Effects Of Social Media On Social Development

Social media has guided us to believe that we need to be connected to others. “…the social media revolution has not made us feel more connected, less lonely, or replete with friends” (Barna Group). Social media has input certain beliefs into the minds of people while also taking away that time that could be spent with friends and family. Social media has allowed people to put on fronts and believe that these are the only means of communication.

In the last ten to fifteen years accompanying the dawn of social media, means of communication among friends and strangers have been easier than ever. Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has grown into the largest social media site on the Internet with 30 million users and counting. The ability to catch up with former high school friends who are now across the country or see how an aunt in Pittsburgh has been doing since the birth of her son are now as simple as the click of a mouse. However, the amount of “friends” acquired on social media may not be an accurate reflection of how many close relationships one truly shares. In an article from Bigthink.com titled “Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?”, Steven Mazie gathers research from Pew Research Center about statistics surrounding Facebook

In “The Limits of Friendship” by Maria Konnikova, social media has significantly changed the way we interact with friends and family. Everybody thinks that using social media is the best way to talk to friends and family, however, in my opinion, they are wrong because it doesn’t give you the face-to-face connections we need as humans for social interaction. On the other hand, the great thing about using social media is you can connect with more people, but in a superficial kind of way. Therefore, we do not get the face-to-face interactions with our friends and family. We, the people that are addicted to social media, learn that without face-to-face conversations we wouldn’t have a normal “social” life outside of social media. The question

Maria Konnikova's essay "The Limits of Friendship," analyzes the impact of social media on close relationships, addressing the people impacted by social media use. This essay published in The New Yorker, a weekly magazine with scholarly authors, to inform the public on social media's impact on our lives. She finds that social media has created a dependency on technology and online interactions. Konnikova strives to inform that social media is decreasing close relationships, and persuades that it will impact our future. She argues on the impact of increased dependency on social media on the Dunbar number, hindering the development of future generations. Konnikova succeeds using strong logic and scientific reason as well as appealing to emotions; however, she fails to prove her credibility over the topic and instead relies on the credibility of Robin Dunbar.

Maria Konnikova, a New York Times best-selling author, is known for contributing scientific and psychological factors into her works, which has been published on several online publications such as Salon, the Atlantic, the New Republic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, etc. (Konnikova 235). In her essay “Limits of Friendship”, she goes into depth about the number of friends that one can have overall based off Robin Dunbar theory and how technology is impacting not only his theory, but our social lives also. Based on Robin Dunbar research, he believes that a typical individual has one hundred and fifty people in their social group in which he differentiates in his “rule of three”. As technology advances, the way individuals interact with one another is through social media and their smart devices, but we’re slowly losing our focus on how to socialize with one another. Technology is making it easier to build relationships with those around the world, but harder with those around us.

A prevalent issue regarding social media and interactions exists between researchers and social network users. Social media is currently changing how relationships between people are created. Relationships can exist through people across the world through social media and can produce more emotional bonds with friends that you can see everyday. On the other hand, social media also could present conflicts due to the fact that some of these relationships can become unhealthy and that people could change to be more dependent on internet friends, becoming introverted.

There are both positives and negatives to social networking. After reading his article, I began to reflect on my own experiences and looked further into the information he presented. I found Thomas’s piece to be extremely accurate and I agree with the majority of his claims. Thomas goes deeply into the limited privacy these websites provide, the ambient awareness that brings a whole new meaning to knowing someone, and how your “weak ties” may be stronger, but also impacting your real life relationships. The article made me realize how much this social media craze is affecting our population and myself.

With the proliferation of technologies, especially the Internet, social networking has become ubiquitous in the modern world. Social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, etc. are the impetus that is ever facilitating rapid creation and exchange of ideas to promote and aid communication. Humans interact by being social, therefore sociology analyses the changes in the social trend. Understanding the sociological perspective on the effects of social media, we find that the social aspect has changed. Comparing the past and present status of our society, it is obvious that there has been a transformation which all points towards the evolution of social media. Social media has changed our culture and has impacted on the way people meet, interact and share ideas; it has changed the perception of how people should communicate with the society. Social interactions have been defined to be an exchange among individuals with the aim of strengthening the society. Social interaction is building block in every society when people meet and interact; they define rules, systems, and institutions in which they will live by. On the other hand, social media is known as a platform that allows people to network and socialize through applications and websites that have been innovated. Though social media could be used as a useful tool to communicate with friends, family and even with people you do not know, however, researchers show that social media is absolutely harming human's skills to have

This thesis documents the effects of social media on the generations born into a society that never knew a world without the technology and the possible changes in cognitive behavior. The author, seeking a Master's of Science in Education, used several accredited sources to support her arguments. The The paper direct connects to my subject by observing the digital native generation and the changes is social behavior.

Having a thousand friends can be manageable, yet impossible to others. When Myspace was introduced in 2003, it dominated the internet with instant messaging. Now keeping in touch with friends and family is easier than ever. Silver’s article “The Quagmire of Social Media Friendships” suggests that the Dunbar’s theory doesn't represent the number of friends you can maintain, “I think that is a false assertion of Dunbar's number and doesn't take into account the constant shifting nature of social networks. Not only that, but Dunbar's number was developed using personal, physical relationships rather than online ones. Online relationships are a different beast” (Silver, 5). Now in 2017 we have different media platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Social media has drastically changed how people communicate. How many people remember how it feels to hear the phone ring in the house or receive a letter in the mail? Today’s youth know nothing other than text messages, tweets, and Facebook. Social media and the social entertaining websites of today have affected social behavior in many ways. While there are many advantages to this technological advancement, these advancements can also result in many changes in social behaviors. Some of the few prominent changes in social behavior, due to social media, are lack of communication skills, changes in self-esteem and cyber

Social media is making individuals less social being that it prevents hand-on conversations with others. According to the article, "In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions?", it states " Children's social skills may be declining as they have less time for face-to-face interaction due to their increased use of digital media, according to a UCLA psychology study." Also, " All the lonely Facebook friends: Study shows social media makes us MORE lonely and unhappy and LESS sociable", announces that "The

A variety of research and studies have indicated the positive effect social media has on the psychosocial development of the human brain as well as associating a greater form of sympathy in result of media usage. A handful of these studies measured the sympathy aspect by asking empathy based questions for evaluation. However, this caused confusion between the two words sympathy and empathy because both terms have similar but different meanings. The conclusion is that empathy has been measured the whole time during these studies rather than sympathy, having this not been acknowledged beforehand (Vossen, 2016, p. 123). As stated by H.G.M. Vossen, sympathy is “an automatic response that particularly relates to suffering or distress of others”

The label, “Social Media”, is due to its ability to encourage people to be more social and communicative through the internet. Yet, it is now known that the name might not live up to its expectation. With less face-to-face interaction, relationships and communication skills are being sacrificed. Although one may have one thousand

People begin to connect more and more every day with the power of social media. Whether someone is thousands of miles away or a few blocks from your house there is the possibility of finding them on social media. The question is, with all the connecting possible through social media does it make us more distant to one another? With today’s youth, social media begins to take over one’s life and become their main source of interacting. Social media is possibly one of the best and worst creations in the modern world but the cons definitely triumph over the pros.