Tag: Nancy Jo Sales
In one of the most scary article on Social media in Vanity Fair recently, Nancy Jo discusses the impact of Social media on the teenage girls today.
This year, 81 percent of Internet-using teenagers in America reported that they are active on social-networking sites, more than ever before. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and new dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, and Blendr have increasingly become key players in social interactions, both online and IRL (in real life). Combined with unprecedented easy access to the unreal world of Internet porn, the result is a situation that has drastically affected gender roles for young people. Speaking to a variety of teenaged boys and girls across the country, Nancy Jo Sales uncovers a world where boys are taught they have the right to expect everything from social submission to outright sex from their female peers.
As per her research, its becoming a norm for teenage girls to shed their clothes and share sexier pictures of themselves on the net with boys in their circle. The need to be popular pushes them to such extreme levels. Boys, on the other hand, expect that as a given from girls.
The male attitudes are full of sexual arrogance and dismissiveness towards the girls of their group.
“Gotta wheel the bitches in. Gotta wheel the bitches in,” said the teenage boy on a city bus in New York. “Nowadays you can do it so easy. There are so many apps and shit that just, like, hand you the girls. They don’t even know that’s what they’re doing, but really they’re just giving teenagers ways to have sex.”
There are many options for teenagers these days and the web is full of ways to indulge in sex. Often for money.
There’s sexting, and there’s Snapchat, where teenagers share pictures of their bodies or body parts; on Skype, sometimes they strip for each other or masturbate together. On Omegle, they can talk to strangers, and sometimes the talk turns sexual. A boy in L.A. told me about a boy he knew who had a PayPal account where he accepted payment for being sexual online with “random guys . . . Two hundred bucks.” And then there is Tinder, where kids can meet each other on their phones. “It’s like Grindr used to be for gay guys, but now kids are doing it,” said a girl in L.A. “No one cares about anything but how you look.”
As much as Social media is a great boon for most of us bloggers, it might be ruining the lives of our kids as well.
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