If a teen is being affected by something in a negative manner why should it continue? A persons teenage years are such a crucial stage in their development. Not only are they creating an identity for themselves but also building new relationships, all while doing the best they can in school. Teens need to be in a safe environment that allows them to be themselves. Therefore any practice that has the potential to negatively affect a teen should be closely monitored. There are many ways a teen can be affected negatively: mentally, academics and relationships. Teens already have low self-esteems and many different factors can make that even lower. Academics are a big part of a teens life, doing well in high school can determine a teens future. And finally a teen is starting to build important relationships at this time, and something threatening that can lead them down the wrong path. So many factors can affect these; one under debate is whether teens are being affected negatively by the rise in social media. Social networking, defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary, is a dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc. Popular social media sites include: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. But when did all this start? Facebook was first introduced to the public in 2006 and that same year Twitter was announced to the world. According to The Rise of Social Commerce, there has been a "356% increase of social media use in the US since 2006  (Bennett). 356% is a huge increase for seven years. Not only is the increase is important but who is using it. As seen in Table 1, female's ages 15-17 are the most intensive users. With this increase in popularity have come many different things both positive and negative. With this increase in popularity have come many different things both positive and negative. According to an analyst of a Nielsen study done in 2012, "The average American spent more than 14 minutes a day on Facebook. That totals to almost seven hours each month. Over this time, "we've seen sentences communicating complete thoughts devolve into esoteric sound bites laced with a dizzying array of fragments and acronyms" (Cain). Social media is creating a world where sincere, meaningful communication is becoming less significant than short and frequent interactions online. However many good things have come out of social media too. Social media has actually created thousands of jobs, and has boosted our economy. With Facebook's 1.5 billion users The University of Maryland's Business School has, "found that the company had created as many as 235,644 U.S. jobs, injecting some $15.71 billion into the U.S. economy" And that's just the US; Europe's numbers are even higher than that. Despite the popularity, social media has the potential to negatively affect a teen. Teens who worry about appearance online is an indicator of how social media can negatively affect a teen mentally. In a study put on by three professors at the University of Malaga in 2012 on 100, 12-15 year olds Facebook pages observes that teens often spend a majority of there time editing the pictures of the