Social Media And Its Effect On Society

Rachel Ehmke addresses the negative effects of social media in a strident, yet true, way. The use of social media among teens in America is 75 percent and out of that percentage 68 percent use Facebook more than any other site or app (Common Sense Media, as cited by Ramasubbu, 2016, p.1). According to Suren Ramasubbu in his article “Influence of Social Media on Teenagers”, Facebook is an outlet for depression, sexting, and cyberbullying (2016, p.1). Ehmke points these effects as well to support her opinion along with other effects like indirect communication, loss of experiences, the imposter syndrome, and stalking. It can be concluded that the reasons provided by Ehmke are valid reasons to prove why social media can affect a person negatively.

Social media itself is a huge danger to society. It causes many suicides within the world because of the cyberbullying and spreading of rumors. “Recent studies have shown that one out of four teens have been the victims of cyberbullying and one out of six have admitted to having cyberbullied someone” (Trautner 1). The internet and social media is supposed to be used to communicate with friends and for searching information, “Kids use technology different than their parents do. Sometimes it is hard for adults to understand that this can even be a possibility” (Trautner 1). It is not supposed to be used to bully someone, especially not to the point where the victim would think about suicide. “One of the statistics that has been highlighted within this news coverage is the threefold increase in the suicide rate for girls ages 10 to 14. The rates for girls in this age group increased from 0.5 to 1.5 per 100,000 during this time period. The increases for boys in this age group were not as high, climbing from 1.9 per 100,000 during 1999 to 2.6 per 100,000 in 2014” (Olsen

Social media has become deeply embedded as a part of today’s American culture and lifestyles, changing the way people interact and communicate with one another. Americans use social media every day; to not only communicate, but to express themselves. These online media sites and blogs serve as entertainment for its users and give them a sense of a social life if they do not already have one. Some users become so obsessed with their online lives that they lose the ability to successfully communicate with people in real life. Their craving for the use of social media becomes an addiction to where they can spend countless hours on their social sites. Facebook, a popular social media cite, has been proven to cause Facebook Depression, a sickness in which a person is emotionally depressed and in self denial. Studies have shown that sites such as Facebook, are a direct link to an individual’s physical and emotional well being.

As we look back over the past few decades, social media has started to evolve more quickly while pulling in people from all different age groups. Even older adults are joining in on Facebook and Instagram to try and fit in with the new norm social media has created. In a world that is so fast paced, it is difficult to not be pulled into the newest trends, as they are advertised almost everywhere. There are even ways to find a romantic partner with apps and websites. The power social media has can be observed all over the world in many different settings. Sadly, this power can be both positive and negative. Though, it may be hard sometimes to see the negative aspects since our society has become so enthralled with social media. First, I

The article was written by Diana Graber on December 8, 2014. This article was written to show why age restrictions on social media matter. Diana’s audience is parents of children of why they should wait until the age limit of certain social media sites. Diana’s article gave insight on why age matters when it comes to your kids having a social media account. The article is about a girl named Rebecca and the study of children and social media. Rebecca was just twelve years old when she decided to end her life due to cyberbullying. The victim and the two bullies were underage using social media. The story shows that both the victim and the bullies were not ready to have a social media account. Rebecca's bullying took place on Facebook, Ask.fm,

Just like the creature in Frankenstein, Social media has damaged and killed many people in its path. Social media has become a feeding ground for cyberbullying which has now become the leading cause of depression, substance abuse, and pre-adolescence suicide in the United States today. Cyber bullying is any aggressive act repeatedly causing harm to another through websites, blogs, emails, texting, social networks, photographs, video games, etc. Cyber bullying isn’t just peer to peer bullying, Americas youth is being bullied by the companies who sponsor these apps themselves. These companies are contributing to the mental health issues such as depression caused by forced body images and low self-esteem. Both parties are doing this by using Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and many other apps where most of teens today

Initially, social media is commonly used as a weapon to attack others on their opinions or simply because they despite other people. For instance, cyber bullying has caused huge problems ever since social networks have started becoming popular. “Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online. 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once,” (“11 Facts about Cyber Bullying” www.dosomething.org). This is more targeted at teenagers and children because they are unaware of the harmful things they might say over the internet. To illustrate, cyber bullying can become a very serious issue when a minor commits suicide. “Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including . . . cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive . . . about a person” (“Cyber Bullying & Social Bullying” http://www.bullyingstatistics.org). It’s the parent’s duty to filter the internet. Based on this information, social media is not necessarily safe, anyone can become a victim

Social media is another way of communication through technology. The social media trend is growing rapidly. It has become a daily routine for most people. Social media is affecting the world in many different ways. It was initially made to be a positive way of communicating, but over the years it has has a lot of negative impacts. One of the most known impacts is cyberbullying. Cyber Bullying is deliberately using digital media to communicate false, embarrassing, or hostile information about another person (Niemer 4). Although many adults experience this issue it is more common in teenagers. “For many teens, he explains, social media is not just a part of their life, it is their social world” (qtd. in Niemer 9). Studies show that 95 percent of ages between 12 and 17 have access to social media and 15 percent had experienced cyberbullying (Horn). These acts have caused depression in most teenagers. “In fact, a number of studies have found a connection between depression and social media victimization” (Miller 387). Some teenagers are afraid to stand up for themselves. The use of social media has caused an increase in fear.

In any group of social media users, even the most STEM-passionate group, there is always bound to be at least one that abuses social media. Social media abusers are often bullies that can make a student’s life uncomfortable. This is because some people enjoy seeing others being miserable. Some social media abusers take it so far that their victims commit suicide. As proof of this, thousands of teens have committed suicide because of social media. The nature of social media allows anyone to post anything, including cyberbullying rants directed towards a person.

Many popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is where a lot of bullying happens to take place. I definitely understand why this has become such an enormous moral panic because of the negative influences it has on young people or juveniles. The internet makes it apparent and easy to judge others by the way someone looks, dress, or act. Even though this is a country of freedom, liberty, and equality, people still are inclined to judge others and critique them harshly. This cause juveniles to develop a mere sense of conscience, low self-esteem, and a high need for approval or acceptance.

Visualize this: It is almost time to eat dinner, and the teenagers have not bothered to do their homework because they have been preoccupied with social media all afternoon. They are spending a majority of their time taking pictures and posting them for ‘likes’ to fit in with everyone else, or they are stalking other people’s posts and pictures, wondering why their lives are not as thrilling as the others’ lives appear. Worst of all, kids of all ages are committing suicide after being cyberbullied to the point that they cannot take it anymore. Picturing it now? Regrettably, that describes the scenery of how their generation is now – the effects of social media on young people are horrifying.

For example, Facebook gives its users to the opportunity to open an account, whose age is thirteen and older. Funk & Wagnall’s New World Encyclopedia states, “By 2008, it had become the most popular social networking site, a position it held for the next several years” (“Social” 1). Facebook has the most active monthly users of any social media site worldwide. According to Chris Cox who is Facebook’s Chief of Product Officer, Facebook now has two billion active users per month, and he claims, “We are getting to a size where it’s worth really taking a careful look at what are all the things that we can do to make social media the most positive force for good possible” (qtd. in Costine). Social media makes it easy for people to talk to one another and making it simple to send messages to other users. The messages can be about a meeting, dating, talking casually, or interview. Since communicating on a mass level is quite simple with social media, some users have taken advantage and create dangerous or hostile situations. Unfortunately, the social media rape level is increasing widely because anyone can create an account effortlessly. Often a user has wrong intentions or thoughts such as a fifty-five-year-old man can easily text a sixteen-year-old high school teenager. Moreover, psychopath users can easily engage in inappropriate behaviors toward innocent people. Doctor Rebecca Campbell, who is the

Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are web-based activities that provide individuals access to build a public or a semi-public profile within a confined system, connect and find users that they share a connection with as well as view and navigate the list of connections that are made by other participants of the systems (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Social media is widely used by young adults contributing to about 84% of the total usage (Smith, 2011). Some of the popular reasons for widespread use of social media are staying in touch with near and dear ones especially with friends and family, making new friends, following famous politicians and celebrities and also in search of potential relationships (Smith, 2011). However as the use of social media becomes more widespread, we cannot help but express concerns over the effects that social media usage may have on our behavior. Over the past couple of decades, research has strongly linked social media usage with negative behavioral outcomes and is known to affect one’s overall well-being. This essay will begin by discussing some of the behavioral issues that result from social media usage, followed by criticisms of this argument. The recommendation will then highlight some ways by which the behavioural problems could be dealt with, acknowledging that self-monitoring and self-regulation are the main ways to tackle the issue.

Teens are likely to be bullied if they are on social media. According to Damien Gayle, “2 out of 3 teenagers have experienced or know someone who has been affected by online bullying or trolling”.This shows that teens who are likely to use social media have been bullied. This has a major effect on the teens because only “37% of those who have experienced it reported it to the social network”(Gayle 1). This can also explain how suicide rates increase because teens lean towards not telling their parents or older adults about what’s going on.

In recent years, the world has changed by modern technological developments. People in these days are living real revolution and changes that affect in somehow their life. Social media has contributed to link parts of this wide world to each other, and paved the way for all people exchange views and ideas. In addition, social media sites are considered the most widespread on the Internet because of its characteristics that made it different from other websites. Because of social media, people has become living in small town. They do not need to travel in order to getting informations or news. Social media has created easier way to achieve communication between individuals and groups.Social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace , High Five, Tagged and YouTube have allowed people to exchange video clips, photos, share files and perform immediate talks and direct communication and interaction between the audience. Despite of advantages of social media that offer to its users, there are some disadvantages that may overcome those advantages. There are a lot of severe criticisms that social media faced because of its negative impact on individuals, families and society. Steal information, break the personal privacy, wasting a lot of time and isolation from people are some of problems that people have faced because of social media. People have divided into two group toward this issue. Some people think that social media has contributed to make their life better.