By: Chris Jones

July 11, 2013

They are forms of electronic communication (Web sites for social networking and micro

blogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas,

personal messages, and other content (videos, pictures, statuses)

Webwisekids.org gathered a collection of studies pertaining to adolescents and the use of social media. Below are some of the numbers they ran across.

93% of children between ages 12 & 17 go online.

73% of this age demographic can be found using some variation of social media.

37% send messages to friends, acquaintances, and family via social media every day.

55% of teens have given out personal information to a stranger via social media, including self pictures and physical descriptions of themselves.

29% have claimed to being stalked or contacted by a stranger on these social media sites.

15% have been pressured into sending nude photos or videos of themselves over these sites.

41% have been put through some kind of digital dating abuse- including multiple log-ins to their accounts daily, reading their private messages without permission, rumors spread about them, and/or being pressured to respond to messages.

Below are some online article headlines about teenagers and social media usage

Being Grounded From MySpace Drives Teen to Shoot His Dad

Teen Kills Girlfriend Over MySpace Comment

Teen Gang Plans Public Murder on Facebook Chat

Girl Lists ‘Killing People’ Under Facebook Interests; Proceeds to Actually Kill People

65% of social media-using teens have had an experience on a social networking site that made them feel good about themselves.

58% of social media-using teens have felt closer to another person because of an experience on a social networking site.

Though social media can be beneficial to its users, those who tend to develop extensive interest in these sites are liable to become very depressed or even aggressive about social interaction with others.

With social media networking on the rise, children are becoming more and more applicable to a psychological addiction with these sites. Leading them to spending endless hours a day monitoring the activity on them.

With extensive social networking correlating to academic regression, acts of sexual violence, and acts of physical and psychological violence, parents and teens themselves should become more aware of the growing problems within extensive social networking.