Social Media And Its Effects On Society

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.

You are walking out of the new Star Wars movie, posting about how superb it was, when suddenly you are swooped up and thrown in the back of a vehicle. No one would have thought posting about how you were there earlier would provoke such a situation. After all, social networking is “safe” and “friendly.” Now, social media is defined as “A form of electric communication through which users create online communities to share information,” according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Social networking began in 2004 and has sky-rocketed since, due to its sense of world connectivity in a mere moment. However, with this increase, a growth in seemingly harmless threats has occurred. Users sitting behind a screen are usually unaware of how complex and diminishing social networking can be. Social media may be considered negative for society as it changes what members view as behaviorally normal, increases the risk of cyber-suicide, and reduces the amount of privacy in one’s life.

Within recent years the Internet and computer technology have made great advancements, allowing for the age of social media to be born and subsequently shaped into what it is today. Social media has become so largely desirable to modern day society due to its large and easy accessibility amongst citizens. However, social networking sites such as Facebook have been found to have negative impacts on individual’s social and psychological well being including things such as basic empathetic social skills1 (Chan 2014). Social awareness and the ability to communicate with one another makes up the crux of what it means to have social well-being. However, through the often anti social aspect of social media, physiological issues and issues of social well-being are being brought to light through research and studies investigating the truly negative effects of social media. Some of the risk that are highlighted through research into the effects of social media includes the risks of addiction, ‘Facebook depression’, ‘sexting’, cyber bullying and online harassments as well as associated privacy risks of all forms of social media2 (O’Keefe 2011).

The more technology advances the more we seem to find different ways to communicate world wide. Daily there are many different types of apps and websites being created to share ideas, photos or feelings. It has changed the lives of many people positively and negatively. Ever since social media grew so did bullying. However there are many places bullying can happen, like in school, outside of school, work, or home. There are two different types of bullying, verbal and physical. It can have a small or big impact, depending on the person. Many people will say that the main causes of bullying today is social media because it allows people to communicate with others not having to be face to face and anonymously making it easier to bully others. Although some may argue that social media causes bullying, the truth is that bullying is actually caused by overexposure of private life, the victim becoming the bully, and lack of supervision .

Social media and media is used worldwide for multiple purposes, but it can create a toxic environment for many of the young people who use it. Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, but our society has a tendency of setting specific beauty standards. Beauty standards are not only set in the United States, but all over the world. Television shows and magazines, such as Cosmopolitan set certain standards for young women around the world. Media platforms set nearly unattainable goals for young people, more commonly girls. These so called goals lead to multiple issues, such as medical disorders and reinforce gender roles, although, some will argue that media platforms are good because they allow us to connect to each other, many of

Americans are slowly being separated from one another through electronics. In fact, most of that is due to the social media that is easily obtainable on devices such as IPhones, Computers, and TV’s. Social media is what keeps people away from family and keeps them from going outside of the house and actually bonding with others. When people choose to connect over social media rather than connecting in person it means they are disconnecting from society and its causing human interaction to steep downwards. People socializing through social media has become a serious problem, and it happens more and more each day as technology continues to advance. Disconnection is caused by social media and technology because the latest devices are so easily obtained and it creates the elimination of human interaction.

For many years, the world has heard stories about children and teens who have gone missing or taking their lives because of social media. Some think that social media should be restricted to only allow so much information. Others think that social media is a form of expression that can help teens and businesses grow. By adding restrictions, such as a limit to what information you can share on your profile, the government can help combat prevent identity theft, social media related kidnappings, and reduce cyberbullying even though the opposing side disputes these reasons and stance.

Romantic relationships have become super complicated in recent years. The movie He’s Just Not That into You portrays ten people’s perspectives on relationships and dating in the 21st century. This movie was written as interweaving stories that come together in different ways that make a point. People find the world of dating to be complicated and most times confusing. There is always a fear of cheating and falling in love with manipulative people. Social media has also become a huge part of modern dating. Everything from texting to dating websites can influence how people view potential mates. The Facebook status was invented expressly for discovering if someone was single within the first couple seconds of being on the page. You can practically advertise that you’re single to any of you friends in hopes of finding a date. Dating today can be fraught with conflict and miscommunication and is vastly different from the dating world fifty years ago as it now includes a “hookup” culture, a non marriage centered mentality, and the use of modern technology.

High school is a mosh pit of youths, no longer teenagers, but not yet adults. When hundreds or thousands of them are grouped together under one roof, a breeding ground for both insecurity and narcissism is forged. Forced into a pressure cooker of judgement, harassment, and competition, they seek approval from various sources. Some look to trusted advisers, focusing on academics, sports, and extracurriculars. Others look to their peers, potentially falling into a vicious cycle of drugs, alcohol, partying, and other unhealthy behaviors. Left alone to identify themselves, teens rely on the confirmation of their environment. Whether they live in a small town or an urban city, social media has established a worldwide public platform for the scrutinization of this generation of emerging adults. During these tumultuous years, teenagers find themselves seeking the approval of others. While healthy sources of validification exist, the effects of unhealthy, attention-seeking actions are more damaging and longer lasting.

Social media can be both an extremely positive and extremely negative part of today’s society. In our current day and age, a majority of teenagers use social media apps every single day. Social media allows people to connect with friends and family, allows you to see what is going on in the world, and gives you the ability to express yourself to a large audience. As nice as that may sound, there are also negatives to social media. For example, some people use the power of social media to do harm. For most teenagers body image is extremely important. Even if you’re confident in yourself, nowadays people base their self worth on how many likes their picture gets, or even worse, by comparing themselves to the unrealistic, photoshopped pictures of celebrities that clutter the internet. Over time many people around the globe have recognized this problem and small steps have been taken to create a change; however, more people need to band together to solve this problem on a global level. The longer this problem goes unsolved, the more our youth is affected. I’m sure that everyone has looked in the mirror at least once in their life and pinpointed one specific thing they dislike about their body, and in many cases these people do not like that specific feature because it is not celebrated in the media. Every day that the problem of unrealistic photoshopping in the media is not solved, the number of people affected increases drastically. Celebrities and news outlets should work

Back in the day, if two people were to have a falling out most of the time the problem would be solved either by confrontation or they would stop talking to each other. As times have evolved, so has the way that we communicate our emotions to others. Over the last decade, social media has started to become more prominent and important in everyday life so that people can keep in contact with each other from many miles away. Unfortunately, will new ways of communication comes new ways of trying to hurt other people. Almost every single person in the 21st century is connected to the internet one way or another and has at least one social media account. Although it is true that being connected to the web can help people all over the world to

Social Media has it’s pros and cons, but this has made it 1000 times easier to connect with family and friends. We can go on and on about the first social media sites but we cannot argue what became more popular the fastest. Social media have developed dramatically over the past 16 years from Friends Reunited to Instagram we’ve created ways to entertain people and communicate with celebrities and people all over the nation. People have also portrayed an image that may not even be their own, nowadays we call it “catfish.”

When one is struggling trying to figure out one’s own identity, there are resources available. For example, YouTube may have makeup tutorials. However resources for figuring out one’s sexuality may be harder to find. Trying to turn to loved ones may result in judgment. So the Internet is the next best choice. In most cases, blogs are the ideal option because they allow for people to share the personal struggles and triumphs with the world. Upon research Tumblr may come up on a search engine. It is a social media website that hosts millions of blogs.

The definition of social media is "the relationship that exist between network of people" (Walter & Riviera, 2004). In the last ten years, the online world has changed dramatically. Thanks to the ivention of social media, young men and women now exchange ideas, feelings, personal information, pictures and videos at a truly astonishing rate. Seventy-three percent of wired American teens now use social media websites (oberst, 2010). Schill (2011) states that the social media sites encourage negative behaviors for teen students such as procrastination catching up with friends , and they are more likely to drink and drug. However, every day, many students are spending countless hours immersed in social media, such as Facebook, Myspace, World of Warcraft, or Sim City. At first glance this may seem like a waste of time, however it also help students to develop important knowlegde and social skills, and be active citizens who create and share content. At present, whether social media is favorable or unfavorable, many students utilize these sites on a daily basis. As social media sites continue to grow in popularity it is our belief that technology is a vital part of today 's student success equation. Many researchers have been diving into a considerable amount of research on how social media influences student retention at colleges. Many parents are worried that their college students are spending too much time on Facebook and other social media sites and not enough time studying.

Every business hears those terms being bandied about every day. They are made to feel less than and that their business will go under if they are not on the cutting edge of whatever is happening in digital. The reality is, there is some truth to it, but not in the way you think.