The Dangers of Social Media Advertising on the Adolescent Mind

Social Media is the new you – individuals and organizations alike shape an online identity where they can be whatever they want to be. It’s simple, everyone is creating an online identity. Social media serves as an outlet for our innermost thoughts and feelings, we use it communicate with our friends and family, and we use it to multi-task in this busy world. Everyone puts so much of themselves into their social media accounts. Organizations use it to advertise, market, and strengthen relationships between themselves and their audiences; the people use it to shape their identity. There are a variety of theories that are directly applicable to how the adolescent shapes their identity; with the new mergence of the individual identity with the social media identity, organizations now play a larger role in the shaping of the adolescent mind. Because the adolescent mind is so pliable, there exists a danger in the interaction of organizations (their advertisements and marketing) and adolescents which could lead to a permanent, deep-rooted brand association.

In just the United States alone “social network sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn) and blogging sites (e.g., Blogger, Twitter, and Tumblr) are the main things people look at when the log on” (Bryant, Thompson, & Finklea, 2013, p. 297). Bryant, Thompson, & Finklea (2013) claim that 53.4 billion minutes a month are spent by each American social media user on their preferred social media site – meaning individuals spend at least 22.9 percent of their time on social media (p. 297). A significant percentage of those users are adolescents – in fact, 81 percent of social media users are adolescents between the ages of thirteen and eighteen (Hindenach, 2013). Of that percentage, 71 percent usemore than one social media account (Lenhart, 2015). Meaning adolescents, who are respectively endeavoring in successfully shaping their identity, are now, partially, being raised under organizational opinion and influence. Shea Bennett (2014) claims that almost nine out of ten companies use social media as a means for marketing. This means that almost ninety percent of existing American organizations use social media to market to social media users, eighty-one percent of whom are adolescents. Additionally, organizations are better able to reach each adolescent due to their concurrent usage of several social media platforms. Eighty-one percent of all adolescent minds are subject to deep-rooted brand association.

Okay, so organizations are not fictional characters - but they know less about you than you have invested in them, in a happening that we label a parasocial interaction. We have established that most organizations are using social media as a means of marketing and that most adolescents spend a majority of their time shaping their identity on social media. The correlation between the two results in a parasocial interaction, where the adolescent social media user will see the organization as more of a friend than a structural entity or even a stranger. A parasocial relationship is a “one-sided relationship, where one person extends emotional energy, interest, [money,] and time, and the other party…is completely unaware of the other’s existence…parasocial relationships are cultivated by the media to resemble face-to-face relationships” (Bennett, Rossmeisl, Turner, Holcombe, Young, Brown, & Key, 2014). If you wanted it to be put simply, you could say that the consumer does everything their advertisements ask and the organization barely knows the consumer exists. If you throw in the idea that the adolescent mind shapes a corporeal identity alongside a social media identity, doing so through a form of social contagion while concurrently relying on social expectations derived from various social constructs, than you conclude that this parasocial interaction leaves a lasting impression on the adolescent identity. There are dangers that stem from this interaction. For example, there is a social construct, further enhanced through media and plastered over various social media sites, of what the human body should look like. Organizations, such as make-up companies, tell their audience members that in order to look pristinely beautiful, or to look like the women in their advertisements, they must buy their product; Fast-food joints advertise moments of happiness that can only come from what they serve at their restaurant. The parasocial interaction, then, is the seemingly friendly organization that claims to exist to aid the adolescent in their endeavor to fit in or be perfect or to find happiness. The social contagion exists when the adolescents view the individuals in the ads produced in within that parasocial interaction as an influence/role model.  

Already, before the inclusion of social media, the adolescent mind has a difficult time shaping their identity. Add in social media and the shaping identity becomes even more complex. However, when an organization establishes a parasocial relationship with the adolescent, the adolescent’s ability to reach a form of self-actualization becomes jeopardized when they are unable to become the reality that their advertisements portrayed. As you can see, there is a big problem within the pro and con line of social media marketing towards adolescents. 

References

Bennett, S. (2014, October 20). 88% of Companies are Using Social Media for Marketing [STUDY]. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.adweek.com/digital/social-media-companies/

Bryant, J., Thompson, S., & Finklea, B. W. (2013). Fundementals of Media Effects (2nd ed.). Long Grove, II: Waveland Press.

Hindenach, J. (2013, August 29). Adults vs. Teens: The Different Ways We Use Social Media. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-hindenach/adults-vs-teens-the-diffe_b_3838657.html

Lenhart, A. (2015, April 08). Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview 2015. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/