Using social media Web sites is among the most common activity of today's children, youth and adult. Any Web site that allows social interaction is considered a social media site, including social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, gaming sites and video sites such as YouTube offer today's new a portal for entertainment and communication and have grown in recent years. For this reason, it is important that parents and thinkers become aware of the nature of social media sites, given that not all of them are healthy environments for children. Teenagers are in a unique position to help families understand these sites and to encourage healthy uses. It is important to examine the causes and effects of social media on the family, and the impact on the family relationship.
Involvement in social media a routine activity that research has shown to benefit children and teenagers by increasing communication, social connection, and technical skills. Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace offer multiple daily opportunities for connecting with friends, classmates, instructors and people with shared interests. "According to a recent Nielsen poll, in the month of August, internet users spent 17% of their surfing time on social networking and blogging sites. That number is almost triple what it was at the same time last year. The Pew Internet Project reported that 93% of American children between the ages of 12-17 use the internet. Of those users, 55% have social networking profiles on various social and blogging sites. With so much emphasis being placed on social networking and with so much time being spent using these sites, how is the interaction of the American family being affected?"(William, 2009, Par. 2). A large part of this generation's social and emotional development is occurring while on the Internet and on cell phones. That offer social media sites allow teens to accomplish online many of the tasks that are important to them such...