Social Media Dependency Essay

Kardaras, Nicolas. "Generation Z: Online and at Risk?." Scientific American Mind, vol. 27, no. 5, Sep/Oct 2016, pp. 64-9. MasterFILE Premier. Kardars discuss generation z use of social media affecting them negatively. He opens his article with a story of Heidi who becomes addicted to social media when her school issues her a Chromebook. Before Heidi is issued the laptop, she was a sweet innocent girl and after having it for a semester she became someone her parents could not recognize. He states that social media is a “perfect storm” for humans because having a social connection key to “happiness and health”. Having the ability to always use social media leads to hyper texting the illusion of a real connection making it hard for teens to have face to face conversations, making a teens become “glow kid[s]“, someone who is raised on mostly digital social interactions. Facebook depression” can result in the teen to have lower grades and behavior problems in teens. He concludes his article with facts proving that Facebook can become addictive in some people. This source helps support my thesis that Facebook affects teens mental health.

Addiction doesn’t only come from drugs and cigarettes, but also social media. When teens start using social media too much it can get as addictive as drugs and cigarettes.This is disturbing because of past studies drugs and cigarettes are one of the hardest things to give up, once you start. “Teens who get hooked on such forms of social media find it hard to spend too much time away from them.Their schoolwork can suffer as a result. So can their personal relationships and their moods,” states Source 1. One can see from this that social media has caused stress among teens by getting them to attach to their social media profiles that they lose touch with reality.

Social media is nothing, but a distracting, timewasting, nuisance to everyone surrounded by it, right? Wrong. Social media has changed the world as we know it. People can share information quickly, publish their thoughts, and exchange their ideas. Social media is becoming a certainty in this modern age, which is why it should be embraced rather than criticized. Although there is concern over potential for cyberbullying and lack of privacy, the use of social media is inevitable in teenagers’ lives, and necessary to the positive development of adolescents because it allows adolescents to gain confidence when interacting with others, it encourages users to create and maintain friendships, and it can facilitate learning while promoting educational growth.

Young people would rather be on social media playing on apps, instead of going outdoors and playing an activity, which later can cause obesity. In Poertners article, Frances Jensen a neuroscientist states that,”dopamine can be triggered just as easily by the release of the latest iPhone as by alcohol, pot, sex, or a fast car. In some ways, technology is like drugs”(2). Author is trying to say that young people need to realize that social media is like drugs. For instance, young people are staying up late and only having 4 to 5 hours of sleep on a school day, which can not enough to function throughout the day. They can also feel emotional and have mental problems such as anxiety, depression, and somatic complaints among many others. These symptoms are exactly what drug addicts go through as well. With this being said, social media is more like a drug rather than an necessity.

“A study. . . found that people experienced the psychological symptoms of withdrawal when they stopped using [social media]” (Walton). With this comparison, by the end of the article, the audience has a sense of fear of addiction to social

Social media can be very addicting, and in some instances can cause isolation. Isolation is a big issue when it comes to social media use because in order for a person to become isolated addiction has to occur; when addiction occurs it causes a person to lose connection with the real world and the people in it. Many people use social media as a distraction when unoccupied, but can also be the cause of behavior change in children when exposed to social media and other dangerous websites. An example, is cyberbullying, which can cause an adolescent or a person of any age to commit suicide, and can also cause a person to create emotional and physical problems.

Social media is defined as websites and applications used for social networking, in other words it is a way for people to interact and express themselves without being face to face. Social media has become a large part of the life of teenagers, who make up most of the population of people who are subjected to using social media in their daily lives. Many college students are faced with balancing their social lives with school and even athletics making priorities a big dilemma for them. College students in America are affected in many ways by social media whether it be their social life, their happiness, or their grades.

The use of social networking sites is rising at great rates. According to a report conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2012, ninety-five percent of individuals aged 12-17 use the internet; and eighty-one percent of those use social network sites (Pew Interest). Although it is known that social media can have a useful impact on lives, often times people forget that with a positive comes a negative. The continual use of social network sites will impact teen lives more negatively than positively because they can cause huge distractions from valuable and critical pursuits like education; they can also cause mental health issues and a reduction in communication skills.

In the modern and technological society which we live in today social media plays an integral part in everyday life. Social media is an online tool which allows people to communicate, share data and form groups with others sharing common interests. On social media platforms users can forms virtual communities or networks exchanging information. (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Social media has become such a big part of life that the term ‘Facebook addict’ has been introduced into the urban dictionary.

The authors agree that social media is helpful and influential to student writing. However they also agree that too much social media use or the abuse of social media can harm the students.Carr, Digital Nation, Parrack, and Simmons all argue that social media and technology are distracting students.Social media holds the users attention because it appeals to them and offers them a reward system in the form of likes comments and feedback from their peers. Students who are not be receiving enough attention elsewhere may cling to this reward system. As a consequence students are not performing at the best of their abilities and are becoming too attached to their social media accounts.

Simon Dumenco takes a different turn on how people complain about being so sick of Facebook but yet, they still can’t seem to stop using it. Giving his reasons on how Facebook have ways on presiding you to continue to use the site in his essay “If We’re all So Sick of You, Facebook, Why Can’t We Quit you?” These two essays compared together gives it’s reading an insight on how technology and social media takes place in a person's life and develop into a hobby, and then becomes addictive. Although “Students Addicted to Social Media” by the ICMPA who focus on digital technology and how students are addictive to social media, while “If We’re All So Sick of You, Facebook, Why Can’t We Quit You?” by Simon Dumenco who discuss how Facebook manipulate people to use its site, they both explain how technology and social sites are addictive and an everyday morality of a person’s life. These readings are both worthy of attention, because although people stay connected to the world by using social media to communicate the less they interact and communicate face to face

Jon Russell once said, “Social Media presents a huge opportunity for schools, universities and other educational organizations to reach out and connect with students and prospective students”. With no doubt, social media has influenced the way students are educated today. For those of you who do not know the exact definition of social media, the social media means ways of sharing information, opinions, images, videos using the Internet, especially social networking sites. Because of the Internet, people started finding ways to socialize through social websites and exchange information. Popular social network on the Internet such as YouTube became a sensation for me ever since I became a student in college. Today social media can be used for educational purposes. The ways social media is changing education has affected how the students express themselves, behave, and interact with each other.

The most genuine complication of social media is addiction. A reporter on Salem health characterized that text messaging is no longer the biggest teenage obsession, and enormous phone bills from lengthy phone calls are no longer the biggest doubts for parents. These teenage addictions still remain, but in our generation and in analogy to the Facebook mania, it’s quite insignificant. Facebook addiction is advised to be a disorder driven by a craving. Not being able to access Facebook creates anxiety among fanatics. It is one of the most prominent social networking sites and has over one billion users without exception. People detach themselves from family and friends. Further symptoms of Facebook addiction have been related with needy sleep patterns. Researchers have also attempted to evaluate certain personality traits to the obsession. Being in touch with friends and family might clarify the logic why people are unreasonably obsessed.

In today’s society almost every individual has some type of social media, whether it is Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or Twitter, People have accustomed to utilizing these types of social media and it has become part of their life and daily use. According to the essay “Students Addicted to Social Media” by the International Center for Media and Public Agenda, the study from the University of Maryland claims “American college students today are addicted to media” (Signs of Life in the USA 403). The university discovered that when these students are restricted from using media it is similar in terms of drug and alcohol addictions. During the study that the university conducted, students discuss how boring it is without media and how it gives them anxiety about not receiving information through social media. Other students claimed that texting and IM'ing gives them comfort and if they do not have these items then they feel alone and isolated from the world ( Signs of Life in the USA 404). Students are not the only ones who have an addiction of media but also parents and non-students. However, the International Center is accurate in some aspects and the responses students gave are very relatable which some people can agree with.

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