TO celebrate the Year of Young People, every week in 2018 The National is giving a platform to young Scots. This week, 13-year-old Sarah Fulton.

SOCIAL media is awesome. You've got Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and many more apps where you can talk to real people with just the click of a button! But we have real life for that, right?

That's the problem with social media. It takes over. And I mean really, really, takes over. On average teenagers are spending nine hours a day on mobile phones. That's more than a third of their days. And a huge amount of that time is spent on social media. So, what makes social media so addictive?

First of all: it's fun. You can see awesome videos, look at inspiring posts, listen to music, make funny videos of your own ... the possibilities are endless! But if it was this reason alone, teens wouldn't spend half as much time on their mobile phones. After all, we have real life and the possibilities there are endless too (almost).

So, speaking as a young person myself, this is why most of us spend so much time taking pointless selfies and making painstakingly perfect musica.ly videos: Popularity.

READ MORE: It was hard enough growing up as a teen girl without having to deal with social media

Pretty much every young person's life is ruled by one simple word. Popularity: the ins and outs of fashion, the details of every local friend group, what you can wear and what would "socially kill you" or what bands you can like and what bands are "absolutely last season". Whether we like it or not, popularity has a huge impact on all of us young people. And getting the selfies right, or the most Instagram followers, is "totally in".

I could go into a whole rant about what makes teens feel like they need to be popular, but mostly, it's because we're afraid. Afraid of being left out, or afraid of being called a "geek" or afraid of not being in the popular group. Whether we realise it or not, most of us are afraid or insecure about something. And social media is how many of us deal with insecurities.

I'm not saying that all teens take selfies because they're scared. It's nothing like that. Some people just take selfies because they enjoy the process. But most young people use social media with the likes in mind. They feel as if the more "likes" or followers they get, the more popular they are. This is one of the ways that many teens deal with their insecurities. So, you can see how social media can seem like an answer for many teens and young people all over the world...

But it's not. Social media is actually becoming a huge problem.

READ MORE: Phone obsession risks doing damage to young people

Aside from the amount of time spent doing things that won't get you anywhere, social media also puts an enormous amount of pressure on young people. Because while posting the right stuff is "totally in", posting the wrong stuff can socially destroy you. This forces young people into spending more and more time and effort doing the "right thing" on social media, and makes kids do stuff they would never do if it wasn't popular. Who actually wants to pout, or do duck lips, or go on a diet to get that perfect "Instagram body"? Of course, some teens just use photoshop and filters, but others go as far as surgeries and transplants to make themselves look different. And all of this just to feel popular.

The other problem with social media is that people say things on it that they wouldn't dare say in real life. More than one in three teenagers get bullied online, and most of the time there isn't much people do to stop it. I myself have been on the receiving end of online harassment. Fortunately I could just block them, but that’s not the point. Once you've seen something on social media you can't un-see it, and no amount of blocking, reporting or deleting can change that.

As well as that, a simple message like "OK" on social media can have about 500 different meanings. Because you can't see the face of the person, you have no idea how they actually feel or what they really mean. This causes many arguments and fallouts between teenagers and is something I find really annoying.

And don't even get me started on WhatsApp read receipts. What if you just don't want to reply but you have to because they've seen that you read the message?! Is it really necessary for people to know when you were last on WhatsApp, when you're online, and pretty much everything about whether or not you're purposefully ignoring them??? There can be reasons for purposefully ignoring someone!!!

Anyway, sorry about that.

I will conclude with a quote: "Don't say anything online that you wouldn't want to be plastered on a billboard with your face on it."

READ MORE: The moral panic about girls on social media dismisses their voices