Research Question: Social Media

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 Essential Question: What impact does social media have on adolescents? 

Focus Questions: How are adolescents influenced by social media? What are the positive/negative effects that social media has on adolescents? How is social media represented in young adult novels and what impact does it have in those novels? How is social media portrayed in adolescent literature? Does the representation of social media in young adult literature impact young adults in real life? Is social media represented differently in different genre's of young adult literature? Does the representation of social media in young adult novels add to adolescent's obsession with social media? 

Overview: For my topic I want to try to focus on specifically how social media impacts adolescents. I know that many adolescents are obsessed with social media and I just wonder if their obsession/hyper focus is enhanced because of the way that social media is portrayed in young adult novels. Also, with most of the young adult novels that I have read, social media is portrayed negatively, so I wonder what effect that has on adolescents if any. 

Why: I selected this topic because I think that social media is so prevalent in our time and I want to know how adolescents are affected by it. I think that social media is also something that is not going away any time soon, so it is important that we know the affects that social media can have on adolescents so that we can be better equipped to handle those issues or effects on youth. I also think that the portrayal of social media in YA novels, from my experience, is typically negative, yet we still see students using social media on a daily basis. I think that this is also an important issue, specifically for teachers to understand, so that we are able to identify some of the effects that social media may have on our students. 

Titles: Some of the novels that I plan to use in my paper are Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and The Hate U Give. These two novels both portray social media in different ways and I think that they both can be useful to understanding how social media impact adolescents. 

Resources: The resources that I plan to use are articles that discuss how social media effects adolescents as well as some articles on how social media is portrayed in adolescent literature. I want to search the library database for the focus questions that I provided as well. I will also search for other titles that I might be able to use in my research that may portray social media in literature. 

Claim: The portrayal of social media in the majority of young adult novels is negative and accurately portrays the effects that social media can have on adolescents. 

Challenges: I think that it will be challenging finding articles that support the positive effects that social media can have on adolescents. I also think that it will be challenging to find out how adolescents are affected by the portrayal of social media in YA literature. 

Comments

  1. toriehicksNovember 11, 2020 at 9:42 PM

    Mikayla, I think that this is a great topic, and it very relevant! I get this, so well. I don't know what I would do if I had to go a day without my phone. I am sure that I could do it, but every two seconds I would be freaking out wondering where my phone is, because having a phone and checking for new notifications is such a habit!

    I know that social media takes a toll on bullying as well, you may consider incorporating this into your paper. For example, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda! You could compare this issue to how Martin bullies Simon through blackmailing. I think that you can do a lot with this topic, and I think that it will be very interesting.

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  2. A'Keriah PraylowNovember 12, 2020 at 6:52 PM

    I am excited to see what you find with your topic! Social media is something that everyone must learn to responsibly navigate. The internet is unlimited and can be dangerous if not used correctly. I think through more conscious efforts to teach appropiate social media usage in literature, students will be positively effected.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Candace BeebeNovember 12, 2020 at 9:26 PM

    Mikayla, I think this is a great topic to tackle. I think it is relevant and needs to be discussed. You could possibly research how social media affects adolescent's self esteem, self worth, bullying and even the amount of time wasted. This topic interests me because I recently decided to get off of social media because of the way it was negatively affecting me. However, there are some positives to social media as well. Maybe, you could just redirect your students' focus onto positive things instead. You could use Everything, Everything to talk about how adolescents can use the internet to connect with people that they wouldn't normally be able to see.

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