Social Media and European Youth: A Combined Qualitative Analysis of Finland and Spain

There has been an extreme advancement in technology over the years and social media has become widely used. The impact of internet and social media plays an important role in young people’s lives.Therefore, the focus of this research is to define and better understand the terms and uses of internet and social media use, observe its effects and how to manage its use. It examines the relation of European youth and social media, while researching different types of social media networks, as well as their impact on young people’s behavior. A combined methodology of content analysis and a comparative analysis of Spain and Finland follows, in order to observe social media’s impact in two European countries. Two research questions come forth in order to observe whether social media is safe for youths to use, and whether schools need to educate students and parents about social media’s advantages and disadvantages, its risks and how it may affect them. This article concludes with some observations.