At the Mercy of Facebook: A Meta-Analysis on Impact of Social Networking Sites, Teen Brain on Teenage Pregnancies

Introduction

“Time and motivation are finite resources… time and motivation spent on social networking sites such as Facebook usually comes at the expense of other activities,” stated Wendy Cousins, a researcher at the University of Ulster in the UK. In a recent online survey of 350 high school students and undergraduates, Cousins found that teens spent more than 65% of the day posting and sharing their own pictures’, messaging someone, viewing profiles of each other, and commenting on each other’s social status. Time that should have spent doing homework, researching future career options, engaging in community activities, talking with friends and family in person, and playing a game (Nauert, 2015). The survey sought to investigate the motivation of daily addictive use of Facebook by teens. Cousins stated that teens experienced a ‘high’ and a sense of excitement, social approval and thrill when they viewed a ‘like’ on their Facebook site (Nauert, 2015). The compulsion to replicate the sensation and thrill stated Cousins was one of the chief distinguishing features of teen behavior. Consequences such as becoming pregnant while still in school; engaging in risky behaviors of drinking and drug addiction, pornography do not seem to hold any value (Nauert, 2015). A similar trend has been sweeping across US as Facebook usage was recorded at 73% among teens i.e. adolescents under age of 19 (Madden, Lenhart, Cortesi, Gasser, Duggan, Smith, & Beaton, 2013). According to National Center of Health Statistics [NCHS] researchers, this increase impacted rates of teenage pregnancy significantly with 71.5% teen pregnancies for every 1000 teen girls between ages of 13-19 in 2017 (Landry, Turner, Vyas, & Wood, 2017). Teen girls were more prone to posting and sharing pictures; engaging in risky behavior to experience a ‘high’ thrill of excitement (Landry et al., 2017). NCHS researchers established a tenuous but direct link between increase in Facebook usage and teenage pregnancy rates with 25% increase in states of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas in 2017 (Madden et al., 2013). More than 26 US states clocked in high rates of teenage pregnancy with more than 72 live birth for every 1000 teen girls aged 15 (Landry et al., 2017). This increase was found to be positively significantly correlated i.e. 49.4% increase in sexual behavior leading to teenage pregnancy due to increased Facebook usage in terms of time and quality i.e. teens were spending maximum time on Facebook posting, sharing provocative pictures, sexting, and real-time sexual activity (Landry et al., 2017). Social networking sites such as Facebook propelled and influenced teens to engage in risky behaviors of gambling, sexual activity whilst in school, sexting, pornographic behavior, and teenage pregnancy (Geidd, 2013).

The chapter, written from a US perspective, maps out how excessive usage in terms of time and misplaced motivation of Facebook leads to irresponsible, harmful and/or risky behavior and action that could result in teenage pregnancy. The author charts an extensive literature review of prevalence of social networking sites focusing primarily on Facebook; theoretical perspectives discussing contemporary neurobiological theories that show why teens use Facebook despite its harmful effects; and plausible methods of controlling the quality and usage of Facebook time and motivation as a means to shape usage of Facebook to control and minimize consequences of teen pregnancy. In her conclusion, the author reiterates her argument that the theoretical meta analyses serves as a foundational launchpad to initiate and further empirical research.