Persuasive Essay On Social Media

Social media has been a topic of debate for years. Some people are strongly against any use of it while others like the instant connection it provides. A major concern over social media is the lasting effects it has on teenagers. Social media can affect teenagers through many ways including things like their self-esteem. Cyberbullying is a raging topic of discussion centered around teens social media use. It can also effect their people skills and create a lack of community involvement. Some parents think that watching what their children do on social media is an invasion of privacy but is your concern for their privacy greater than your concern for their safety? Social media poses a great danger to today’s children. It can affect many aspects of their lives.

Thesis: Stay in the present moment, don’t let yourself believe you’re going to forget a memory because you didn’t document it through social media.

Balance is a word that our society struggles with for a variety of reasons. From the perspective of a teenager, finding a balance between school, social life, and health is a challenge that is nearly universal. The TV show, 13 Reasons Why, clearly portrays the lack of balance that teenagers can face if they prioritize one factor over another. In the video clip, the girl is receiving numerous messages from students in her school in response to an Instagram post, which rated girls based on their appearance. The list made her best friend, Jessica, act passive-aggressively, and it served as a stimulus for boys to start objectifying the girl. Consequently, there is an unbalance between the girl’s social situation and other aspects of life. While this scenario is a more exaggerated experience that some teenagers could face, it still displays the reality of the issues that can arise from the use of social media.

Social media has become second nature to today’s younger generation, so why not teach it’s decorum in the classroom? Social Media is a very relevant and progressing entity. Studies have shown that teens log on to their favorite social media site more than ten times a day. The impact social media has on the adolescents of today is of great importance because they are developmentally vulnerable and are amongst those who use social media the most. According to Amanda Lenhart with Pew Research Center 71% of teens say they use more than one social media site and currently there are over 3 billion social media users worldwide. These number are higher than they were just a few years ago and there is a slim chance of them coming down. Social networking plays a great role in learning technical skills and expanding social connections, however there are also many dangers and things that teens should avoid. Teens will be teens, they will push boundaries and make mistakes but a simple mistake or bad judgement call can quickly ruin someone’s life where social media is concerned. Although not everyone agrees that social media etiquette should be taken to the classrooms and that it should be the parents obligation to teach their children proper social media skills, many believe schools should be required to teach a course on the dangers and etiquette of social media.

“The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.” by Bill Gates. It is making the communities of the world more sociable towards each other. Social media is not making us less communicative considering that it boasts individuals’ self esteem, expands connectedness, and has improved sociability. Not all may agree on it being that allegedly it is makes human beings less social. On the contrary, It develops more friendships.

The internet was invented roughly about 30 years ago by the World Wide Web. However, the first social media came out circa 20 years ago. The name of it was Six Degrees and it was created by Andrew Weinreich in the 1900’s. Six degrees users had the capabilities of uploading a profile, making friends, and sending messages with family and 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 probably has up to 2 billion users and still counting. Nonetheless, most people seen on Facebook ranges from their teens to mid-40s, that have the capability of spreading information across the globe setting a chain reaction that created and spread fake news. Social medias’ fake news is spread by a heap of people that are easily convinced by false statements. 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.” (n. pag.) Therefore, teens need to use social media to disintegrate some of the repercussions of real news.

According to a study from the Pew Research Center, 92% of American teens go online to post, like, comment, tweet, and re-tweet at least a hundred photos a day. Preadolescents between the ages of 9-15 primarily use social media websites as a portal to communicate with past friends, find new ones, and to post about their day. However, the use of these sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube etc. can put young kids at risk of being bullied online, stalked by predators and pedophiles, and subjected to inappropriate pictures and videos. The truth is today youths lack the basic understanding of the dangers that lurk within social media, and therefore should not be allowed to use them until they can fully comprehend all the risks attached to using these sites.

Youth are like magnets. They will latch on to the most popular trend whether it be clothes or shoes, beneficial or harmful. Children yearn to be cool, popular, and accepted. With these natural contained qualities, children are bound to come across social media, specifically a well-known site, Facebook. A site that enables communication. A site that might cause a child to be “lame” if not having an account. Whether or not children under thirteen should become users on this social media extravaganza is a regularly discussed topic. Some may argue against it simply because of the expected dangers that come along with any social network, but some believe that kids under thirteen should be allowed to partake in this site just as everybody else. These advocates are insightful. With considering the beneficial factors of Facebook including educational purposes and social development coupled with protective parenting, children under thirteen should most definitely have the deserved right of joining a quest they are regardless destined to pursue, Facebook.

Today we live a society that is driven by the internet, social media and fame. Ads have changed dramatically; corporations are spending more money on social media every year. You are seeing kids today making money through Facebook, through Instagram, through Twitter, through Snapchat, through youtube, through Tumblr, and through twitch, and that's what the film Generation Like was talking about.

Some of the most used social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Linkedin. These apps have a HUGE amount of people using them. There are one billion people on Facebook, there are 974 million people on Twitter, 600 million people on Instagram, Youtube has one billion users each month, and Linkedin has 467 million. These sites have a lot of users because of their content. Facebook is a place where people share their personal as well as fake news. Twitter is different from Facebook. This is because Twitter’s users are usually younger. The result of that is the content is different. For example, they will talk about newer trends and their amount of fake news is way more than adults. Most of it is to make others jealous. Instagram also has young users. The content is similar

Social media is used as an outlet to express feelings, thoughts, perspectives, and creative ideas and more to the world. There are numerous reasons as to why I use social media, a few entails connections, personal branding, and updates on entertainment. The main social platformsthat I am most active on are Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Each platform is used in different ways because they each serve different purposes. Instagram is used for personal branding.Twitter is used for connections and updates on entertainment, news, and personal blogging. Snapchat is used for social connections. I use these different social media apps on my spare time between classes, when I’m bored, and before I go to sleep. There are many aspects to socialmedia, but usually they are categorized into either the positive or negative. Social media is an outlet for many teens today, including myself. Generally, I use my social platforms for personal branding, social connections, and entertainment updates. On the Times article “The Secret Language of Girls on Instagram,” written by Rachel Simmons, she states: Girls can project a persona they may not have time, or permission, to show off in the classroom: popular, social, sexy. Cultivating a certain look is so important that it's common for girls to stage 'photo shoots' with each other as photographers to produce shots that stand out visually. (Plus a joint photo shoot is more evidence of friendship.)

The original definition of social media is, “Websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts” (Social media). Social media is supposed to be used to make it easier to access information and to stay in touch with loved ones. However, the rapidly growing trend is sharing one’s suicide, murder, or location. Posting on social media can cause harm to one’s self or others, even going as far as death. When one is posting on social media, he or she does not think of the dangers it might cause. This is a major problem in society today, therefore, social media should be taken down.

Although social media has made society more connected than ever, people are also more alone than ever. An article from Forbes states, “Surprisingly, those who report feeling most alone, are those you’d expect it from least: young people under 35 who are the most prolific social networkers of all” (WomensMedia). This is because the 35 and under age group is the generation with the most technology. The more technology, the more alone people feel. Social media makes it incredibly easy to stay in touch with people, while also keeping distance. Most people find this easier and start to rely on social media and lose their real-life friendships, while becoming more alone by the minute.

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.

In 2003 the Sudan government enacted a genocide against Darfur people that so far has resulted in 300,000 murders and two million displaced people. The genocide started because of decades of neglect and oppression in the west region of darfur in sudan causing two rebel groups to rise up against sudan's government. The sudanese president, Omar Al-Bashir countered the rebellion by using an allied militia called Janjaweed in a movement to destroy civilians of the same ethnicity as the rebels the darfur crisis was officially considered a genocide by former U.S. president George W. Bush, but even with worldwide efforts the genocide never ended. Recently the violence has spread to other parts of sudan with its presence on social media growing to. The effectiveness of social media campaigns for Save Darfur through twitter and facebook never lived up to its possible potential no matter how important its cause is.