Logging on, checking notifications, laughing at a friend’s ironic status and then uploading some pictures from a party last weekend is something college students do regularly on social networking sites, most often Facebook.
Despite Facebook becoming a popular source of sharing and communicating, a recent study revealed that the site can negatively influence teens by mimicking peer pressure normally reserved for school hallways and dorm room banter.
Researchers at Columbia University who are a part of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that teens who log on to Facebook or other social networking sites daily are three times more likely to drink, twice as likely to use marijuana and five times more likely to smoke tobacco.
But wait before you get all worried about Facebook brainwashing your generation.
The study only polled 1,000 American teens 12 years old to 17 years old, a very small percentage of the teenage population. This leads me to believe that these results are merely correlation and not proof of causation, similar to a statistics project where you only poll 50 or 100 students and make a conclusion about the entire student body.
Yes, seeing pictures of people passed out with sharpie tattoos or reading statuses about listening to Wiz Khalifa and getting high might be an influence on impressionable teens, but so was jazz music in the '20s and rock n’ roll in the 50s, according to those who are much older and wiser.
Architecture freshman Jared Andrew said he logs on to Facebook at least once a day but said he doesn’t think Facebook influences him.
“Facebook is just Facebook,” he said. “I don’t drink and I don’t plan to. I think it’s more of how you’re raised.”
Being brought up to follow the crowd could serve as a problem in a world that bombards young people with socially acceptable images of drunken buffoonery. However, I think young people are better than that.
Yes, many of us college students will engage in illegal activities but not because of Facebook; we’ll participate because we are young and in college.
Mistakes are going to be made, but chalk it up to regular peer pressure, stupidity or curiosity, not an Internet site. No matter how often we access it throughout the day, Facebook is just Facebook.
Maybe we’re spending too much time on Facebook and not enough time thinking about repercussions for our actions five or 10 years down the road when we are looking for jobs and the employer sees that keg stand picture from your 21st birthday while creeping through your profile.
Social media is supposed to be a unique way to connect with friends, not a pressure cooker for judgment. Facebook is our generation’s answer to rock n’ roll, but don’t worry, our grandkids will have something we don’t understand to criticize and blame for society’s problems too.
Send Tessa your latest status update at tafergu1@asu.edu.
