A chaotic part of one’s life is adolescence where young people start to discover themselves. Teenagers from all over the world use social media as daily entertainment for their lives. Social media has connected people’s lives in the digital age by allowing people to communicate and consume information from all over the world during every second. Although there are benefits associated with social media, it is clear that it has detrimentally affected people, especially young people like students. The lives of students can be significantly altered because of their social media use affecting their physical, mental, and psychological health in harmful ways. 

An article written by Miao Chen and Xiao Xin utilize previous studies to determine that social media has had addicting effects towards younger people causing depression, anxiety, and distress. One of the studies they include in their article is about how social media has negatively affected the psychological health of  rich students living in Thailand. They write, “Hanprathet et al. (2015) reported a statistically significant positive correlation between addiction to Facebook and depression among about a thousand high school students in wealthy populations of Thailand and warned against this psychological threat.” (Chen, Miao, and Xin Xiao). Essentially, it was noted that social media was negatively affecting students living in Thailand. Facebook, a social networking media that people use to communicate with friends and other people, was the main culprit involved. The media site was described to cause the students to feel the need to always be involved and be up to date on what was happening in their friend groups. This can create unhealthy obsessions towards other students and their lives. The writers also include multiple studies in their article such as this one by Hanprathet, which I believe increases their credibility because they are using more opinions and studies to support their ideas. I believe that the writers chose to use logos in order to help convince the readers to believe that social media has adverse effects on the youth. Miao Chen and Xiao Xin utilize the many studies to create a logical and sound argument by having multiple professionals and data agree with their beliefs as evidence.

Another article written about middle school and high school students using social media says that, “social media is tearing us apart”. Alyson Klein, the writer of the article, includes the thoughts and opinions of an expert named Jason Gay. Jason Gay, a media specialist who works for Highland High School in Fort Thomas, talks about his views and opinions of social media as an expert who is very well educated. He talks about how social media has enabled students to feel terminally online with their own “meme culture”. It states in the article, “There is a whole side of meme culture and joke culture that as adults is a really tough thing for us to understand,” he said. Students “are so used to that world where everything is all the time being pumped out” online, and they rarely catch a break from it, the way that many now-adults did when they were in high school and social interactions were largely confined to the school day” (Klein, Alyson). As a media expert, Jason Gay is able to freely talk about his thoughts on social media. He says that younger people now have their own jokes and “memes” that they only use. His opinion is that social media has created a lot of seclusion amongst younger students because they are now able to always stay online. Back twenty years ago however, students were confined mostly to schools where they were only able to interact and communicate with each other face to face. I believe that the author uses ethos to appeal to the reader. Alyson Klein purposefully included Jason Gay’s interview because he speaks from an area of authority. Because Jason Gay is a media specialist who actually works at a high school, more people are going to believe what he says because he has the experience.

Lastly, another article was written about the use of social media and its detrimental effects. The article includes a piece by the Washington Post who conducted an investigation amongst an Instagram user. The article utilizes a case study of an account by someone addicted to social media to further their point. In the article, the author writes, “Upon waking up, I tried to begin my day the same way I have since I joined Instagram in 2011: by scrolling through my feed. I joined under the username “tigerlily5” in fifth grade—my biggest flex is I haven’t changed it since—and never looked back. The grip Instagram has had on me (and most users) for ten years is shocking. The longevity and consistent growth of the app is as impressive as it is disturbing. When I was met with a fateful “unable to connect” message and an empty feed, I shrugged it off and continued with my morning routine of perusing the rest of my social media platforms” (Campbell, Lily). The account of the girl tells a story of how addicting Instagram could be. The girl was able to access Instagram from a very young age and continued to use it every day in the morning even when she became an adult. I believe that Lily Campbell purposefully uses this experience to further her claim that social media causes dangerous addictions. Campbell is able to use pathos in order to appeal to the audience how addicting social media can be for younger people. The account is supposed to make people think twice about how much time they use social media, and to question if they are addicted as well. 

To sum up, social media can be extremely dangerous for young people because of the addicting effects causing damage to the minds of young people. The different writers from each article all agree on this premise, but utilize different methods of appealing to the reader. Miao Chen and Xiao Xin chose to appeal to logos by including statistics about social media and including studies done by others. Alyson Klein chose to include a specialist who used the appeal of ethos to speak from a place of authority. Lily Campbell chose to include an interview of someone addicted to social media to use the appeal of pathos by making the audience fearful of social media. All of these articles use different methods of appealing to the audience, but they all contribute to the same message about how truly menacing social media is.