Argumentative Essay On Social Media

Social media is a game changing invention but it has come with a hefty amount of backlash. When I was younger I didn’t have a phone and social media was nothing compared to how it is now present day. It’s astonishing just how far the internet and social media have come. Not just when it comes to how advanced or how widespread they’ve become, what shocks me is just how influential social media has become. It’s almost borderline unsettling how much humans as a whole rely and depend on social media for nearly everything they know or want to discover. Social media has become not only a way to locate others and communicate with others but a way for people to learn and stay informed and aware of what goes on outside the doors of their cozy little nook. Looking back to my childhood days, I recall lounging on the couch with my mother in the morning watching news on the television but now that has become a distant memory if I need news today, I get it from social media on my cell phone. The poor television in the living room has become obsolete from lack of use because of a boost in social media's involvement with news and correct political issues.

Society’s dependence on a vast array of information and communication technology has not only changed the way we communicate but has also reinvented social activism. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and forum websites like Reddit has given digital activism more potential than ever before to create real change. Whether the activism pertains to political, social or economic changes–digital technology allows individuals working collectively to achieve a common purpose with more ease in their pursuit of change.

Social media is a very big deal in today's society, teenagers use it to socialize, find information and for entertainment. The first thing we could find on social media is really nice comments on teens photos. The second thing we could find is teens speaking out and being heard. Social media is helpful to teens because it boosts their confidence and lets teens have a voice. Despite this, some people say social media leads to cyberbullying, but only a small percent of teens said it made them feel less.

Nowadays, a lot of people are using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and so on. Since the Internet has propagated rapidly, social media have progressed a lot. The generalization of the internet makes us to live conveniently and fast. People are almost using smart phones, i-phones or comfortable devices which can access to internet. These equipments make us to do social network easily. It helps contact friends, family, and other people even though they live far away. It could be, however, abused, if you don’t use properly. Especially, it is important that we understand and regulate the use of social media by young children.

There is a transformation happening today that is completely changing the way that we do things. The ways that we are communicating are shifting from face to face interactions to short, interactive messages. Technology seems to be making it easier to stay connected, but it is restricting our interactions with others and leading to isolation.

With growing social unrest in the United States, due to differing political and social opinions, many young adults have taken to social media to share their beliefs with anybody that is willing to listen. The importance of social media in social and political movements became clear to many people during the rise of the Black Lives Matter campaign. Anybody that had an opinion on the campaign could take to their personal social media sites and share what they had to say. While mass media, like news companies and talk shows, allows opinions and biases to spread due to a single, often influential, person sharing their beliefs to a viewership, social media allows anybody to have a say in an issue and brings differing opinions together. By starting social movements on applications such as Twitter and Facebook, users and activists are not limited to the audience that subscribes to that particular site, but rather are able to be heard by anybody and create conversation beyond a small circle of friends and family. Twitter and other social media sites are valuable ways for young adults to read and distribute news in a way that eliminates the bias of the mainstream media towards big social movements and helps propel these movements further, specifically the racial profiling of blacks in the media.

Our society has become heavily reliant on social media, and today’s younger generation cannot avoid using it in their everyday lives. As time has progressed, social media has advanced significantly, becoming easier to access with a touch of a button. These advancements provide both positive and negative consequences to youths’ relationships. Due to the rapid advancement of social media, youths’ real-life relationships with their peers have been affected both positively and negatively.

Selfies have become a form of communication and culture. They provide us with a sense of validation and self expression. Often, this dictates how the world interacts with and categorizes those who put themselves on display. In much the same way that we learn interpersonal skills as we grow older, we have adapted ourselves socially along with the development of social media into our everyday lives.

When people think of social media they probably think of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. All of these websites allow you to post, comment, and like things other people say. It’s a great concept and all of these types of social media are very popular. I have an account or two on all of these websites, but after a while started to notice something. It started going from nice posts and pictures of my friends to videos and pictures of people I didn’t know all with very negative comment sections. This made the whole experience of seeing what my friends were doing a stressful time. After that occurred four years ago I decided to seek out an alternative form of social media that would have a more positive feeling to it. I needed to prove to myself that not all social media was a bad place or just a waste of time.

Internet started 30 years ago on August 6, 1991 by the World Wide Web. However, the first social media came out roughly about 30 years ago. The name of it was Six Degrees and it was created by Andrew Weinreich on 1997. Six degrees had the capabilities of uploading a profile, making friends, and send messages with family or friends. Nevertheless on 2004, Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg, a 19-year-old who created the biggest social media that changed the world. Till this day, Facebook has reached up 2 billion users and still in counting. Nonetheless, most users are from their teens to mid-40s, that had the capability of spreading information across the globe setting a chain reaction that created and spread fake news. Fake news is easily spread though social media to large numbers of people who are willing to believe and share the fictional material. (Brennen 169-172) According to Gretel, “In the midst of a nationwide debate over the proliferation of fake news on social media sites – and, as one 2015 study by the Media Insight Project shows, at a time when nearly 9 in 10 Millennials regularly get news from Facebook – the numbers, at first glance, may point to a bleak, uninformed future.” Therefore, teens need to use social media to disintegrate some of the repercussion of news.

Remember when there was a lifetime when everything was simpler and we didn't have technological devices that provided Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. Yes, this time period did exist, sadly that time period has ended. “The most dramatic change is our ability to be “elsewhere” at any point in time, to sidestep what is difficult, what is hard in a personal interaction and go to another place where it does not have to be dealt with. So, it can be as simple as what happens when 15-year-olds gather for a birthday party. As anyone who has ever been 15 knows, there is a moment at such events when everyone wants to leave. Things get awkward. It is, however, very important that everyone stay and learn to get along with each other. These days, however, when this difficult moment comes, each 15-year-old simply retreats onto Facebook. Whether or not they physically leave the birthday party, they have “left” (Price). Our generation has been taught when someone becomes bored or has nothing to occupy their time with, they pull out their cell phone, and most likely that person will be on a social networking site. It has become an addiction for our generation to conform to society. Does social media create isolation?

Social media has allowed many different forms of interaction. Websites such as Facebook have allowed for old friends to reconnect and remain aware of others’ life events even when separated geographically, as well as allowing new friends to connect. Twitter and Instagram, through the use of hashtags, let large groups of people participate in awareness campaigns, fundraisers, and spreading of news. Still other sites like Tumblr, deviantArt, and YouTube allow communities to form around different kinds of media, and are platforms for creators to showcase multiple kinds of content from writing to videos to various kinds of art. Despite some of the drawbacks, ultimately social media and the communities they foster are in fact beneficial to society as a whole.

“People are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second.”

In the age of social media, the world is greatly capable of connecting with others globally, “According to estimates, the number of worldwide social media users reached 1.96 billion and is expected to grow to some 2.5 billion by 2018” (“Statista”). Whether or not these connections are meaningful, are debatable. Especially when the number of those with social media accounts don’t match up with the number of people at protests. When social issues are now more blatant than ever due to social networking, the idea of social change through the use of social media is being tested daily. However, that “assistance” from social media might be doing more harm than good and creating a platform where entropy is taking hold instead. Although social media acts as a great tool to spread news and gather people, it isn’t sufficient enough to be what solely powers social change. Especially when it isn’t being properly utilized to help society reach real change.

In the recent decade, there have been numerous technological advances that we are able to take advantage of today. There are now self-driving cars, augmented reality devices, as well as millions of websites for almost everything. Out of all the latest online features we can access, social media networking has made the greatest impact to the most number of people. There are over 1.59 billion active Facebook users, over 400 million active Instagram users, and over 320 million active Twitter users (Richards, 2015). The constant updates and numerous ways to customize your own profiles give people of all different backgrounds something to enjoy. These numbers prove that the majority of our population are impacted by social media on a daily basis. Although social media can be a great way to interact, meet, and communicate with people regardless of distance, there can be many negative aspects.