Teenagers and Social Media - Ali's Words

How can you blame a player for using social media when their birth was announced on social media, their entire family and friends live on a phone. With a new update or a new social media platform, kids are flooded with engaging information specific to their tastes and likes, which keeps them hooked for hours! As a football player Social media has a huge impact on the players because the youngsters can connect with their biggest names in one swipe! sharing images, and videos and cheering on live events together makes them feel like they belong to the sport. But this quick fix happiness causes major stress when the reality does not match up to the hype.

Any football player will tell you that it took sweat, blood, and tears to reach where he/she is - but their Instagram only captures the success and wealth. This generation with the attention span of TikTok does not realize that social media has a world where only celebrations are captured, not the uphill tasks and disappointments and struggles - so they often feel that success can come without the stress. This delusion that success comes quickly and easily is fueled by the social media feel-good content that makes everything easily achievable. If players constantly spoke of the sacrifices instead of the branded bing, the kids would focus on the hard work more than the ultimate success... it's not going to happen but one can dream.