Social Media

SOCIAL MEDIA IN GENERATION Z

 

Image from Interesting Engineering

    Looking back at my past research blog that was also more statistics based on Gen Z and social media, the CNN and CNBC articles I have read have a different sort of perspective. 

Social media is very present in the students that I service this year at my school. These students are in the 7th grade and fall under the "Gen Z" category. From what I can tell, most have access to a cell phone and apps like "TikTok" and "Instagram". children mostly use social media for funs and games but if you dive deeper like in the CNN article linked above, a lot of social media is taking more of a toll of students and their infatuation with likes and being "liked". Social media can make a preteen or early teenager who is still coming into maturity more self conscious if they see their friends doing things via posts without them. Drama is something I have experience with when I was younger in social media but I also got to have the experience of a world without social media (thankfully).  I have seen my fair share of drama with close friends kids and also within my school involving students. 

This new, young generation have exposure to social media in one way or another, even if only through ads. Companies know how much "trends" are important to Gen Z and therefore they prowl on getting these ads in every aspect of social media. Nowadays, your phone tracks what you search and you will randomly find that same item you searched in a sidebar of Facebook-it literally blows my mind every time. Digging deeper into the use of social media and age ranges varies in how and why older Gen Z social media users versus the younger generation. Older teens seem to be more cautious in privacy and posts and this may be from seeing others experience issues with over posting or maybe from their own past problems. Either way, teachers and parents should be in contact about how social media is used at school and ultimately teaching students how to use social media safely should always be key.