Many teenagers in today’s society are on their phones Snapchatting one another or sending memes back and forth on Instagram. Social media has pretty much taken over the internet as some people can use it to help start up a business or gain an insane amount of popularity off simply posting content that people enjoy.

Ramon Ruiz, a 17-year-old who attends West Anchorage High School, was asked about how many hours he spends on social media. “I use social media for most of the day, because when I wake up I go straight to my social media and throughout school, I’ll either be doing my work or I’m on social media, so I’m on it for a good eight hours,” said Ruiz. He then went on to talk about how it is interfering with the way we interact with one another, as it is somewhat easier to avoid face to face interactions by simply just looking down at your smartphone. “I think it is easier, mostly because people are on their phones and they just prefer to text than be face to face,” he adds

Social media has made it sort of a handicap for people to avoid awkward situations, as you can simply just scroll through your feed for as long as your heart desires, but when it’s not there for them, the interactions with others can become awkward. Linnea Renken, a 17-year old who attends West told us how she feels about how social media is making these interactions. “I like social media, but it definitely interferes with real life I guess, because having phones and stuff makes people really awkward and not really good with in person interactions.” There’s an app called snapchat that people have streaks on by sending each other photos back and forth for at least three days. It’s something that a good amount of teenagers take pretty serious and will even go as far as reporting it to get it back. The importance of streaks aren’t much of a deal to Linnea as she doesn’t have have many streaks and only have with 10 of her friends and doesn’t understand why people have them with people they don’t know at all or all to well.

Social media also has a huge impact on the children of the younger generation and on kids impact in school. “My niece, I know she wants one, but I always tell her that she doesn’t need it yet because I feel like they’re kids and should enjoy being kids and you don’t want them getting caught up in things especially like bullying,” said Angelo Lotino, a 17-year-old who also attends West. He began to talk about the amount of kids he’ll see in class on their phones and the number was “about 15 to 20” and that during school a decent amount of students get their phones taken away or threatened to be taken away.