Social Media Addiction

Gr 7 Up—The programs in this series are meant to speak to teenagers on a peer level. Here, teens of various ages discuss using and abusing social media and how this impacts their lives. Some of the interviewed speak from a first-person perspective about how their addiction to social media has wreaked havoc with their lives. Others relate tales of friends who were bullied or attempted suicide after becoming too involved with their online lives. A youthful-looking professional counselor appears from time to time to summarize or tie together what viewers have just heard from the teens. The content is solid, if not groundbreaking. It is not news that living too much online and not enough in the real world can be bad for you. It is also commonly known that online bullying happens all too frequently. The interviewed teens speak unscripted, so their messages ramble a bit, but they get their points across in an honest and appealing manner. The technical quality is not smooth, though: the editing is jumpy at times, and the sound has some glitches.