Negative Impact Of Social Media

Older generations don’t realize how much technology has affected this generation of teenagers, along with the social media that comes along with the technology. As stated in “How Social Media Changed Teens’ Lives Forever”; “Negative posts or comments also can do great damage to a teen’s self-esteem.” (Ashley Black, Thomas Atseff and Colleen Kaveney) While many parents think social media is just a way to connect with others, many teenagers take it for granted. For example, “quitting social media because it made her miserable and obsessed with appearing perfect online”, is what a teenager felt about social media and what it has done to her. Though many think that social media is a great way to connect, teenagers take it to another level.

It has become extremely common for an individual to sign into their Facebook account, and see a picture that they feel exposed a little too much. Check into their Instagram account, and regret letting everyone know what their location was. Feel uncomfortable, or bullied by a tweet that a person posted to their Twitter. Per Farheen’s article on negative effects of social media “participating in social media sites such as these can make you feel more connected” (Sagheer 1). It is not okay for individuals to feel victimized due to the negative effects of social media. Social media tends to distract, humiliate, and destroy one-self through entertainment. If people would donate more time to things more supplemental to their growth, and limit their use of social media, then maybe people would stop walking over the harm that social media presents to our community. Monitoring the time invested into social media will help eliminate most of the detriment, privacy issues, and bullying flowing through today’s society.

Communication plays a vital role in human life. Being able to communicate is one of the most important things humans do for one another. There are hundreds of different ways humans communicate whether it’s through different languages, talking on the phone or sending letters in the mail, and the most recent form of communication, social media. What is so outstanding about social media is the fact that it allows individuals to represent themselves and have their own voice in the form of words, pictures, and videos. How is this new form of communication affecting the younger generations? Social media has had a detrimental effect on how we interact with each other, especially little kids and young adults.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are commonly used among the younger generations, but can the excessive use of these apps cause mayhem? According to a new study conducted by the Family Technology Education Non-Profit Group, teenagers are spending nearly 9 hours a day on social media. The excessive use of social media is a bad influence on adolescents because of the negative impacts it has. Social media can cause direct impacts to the mental health, safety, and lives of its users. Teenagers need to ensure that they are being cautious and responsible while using different social media networks.

A reader and responder, George Jeff, wrote back to Kardaras on the point of social media addiction. He wrote “I do not use social media myself, but I have seen some of my friends and family become addicted to it and use it constantly, to the point where they barely make any social contact out-side of it, as they use it more and more” (The Social Media Generation, 2017, para. 3). What Jeff is trying to point out is that social media has gotten so out of hand we have forgotten how to communicate face to face. Millennial’s struggle constantly with impromptu speaking with real life people. They are outgoing when it’s over text, but introverted whenever it comes to real life situations. In an article by David Oragui, he explains how social media is preventing children from having face-to-face conversations. Oragui writes how social media networks and sites will soon replace human interaction in not only the United States, but the world as well. He once came across a photograph of a small group of teenage girls with their eyes glued to their phones. The funny thing is, they were all having

The use of social media is ruining this generation’s real life social skills. According to Social Media Today, an online community for professionals, “The amount of time people spend on social media is constantly increasing. Teens now spend up to nine hours a day on social platforms, while 30% of all time spent online is now allocated to social media interaction.” Texting or online communications does not allow people to truly express themselves for who they truly are. There is a loss of social and personal development communicating through social media. For instance, people online are unable to use body language, tone, voice and facial expressions through a text. An article on The Telegraph, pointed out that “One in four people spend more time socialising online, using sites such as Facebook, than they do in person, according to research.” The study also found that even when there is an opportunity to see people face-to-face, on weekends for example, up to 11% of adults still prefer to stay at home and communicate on their devices instead. (USA Today). The problem with socialising online is that affects a person’s ability to communicate properly in face-to-face interactions. The person will feel a sense of social anxiety and not project their voice loud enough for their audience to hear them. For

Communication barriers are not the only issue that has been brought on by social media. Extensive social media use has also been known to affect a person’s self-esteem. Some individuals suffer from a low self-esteem and limit themselves to social media in hopes to create a different image of them. According to Charles Cooley, “The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind" (Morine, 2009). For some teens and young adults, social media may help them open up and achieve a higher self-esteem. On the other hand, social media on other teens and young adults may have a completely opposite effect. In an article titled, Is Facebook Making Your Child Depressed, it is stated that social media websites such as Facebook “can create a skewed reality that makes teens feel alienated” (PR, 2012). When a person, that is not completely happy with their life, goes onto social media and reads all about other people enjoying a multitude of activities and enjoying their lives this could

In today’s society, social media has caused us to demote human interaction and reward imitation connections and communications, making it hinder us from maintaining close personal relationships. We would rather talk to someone over the screen then over coffee, and only identify the worthy aspects of our life and disregard the undesirable. This want and desire through social media for a false persona and false ties gives us an aesthetic “good life”, but ultimately hinders us from reaching a genuine “good life”.

Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are becoming tools to drain the intelligence of adolescences until they only converse with instant messaging lingo. It is an instrument for teenagers to become secluded from society where they only spend time in their rooms and online. With the pressure from their peers to update their statuses every few minutes, teenagers focus more on what 140 character message they will send out next, instead of what school work they have. They care more about what selfie to post instead of spending valuable time with their families. Television and video games have sucked

Media in all forms has transformed the world in many aspects of the society as a whole as well as individuals lives. With technological advancements, the influence of social media has had a significant and detrimental effect on the masses. In Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death he discusses the role that television plays in society and how its methods of providing information to the public are nothing more than entertainment. In addition, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited discusses his opinion on mass communication through media as well as his prediction of the future of propaganda in the political world. The influence that the media has on the public has grown exponentially in the past few decades and with that being said,

Social media today is growing at very fast rates. The number of people joining social platforms to see what others are doing are astronomical, but with this this rise in social media usage, users are becoming more isolated. Social media distracts individuals from face-to-face interactions with friends, and makes having connections with new people harder to do. So much time out of someone's day is spent in social media. It is also causing more self-consciousness among its users. Social media today is becoming a bigger thing, but with all this, users are becoming isolated and distracted from real life, it makes users not connect with each other in real life, and with so much time spent in social media, people become shier and socially awkward.

Throughout history, technology in the world has evolved from the invention of tools for survival to the invention of social media for communication. Social media started playing a big role in the world around 1997 when a site called Six Degrees was created. However, in 1999, the first blogging site became popular and this type of social media is still popular today. For example, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter can all be considered blogging sites that are popular in current time. Due to social media, there has been a decline in social interaction. According to a UCLA psychology study, people who spend more time on their phones lose the ability to recognize the emotions of others. Social media has been an important part of everyday life

Evidently, social media is taking its toll on adolescents and distorting their views of reality and themselves. It is disheartening to see young people agonize over how many ‘likes’ they got on their post and if it does not surpass how many they hoped for, they feel unaccepted and worthless. Especially females – Dr. Steiner-Adair acknowledges that “Girls are socialized more to compare themselves to other people, girls in particular, to develop their identities, so it makes them more vulnerable to the downside of all this”(Ehmke, How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers). A long time ago, girls would give each other a hard time in school but they did not have to deal with it at home. However, that has changed recently due to social media. All of that lowers their self-esteems, and according to Sherman it is because “teens’

Most teenagers are very familiar with the old adage, “Back in my day, we didn’t even have phones!” which many of the older generations like to point out. It is no secret that while the older generations struggle to understand why today’s youth are so obsessed with their technology, teenagers struggle to convince them that change is necessary in order to grow as a society and that technology is the key to development. While both perceptions hold truth, the obsession with technology is something that could be a cause for concern. Why are young adults so technology crazed? The answer comes in the form of the newest trend: social media. Originally created for better communication, social media platforms have since evolved into much more. Now, social media has become a breeding ground for distractions, negative perceptions, cyberbullying, and online predation.

Our lives seem to be more and more consumed by technology as great advances in this area have continue to be made, especially when it comes to social media. Many researchers have begun to notice that depending on how much time individuals spend on these social media sites, they can negatively affect their daily lifestyle in very significant ways.  For example, social networking has become a huge distraction for students and it can affect their grades depending on how often they check their various accounts while doing class work.  Researchers have also come to find out that social media can contribute to the development of psychological symptoms