HEHD 8010 Child/Adolescent Development

 

The artifact that I chose for Child & Adolescent Development was Social Media and Adolescent Development. I selected this topic because the onset of social media usage has had a major impact on youth development worldwide.  I wanted to educate myself on this topic, because it has become such a widespread issue and shows no sign of decrease.

 

Prior to this assignment, I held a primarily negative view on the impact that social media has on teens because of cyberbullying, etc., and while this opinion was supported through the literature I reviewed, I also found that there are some benefits for teen social media usage such as relationship development and an increase in political involvement (Xie, 2014).

​

This artifact will be helpful for me as a youth development leader because I now understand that social media site usage changes very frequently and I must be diligent about following teen usuage trends.  Additionally, this project has challenged me to find positive methods of integrating teen social media usage in positive ways into my program.