Browsing by Author "Saarinen, Jade Luna"

Aims. The aim of my research was to study the use of social media of 15–17 year old Finnish teenagers and what effects social media has on them. Earlier studies have shown that an average Finnish teenager uses social media approximately 15 hours during a week. It has also been studied that the social media has an effect on self-esteem. I chose social media and it’s effects on teenagers as my research subject because as a phenomenom the social media is rather young, which is why there has not been done many Finnish studies focusing on the teenagers’ social media use. My research assignment is to find out what kind of social media users teenagers are and what kind of effects social media has on their self experiences. Methods. The study was qualitative and 45 teenagers from age 15 to 17 participated in it. The data was collected with an internet questionnaire which was shared through social media, and it contained mainly open questions. The data was analysed by using qualitative data-based content analysis. Results and conclusions. Most of the teenagers used social media 3–4 hours daily or more. It was used for entertainment, for finding information, communication, current affairs, sharing one’s own life experiences and for finding inspiration, among other things. Almost half of the teenagers were bullied over social media. Appearance was also essential in the social media. Social media created ideals for appearance for teenagers and set them under critique, gave them false image of reality and made the teenagers look for the acceptance through outlooks. 31 of them had gotten positive comments on their appearance from social media and 13 had gotten negative comments. Those comments had an impact on the teenagers’ self-esteem, mood and feelings. Teenagers had also objects of identification and admiration in social media, such as videobloggers, artists, models and their own friends, and they were influenced by them. They felt that social media had many positive and negative effects on their lives. Positive effects were the rise of self-esteem, being more brave in expressing one’s own opinion, the possibilities of keeping in touch with other people and being the source of inspiration, motivation and information, among other things. The negative effects were the social media taking too much time and creating pressure, its bad effect on physical condition and sleep, distortion of self-image, the mean people and the need to be always within reach, among other things. The results of this study implicate that the social media has a comprehensive effect on the lives of the teenagers and their self experiences.