High schoolers views on social media platforms
Ash Catalan
October 8, 2019
Let’s talk about social media.
Some see it as a delightful distraction. Others see it as a dumpster fire. Either way, it is an almost inescapable aspect of growing up and school life today. We asked Akins students to tell us what they thought of the highs and lows of the big four social media platforms in an online survey distributed across campus.
This survey polled 123 students of “2,763. A majority of which are Freshmen, 33.3%, followed by Seniors (26.4%) Sophomores (25%), and Juniors(16.3).The students were asked questioned on their preferences on Social Media, and any thoughts they had on it.
It’s agreed amongst Akins students that Social Media has its ups and downs, with 68.8% of polled answering to “Both” when asked how social media affected teenagers. When asked why several terms/ideas were repeated among the replies: Socially engaging, addictive, cyberbullying, influential, and entertaining.
Snapchat
Snapchat sits on the throne of students’ social media use, with 39.9% polled, although Instagram sits very near. Both Instagram and Snapchat take up 76.3% of the student’s favorite platforms. Snapchat’s popularity seems to come from it being an alternative to texting, as it’s primarily used to communicate with friends along with sharing memes and videos.
The popularity behind Instagram, which polled 36.6% for a favorite platform, seems to be solely based on the memes, jokes, and videos originating on the platform. The network puts a focus on visual content targeted based on a person’s liking. This provides users with a solid source of entertainment.
Twitter Finds itself in an interesting role currently, as a melting pot of conflicting ideas as well as a vital part of politics and celebrity culture. In fact, its part of the reason that 8.4%, who listed Twitter as their favorite, was because of the drama that comes from it. “Everything’s a joke on Twitter and people always get their feelings hurt which makes it funnier” Senior Natalie Arzate-Nava Senior commented.
While being one of the more popular social media, Facebook finds it’s demographic in an older population. In Akins, 49.7% polled agreed upon it being their least favorite while only 4.2% polled selected it as their favorite. Of those who liked it, their reasoning is similar to why people like social media as a whole, a sense of community and entertainment
