by Steffani Carrera ’14

Today, the average high school student has a Facebook profile, a Twitter account, or both. According to Pew Internet research, approximately 8.6 million Facebook users are teenagers ranging from 13 to 17 years old, and over half of them reported spending over 20 minute sessions when logged on. Since most teenagers check their account daily, that’s more than two hours every week spent solely on this site.

Posted information is often exploited; however, this is not a big concern of users as they share their birthdays, interests, location and pictures.  Whether they are unaware of the potential dangers of sharing personal information, or simply do not feel threatened by it, users continue to throw their information out there for the world to see. This allows anybody, including online predators, to easily find the information they may be seeking without going through much trouble.

The new “Timeline” feature the company has created enables a user’s pictures, statuses, friends and wall posts to be seen in chronological order on one page. This makes stalking way too easy; anybody can see what they’ve been doing recently, who their friends are, where they hang out, and what they spend their time doing with the click of a mouse. Users enable anybody, like online predators, to find whatever information they seek without going through much trouble.

 Facebook is not the only social networking site that has captivated the attention of America’s youth. Twitter, a website where users “tweet” up to 160 characters of whatever they so choose, is a familiar site to any high school student who doesn’t live in a cave. It has blossomed over the past years, especially because students follow their favorite celebrities who use Twitter to promote themselves. Cox Communications, Inc. has discovered the percentage of teenagers who have a Twitter account has doubled, increasing from eight percent to 16 percent since 2009.

What could be so important to someone that it must be shared with all of their friends instantaneously? What they’re eating for lunch, of course. Or perhaps what song is currently playing on their iPod. It’s difficult to believe adolescents dedicate so much of their time to checking up on their friends and acquaintances. Their unquenchable desire to always be in-the-know, or connected, is simply pathetic. Instead of doing something productive with their time, they choose to check up on their peers who are usually doing insignificant things.

This over exposure to the mainstream idea of what is “cool” stunts creativity and individuality among youth. For the teen generation, being updated is better than being unique. Facebook and Twitter, among several other social networking sites, don’t just keep teenagers informed, but also guzzle their valuable time and put them in potential danger.