Effects of Social Media on Adolescents

Abstract

Kaiser’s 2010 report, a study on media in the lives of young people between the ages of eight and 18, ignited afirestorm of worries about the amount young people consume, with social media being the newest and fastest-growingmedium. With teens consuming more than 7-12 hours of media a day, Nielsen found in 2011 that social networks werethe most visited sites on the web. And in 2014, Browser Media, Socialnomics, MacWorld discovered that nearly aquarter of all teens log on to Facebook over 10 times a day. Slowly but surely, the research is confirming what we knowto be true anecdotally: young people love social media (Simon, 2014). Young people today become consumers at anearlier age than their parents. (Ahava and Palojoki, 2004). In Turkey, 27% of the population is between the ages 10-14and 17% of the population is between the ages 15-17. In April 2015, the proportion of households with Internet access ingeneral was 69.5%. Such a young national population creates a powerful demand for marketing. (www.tuik.gov.tr). Thepurpose of this study is to report the findings of a descriptive study conducted to investigate the perception of adolescentson social media advertisements.