In the digital age, online communication has become more popular than ever, especially with the young generations. According to recent research, teenagers have a tendency to contact with each other through online applications instead of having face-to-face appoinments. This essay will first outline the underlying causes of this phenomenon before suggesting some viable solutions to this problem.
Teenagers’ preferences for socialising online over offline meetings can be attributed to two main factors. One of these lies in their addiction to social medias that are attched with several contacting applications such as Messenger and Instagram. Adolescents are hindered from hanging out and doing outdoor activities with their peers because these platforms are so modern that they empower them to send messages and make video-calls conveniently regardless of far distance while they can still play games or surf the internet. Aside from this, many of them are lack in confidence to communicate with people in person, so they seemingly feel more comfortable to express themselves in the virtual world. As a result, socialising online appears to be an ideal way for teenagers to hide their shyness and show their true personalities which cannot be seen when talking to them in real life.
In order to address the afforementioned problems, the following steps should be taken. First, it is important that parents put restrictions on teenagers spending too much time using their cell phones to socialise and give explanations about how detrimental this way of communication can cause to their social skills and close relationships. By doing so, the boredom resulting from being deprived of entertaining and connecting tools could motivate adolescents to meet people face-to-face and find alternative recreations. In tandem with this, schools also take responsibility for instiling confidence into students by promoting presentation activities as well as teamwork assignments during the lectures, leading to their improved communication skills and less dependence on online platforms to socialise with people.
In conclusion, what seem to be at the core of teenagers inclined to socialise online rather than offline are their addiction to social networking and low self-confidence. For these reasons, parents should set a limit for their screentime and educators should organize more activites that effectively boost their self-esteem in classes so that this issue can be handled.