Editor's Note: This story was reported by Analia Avila-Mendiola, and the accompanying artwork by Kimberly Nunez was created as part of the Spring 2025 Kalamazoo Voices of Youth Program. The program is a collaboration between Southwest Michigan Second Wave and KYD Network in partnership with the YMCA of Greater Kalamazoo, funded by the Stryker Johnston Foundation. The Voices of Youth Program is led by Earlene McMichael. VOY mentors were Jane Parikh (writing) and Taylor Scamehorn (art). 

KALAMAZOO, MI — Kayla Ricardo, 14, a freshman at Loy Norrix High School, spends hours on her phone daily.

She says her life consists of and revolves around social media.

Whenever Ricardo is scrolling through social media, however, she says she mostly sees white models. Ricardo is a Hispanic teenager. So, when she sees these models, she feels like she is supposed to look just like them to meet social media standards. 

¨I strive to look like these models just to fit in,” Ricardo says.

It started a few years ago. “After I began using social media around the age of 11, it made me view myself differently and change the way I act,” she recalls. 

Her vocabulary was also impacted because of social media. She says she found herself using slang words she learned online, such as ¨crashing out.”

Ricardo agrees that social media is a bad influence on her. But she believes there is also a good side to social media and cites the ability to stay informed on what is going on around her and in the world in general. 

¨It is also a helpful way for me to communicate with my friends because I am able to reach them quicker. I even made some new friends through apps like TikTok and Snapchat,¨ says Ricardo.

She is not alone in her frequent use of social media.

"There's an increase in social media use and, unfortunately, COVID made people rely on social media as a way to relate to each other,” says Michelle Serlin, owner of Choices for Change, a counseling practice in Kalamazoo. “And when you're restricted, your life relies on social media, and people got more used to it and it's more comfortable because people aren't afraid to say things.¨

Chelsea Nonato, a freshman at Loy Norrix, is among teens who log on often.

¨I spend about four hours on social media each day,” she says. “I started using social media in fifth grade and, ever since, I've been influenced by it. I believe social media has taken over a big part of my life because I am constantly on it.¨ 

When it goes too far

Although Ricardo and Nonato appreciate the connectedness that social media gives them, a story in Psychology Today cites a study in the Journal of Adolescence that found the psychological well-being of adolescents worldwide began to decline after 2012, with the rising use of smartphones and the internet. Students with high smartphone and internet usage tended to feel lonely in school, a development that has only increased over the years as smartphones have become a staple for many people. 

Teens' addiction to social media can be so bad that, when the app TikTok was banned for 12 hours in January, some area students said they were really upset because the platform is one of their main ways of passing the time.

¨When TikTok got banned, I was crashing out and had to go to YouTube shorts for entertainment, but I felt much better when TikTok got unbanned a day later,” Ricardo says.

Nonato’s reaction to the ban was sadness, “because I watch lots of TikTok and it is the app that I use the most.¨ 

Serlin says teens complain that they feel isolated and alone, but they continue to use social media. To them, it feels safe. “Safety is the biggest reason,” she says of young people’s high social media use, “because you don’t have to worry about people rejecting you or you can reject them and they won’t have to deal with real-life consequences.”

Artwork: Kimberly NunezBut at the same time, social media can be an unsafe place due to cyberbullying, according to the Cyberbullying Research Center, an online resource created two decades ago for parents and educational, mental health and law enforcement professionals. In 2020, the organization surveyed 1,034 American tweens (9 - 12-year-olds) and found that about 15% of them had been cyberbullied. Some 3% of respondents had cyberbullied others. 

¨I have encountered mean comments towards me or others on social media, which is how I have seen cyberbullying happening on social media,¨ Ricardo says.

Online attacks can leave those who experience them feeling as if they cannot escape, not even in their own homes, according to a cyberbullying article on UNICEF’s website. The children’s group says effects on a person can also include and last a while:
 

• Mentally – feeling upset, embarrassed, stupid, even afraid or angry 
• Emotionally – feeling ashamed or losing interest in the things you love
• Physically – tired (loss of sleep), or experiencing symptoms like stomach aches and headaches 

Managing social media use

Yet, Sarai Martinez-Cardona, a freshman at Loy Norrix, says she thinks there is an upside to social media.

¨Without social media's existence, it would be harder for me to get a hold of information because social media gives me easy access to lots of information,¨ says Martinez-Cardona. ¨I know how to manage my time on social media. Therefore, it hasn't taken over a big part of my life.”

This is not the norm, according to Rachel Ehmke, a freelance writer and former managing editor at the New York City-based Child Mind Institute. ¨Modern teens are learning to do most of their communication while looking at a screen, not another person,¨ she writes in an article on the organization’s website.

Ricardo and Nonato say that they are on their phones when they finish their work in class to keep from being bored, conceding they “overuse” technology.

¨Social media is an easy way for me to reach my friends, which is why it is my main source of communication,” Nonato says. “It’s also a good source of information, and I’ve found and used tutorials for schoolwork.”

Martinez-Cardona says that social media has not taken over a big part of her life because she knows how to manage her time online and prefers to talk to friends in person, “because I get to see those emotions face-to-face.¨

The way her friends and classmates choose to communicate is ultimately their own choice, Ricardo says.

¨I just know I wouldn't be the person I am today without social media.¨ she says.


Analia Avila-Mendiola


Analia Avila-Mendiola, 14, is a freshman at Loy Norrix High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her interests include baking, photography, traveling, and swimming. She hopes to become a radiologist.





Kimberly Nunez




Kimberly Nunez created the above artwork for this Voices of Youth project.