Abstract

This paper discusses the pressing problem of adolescents’ cognitive perceptions and belief systems becoming negative shaped by a plethora of misinformation on social media, leading to potential social behaviors that verge on being poorly informed, highly controversial, or downright extreme. Before delving into the very discussions, the paper spare two sections justifying our special focus on the adolescents as opposed to other age groups, as well as examining the intrinsic appeal of social media to teenagers, hence their extra-potent influences on them. Psychological concepts such as filter bubble, echo chamber effect, and mere exposure effect help elucidate the almost inescapable outcome of adolescent social media users forming a rigid, one-sided perception of the world; whereas the two psychological theories, the moral emotion theory and social identity theory, combine to illustrate the far-reaching consequences of teenage girls’ belief systems tweaked towards an unhealthy understanding of gender equality, ultimately translated into potential behaviors of gender antagonism.

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