Wired for Validation--- The Silent Crisis of Adolescent Minds in the Age of Social Media

It all started with a ping.

One share. One comment. One likes and two to three notifications.

Looking at the teenagers that we have today, the generation after the Gen Z, then Gen Alphas, social media is not just a device for them, it is a reflector, battleground, podium and most especially, a determiner and a judge. Behind all the short videos, twerking, filtered pictures and innovative captions is a teenage mind who is looking for acceptance, wanting to get known, seeking validation from the people around and on the social media as to feel among in this world that is moving so fast than their emotional evolution can deal with.

It is no doubt that the social media has created a lot of opportunities through the gateway it has. It has brought a lot of people together from all sorts of cultural background to collaborate together. It has given us easy accessibility to diverse informations. It has created massive social media movements and has also fueled innovative creativities. Teenagers can now acquire more knowledge, explore and made their thinkings known with just a tap on their devices screen.

But, just like the way it educates and gives needed information, it also tricks the brain in a way we least expects.

The average teenager now spends a lot of hours just scrolling through some documented, filtered and edited contents which has now made them to start comparing their raw and unfiltered talents with those curated filtered things they now watch on the social media. Emotionally, culturally and psychologically this has taken their calmness away, it has given them new orientation about their self value and it has breed inadequacy in them. There is no time to give a break when there are infinity reels and feeds.

A lot of things like loneliness, boredom, depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia are now common, they have eaten deep into the emotional behaviour of this generation.

There is no further way I can Idealize this than the reality I am saying.

The most scary part is not the damage that this has caused, but the way teens of today have now normalized all these things. If you ask them, they will say, "It is nothing new, this is how I am." Is this supposed to be?

If we open our eyes and keep on treading on like this, where attention is replaced by intention, and connections is brought down to metrics, there is no doubt that the teenagers will be informed but the question now is will they be wise?

The same way the social media can empower the adolescents, that is the right amount of way it can also enslave them depending how what they are using it for, and how. If we refuse to encourage critical thinking, emotional stability and real life perseverance now, the luminous screen they watch may leave an unexpected dusk in them.

Let's not over look this. We should be concerned and guide them before our teenagers forget who they really are without the social media telling them, therefore reshaping their identity.

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Thank for reading.

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