Social Media And Its Impact On Society

Social media has taken over the modern day world. It has helped us to communicate,

As we all know, social media has a tremendous impact on society and has affected in some way our daily life, relationships, and/or business. Every day, people around the world access famous social media network sites such as facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and so on to find out about other people, others might use social networking to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, or even meet their spouse. The excessive use of social media websites might bring negative effects; while for other people, it might bring satisfaction or positive effects. Technological advancements such as the internet, have given us the opportunity to connect with other people anytime and anywhere in the world. Pretty much all around the world, everyone has access to the World Wide Web via a desktop computer or smart phones. The fact is that no matter our current location or destination we might go, social media will always be following us as long as we have that direct connection. The main focus of this paper is to identify the good and bad of social media, and the current and future problems it will bring.

While many people put off and ignore the issue of social media and its downfalls, others say that people should think about how our lives are being affected by this advancement in technology, including, lack of human contact and precious time being lost due to consumption with social media. Social media is currently a highly controversial topic in which numerous people have mixed feelings. Society has typically viewed new advancements in technology as beneficial and a sign of success within their country. But, has it solely caused successful outcomes, or are there downfalls to these advancements?

Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat - all these are called social media and they have a critical impact on the way young people think and interact on a day to day basis. “Virtual Communities” (Lee, 2015) is about the virtual world and how it affects the physical world and the influence it has on the lives of people on a daily basis. “Enhancing Your Body Image” (Donatelle, 2015) is about the influences that media or outside sources have on the way people view their bodies and how people feel about themselves. The main similarity between the two concepts is the influences that virtual communities have on the way people see themselves in the physical world. Enhancing one’s body image and the affects virtual communities have on the physical world are connected in many ways; furthermore, the influences that media has over people and how that can lead into bullying, and how all of it affects the future of an individual.

Technology has developed into one of the most valuable assets to everyday life. The social media apps developed from technology have opened many doors to allow the impossible possible. Being able to buy things online with the click of a mouse, chatting with a friend who lives across the country, depositing a check through your smart phone, and the possibilities are continuously endless. With more and more incredible innovations happening on a daily basis. Much has been made of the growth of social media and its impact on society. This impact can vastly be seen as a positive through the eyes of the general public, a strong perception driven in part by the social media itself, but as social media in all its forms has grown, an argument can inevitably be made that there has been a corresponding diminishment of personal privacy. Many forget that there is a price attached to having free sharing of personal information.

With today’s advanced technology of the 21st century, we now have a wide range of access to information through social media. We can now stay updated with current topics and events going on around the world and become educated with just a click, or tap, to a social media application. Many people assume that social media are our friend and that social media is a great thing to have. But, what these people fail to realize is that social media is really our enemy, our foe. Where do I stand with social media? Let’s just say I used to be blinded as much as today’s people are, who are corrupted by the vast trends of social media. Though I may use social media myself, I do not consider it my friend. I consider social media a corruption towards society and a foe, not just towards me, but to the rest of the world.

Social media has allowed many different forms of interaction. Websites such as Facebook have allowed for old friends to reconnect and remain aware of others’ life events even when separated geographically, as well as allowing new friends to connect. Twitter and Instagram, through the use of hashtags, let large groups of people participate in awareness campaigns, fundraisers, and spreading of news. Still other sites like Tumblr, deviantArt, and YouTube allow communities to form around different kinds of media, and are platforms for creators to showcase multiple kinds of content from writing to videos to various kinds of art. Despite some of the drawbacks, ultimately social media and the communities they foster are in fact beneficial to society as a whole.

Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research, writes, “If your student ministry is a four-year holding tank with pizza, don’t expect young adults to stick around.” Dr. Stetzer is referring to the current epidemic seen in America involving the church. American churches, and churches around the world, are experiencing a decrease in their attendance. At the current rate, less than ten percent of Americans will attend church, by the year 2050. The largest age group of those leaving the church is Generation Y or, as they are better known, Millennials. The lack of community, authenticity, and faith are contributing factors to the drop of millennials attendance seen in the American church.

One of the most prominent areas of information technology present in today’s society is that of social media. Facebook users make up 62% of the entire adult population and Twitter users compose 20% of the population (Mobile Messaging and Social Media, 2015). Sites like these allow users to transfer information, in the form of social content, to the Internet community with no limitations. These sites also ease communication across great distances, allowing for a diverse audience for any information posted on such a site. Such a tool for information transfer is incredibly powerful in the hands of those who know how to use it.

Some of our biggest role models in America revolve around our sports leaders. People who have put in many hours of training hard and overcoming seemingly unsurpassable obstacles. People like Lebron James, Usain Bolt, Peyton Manning, etc. Maybe we want to feel the fame, own the money, or meet other amazing people, but we all want to feel the accomplishment in some way or another. Team activities seem to be a major concept our civilization immerses itself in. We are willing to pay hundreds of dollars year after year to go out and cheer on our role-models and follow players’ social media accounts like it is theology we are reading. In ways it is consuming our thinking however, today teams teach many valuable life skills that children lack.

The world has never before been connected as much as it is today. One’s ability to communicate through various mediums is rapidly advancing, and this is much thanks to social media.

However social media has evolved. It has become what it was always meant to be and that is a way to connect with people and build relationships. It has become more personal and therefore potentially more valuable.

What kind of world could possibly exist without some form of a Facebook, a Twitter, or an Instagram? Perhaps, it would be a world so unjust; people would actually have to call all of their five hundred and twenty-nine best friends by phone. So that they may share with them, the stale bread with one slice of turkey meat sandwich, they bought during lunch! Social media websites like, Facebook or Twitter are portals to information and communication. It has provided new and exciting opportunities for people all around the world to be able to connect with each other more easily than ever before. It has also helped businesses to flourish, and provides just about every answer to a sought out question. The internet superhighway so to speak, has created an excessive need. And as a result, it has become such a craze, that the sophisticated computers used to access the internet, now play a major role in everyone’s life; including children. Many gaming systems, cellular phones, and other electronics readily made available to children all have the potential to easily access the internet. Ever thought about what effects might such a craze have on children? For instance, could the excess of internet use with social media in particular, pose any implications onto children? The excessive partaking in social media amongst children- inhibits their productivity, interferes with the development of their social skills, and desensitizes their outlooks.

The term ‘social media’ has become a broad-term to describe a large number of online systems that serve as a platform for the generation, and distribution of user-generated content. Social media creates a virtual social space, where a large number of users come together and interact with one another. These interactions can be either structured, such as responses that are moderated on blogs, semi-structured, such as a discussion between an extended network on Facebook, or unstructured, such as the anarchial functioning of Twitter.

Most of us have been fiercely defending our personal right to make choices while we ignore the fact that the overall results and outcome only exploit us. For instance, imagine you go out with a friend on a Tuesday night and actually want to let the conversation drag; the youngsters tend to open Yelp and see different bars. This makes them drag the overall situation and without actually having a relevance to the scenario the two friends try to gauge in the attention of others also. This actually has confirmed the fact that balance has to be maintained in order to let the youngsters enjoy the overall advantages of social media (Tristan, 2016)