draft/ outline for essay blahhhh

In my essay I will attempt to explore some of the psychological effects of social networking sites on developing youths. To do this I will first address the definition of a social networking site and the general point of their existence, I will then introduce some psychological aspects that are expected of developing teens, lastly I will discuss the immediate and lasting psychological effects of these sites on youth.

Some of the resources I will be utilizing for this essay are:

* Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life by danah boyd
* Stages of social-emotional development in children and teenagers
* Erikson’s Psychosocial stages of development
* The impact of internet usage on adolescent self-identity development by Janet. H. Long and Guo-Ming Chen,
* Adolescents in Myspace: Identity formation, friendship and sexual predators by Larry D. Rosen.
* I will also be conducting my own research in the form of questionnaires and interviews

The aspects of this topic that I will be discussing include;

* Identity versus identity diffusion
* Intimacy versus isolation
* Is it making youth anti-social?
* Accessibility: restrictions and usage
* Beneficial or detrimental
* Internet bullying

In this essay I hope to clearly show;

* why the youth use social networking sites
* Why this interaction is overall a beneficial experience, psychologically, for developing youths