus on planning before you start to write, comments are currently disabled. In 3:00 minutes, I will change that setting to allow them, after which you will be able to write your response.
A few years ago, Ea, the son of one of my friends, wanted to start using FB's messenger and other apps that his friends were using. They were all ten years old, so did not meet Facebook's age criterion for users. I told him to lie about his age.
ReplyDeleteDid I do the right thing?
I know that many people worry about letting their children use apps such as Facebook, and I also had some worries. The thing that worried me most was that Ea might accept friend requests from weird people. I told him he should only become friends with people he really did know, like his mates at school, but there was still a risk. And in fact he did become friends with people outside of his class of pratom 4 or 5 students. I know because I'm also one of his FB friends, so I can see who his other friends are, and some of them are also my friends. But I don't think it will hurt Ea to be friends with my sister or her daughters, who he has met when they visited Thailand. They are also under 13 at the time, and who had, with their mother's permission, also lied to FB so that they could join FB and other social media apps. In fact, because he has to chat with them in English, that's good for him.
I think it's turned out well. My nieces have not suffered any bad consequences as far as I can tell, and Ea certainly has not - he uses it to stay in touch with the people he sees in his off-line life, and his English is improving.
Even though there are many advantages to young people in the use of using social media like getting more new acquaintances easier than in the past and the cost of using media is only on the internet fee which is very little, there are also many disadvantages both to the individuals and society. The social media users tend spend time on their own and start to feel alienated later. Moreover, many of them become more aggressive and cannot wait for along time as in the past. These are both the positive and negative consequences that social media have on the adolescents in today.
ReplyDeleteNowaday, social media has become a fundamental part of our daily life. In my experience social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instargram is enable people stay connected. In the discussion on the advantage and disadvantage of social media has been around. Some people supports the use of social media in young people as it can enable them stay connected with their family and friends. For example, a student who go study aboard and stay far from his family and that can him miss his home and family. So social media such as Facebook can allow him to keep update with their family. He can post some pictures of what he thinks are interesting or share his experiences.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is equally beneficial and harmful, if adult or parents look after or monitor them and advise them to using social media. I saw my cousin that look after her children and teach them when it is harmful from shows. She can practice her children to be discipline and respect the rules.
ReplyDeletesocial media is very useful for young people because they can learn the topic which they are interstedfor example I really wants to learn about submarine So i just click on 'like' button on "XO hunter" page and then i can gain submarine's new and submarine information.By the way advice should be given to young people.
ReplyDeleteIt's a tough nut to crack for me however I support that adolescents gain benefits more than drawbacks from using social media. Firstly, they can access online communities easily where people share common interests with them. I think that it's an advantage of young users to develops their skills. For example, they can join a group of languages lovers which can enhance their communication skills. Lastly, social media is already exited and tend to be continuous. We can't run away from it. Better than preventing kids from using social media, teaching kids how to use social media properly is the best option.
ReplyDeleteModern technology connects the world together. Although some people think that it harms young generations, others believe that it provide them many advantages. In my view, technology these days is very useful for adolescents with their parents' eyes.
ReplyDeleteThe advantages is that technology provide many useful knowledge that is updated. When I was young I love reading scientific blogs and Internet provides me several topics that I could not find in books. For me, I love searching and reading the English blog.
Social media is a useful tool for finding an information and some of knowleage. However, a teenager or an adolescents need to be careful when they are using it. There are pros and cons, social media connect people together and it make them feel close to each other even though they are not have a physical meeting that much but this also be a negative affect as well since the social media can harm people in the loop since it does not have any censor system so every thing that post on internet won't be censor and every one can post whatever they want. There are many kids get bully through social media and it show on in a public in the social platform. This situation could harm our adolescent who are unprotected and this could cause lead to a negative situation to our children. To be compared between pros and cons, I think the cons could create a bad situation to our child so we should be careful when they use it.
ReplyDeleteTechnology are vast today, almost every kind of people can access to it, even when you want to know something, hard-paper book is the most of your second choice, down from the internet encyclopedia. When every one can in charge of the level of this roaming, its absolutely have the double-bladed consequences. The advantage of it are developing their knowledge and sharing ones, people around the world can see and use that knowledge for improve their live, even more on entertainment which is the key of using technology in youngster these days, it can be relaxation if it is sufficiently on time spending, but it will lead to the addictive behavior when the managing time is out of control, and people nowadays(mostly youngster, and mostly ME.) are having this problems.
ReplyDelete