Social networks that can be accessed on phones have become the biggest blessing as well as danger in a teenager’s life.

Recent studies by the Statistics Portal have shown that fifty-six percent of Americans have a social media profile but most likely aren’t aware of the potential threat caused by it.

Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Facebook. Sound familiar? Almost everyone I know has at least one of these apps and carelessly gives away information for many people, including strangers, to see. I believe teens need to be way more cautious when adjusting their account settings because “unprivate” accounts are exposed to anyone in the world, and can be found simply by the search of a name on Google.

Being able to have access to popular apps like these make it easier and more efficient for teens to post and check their feed. According to statistics from Online Safety Site, fifty-eight percent of kids don’t even think posting a picture or giving out personal information on social media is unsafe.

“People have unprivate accounts because they aren’t concerned about who sees their pictures and that way more people will see the pictures and like it and a lot of kids think they are defined by the amount of likes they get,” said sophomore Lexi Minadeo, a teen who is aware of the dangers that can happen on social media.

Health teacher Tina Monastero has been educating students on the dangers of social media in her class for many years. “I think it’s extremely dangerous because anybody can contact you and talk to you. When these kids post things, they don’t realize the repercussions of what they post and how anybody can see it and that it could possibly affect your future and at a young age, kids don’t think about their future. They’re living in the moment of right now”.

Not many kids today will thoroughly think about what they post before they post it, which is most likely going to be regretted in the future.

Minadeo also said, “My twitter is private because I ‘googled’ my name once and anything I used as a profile picture at some point came up even when I deleted the pictures and I thought that was creepy.”

Many people have never realized that googling your name can be the scariest thing. Things you thought that would never come back to haunt you after you pressed “delete” are still in the system for the whole world to see.

The most appealing thing about apps is we can easier hide things from our parents, which is why our phones have become our most valuable possession. They can’t see what we post or what we comment, making us feel like we can say and do whatever we please. Although many of us don’t realize it, parental guidance is something we need when it comes to social networking.

Monastero said, “I think part of the problem comes back to parents not monitoring what their kids are doing. Some parents monitor every single move their kid makes on their phone but then there are others that have no idea of the things that are out there.”

I know that sharing every thought you have to your parents isn’t ideal, but they need to know what you are putting out in the system before something terrible could happen.