The Negative Effects Of Social Media And The Internet

Older generations don’t realize how much technology has affected this generation of teenagers, along with the social media that comes along with the technology. As stated in “How Social Media Changed Teens’ Lives Forever”; “Negative posts or comments also can do great damage to a teen’s self-esteem.” (Ashley Black, Thomas Atseff and Colleen Kaveney) While many parents think social media is just a way to connect with others, many teenagers take it for granted. For example, “quitting social media because it made her miserable and obsessed with appearing perfect online”, is what a teenager felt about social media and what it has done to her. Though many think that social media is a great way to connect, teenagers take it to another level.

Melissa Healy, a reporter of the Los Angeles Times, in the article Teenage Social Media Butterflies May Not Be Such A Bad Idea, claims that kids who spend lots of time on social media are not the least well-adjusted, but psychologically healthiest. Healy supports her argument by demonstrating how social media is beneficial to a teen’s health. According to a three-year Digital Youth Project, when teengars use social media, it helps them develop important social skills such as communication, grappling with social norms, and developing technical skills. Psychology professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam describes that teens behave the same between offline relationships and online ones, so most teens will use the internet safely. The author’s purpose is

Our society has become heavily reliant on social media, and today’s younger generation cannot avoid using it in their everyday lives. As time has progressed, social media has advanced significantly, becoming easier to access with a touch of a button. These advancements provide both positive and negative consequences to youths’ relationships. Due to the rapid advancement of social media, youths’ real-life relationships with their peers have been affected both positively and negatively.

In recent years, media has really had an impact on how people see the world. A technology driven society is emerging because people are hooked to their phones and social media handles. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with social media as a whole, there are definite issues with the credibility of the things shared on social media. Largely as a result of social media engagement, there has been a rise in both fake news and the use of click bait. Titles such as “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Trump for president” and “WikiLeaks confirms Hillary sold weapons to ISIS… Then drops another bombshell” are some of the most influential fictional stories from 2016 (Hannah Ritchie). These are just two headlines of news stories

“People are spending 1 out of every 7 minutes on Facebook when online. Facebook users typically are spending 10.5 billion minutes (almost 20,000 years) on the social network. And, that’s excluding mobile devices.” This clearly demonstrates the problem with our society, the ease at which we fall blindly into the influence of our surroundings, in specific social media. According to Merriam-Webster, social media is “forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and micro blogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)”. Social Media platforms have become such a powerful and dominating advancement to human culture, that as a society we have become oblivious to its ramifications. Social media has impacted us negatively through the obstruction of our social capabilities, and is destructive to an individual’s mental health/behavior. This detriment can be therefore prevented if we become aware of these consequences, and continue to progress with a depth in comprehension, allowing for the control of ones growth.

However, does that mean that social media has a negative effect, restricting children from forming strong bonds and relationships? Yes and no. Going deeper into the discussion, I was reminded of a video that I had come across from a TV show called ‘Adam Ruins Everything,’ a series based around debunking common misconceptions. In this video in particular, the host interviews Anne Curzan, a Professor of English at the University of Michigan, discussing how language has changed in culture because of the addition of texting. She explains that it is not that the grammar of texters is improper, it is only that it is different and everchanging. Nowadays, it is common knowledge that if someone ends their text in a period, then it means that they are angry. Curzan also explains that while parents and adults might believe that their children do not put grammar into consideration, text messages actually are thought over quite intentionally because text has almost become its own language; a “text language.” (BATORACLE) With that, Turkle also describes the use of images and memes with funny texts in group messages, saying that people should never let it replace empathetic face-to-face conversation. However, one must look at texting, instant messaging, and memes and pictures as just a different language from spoken English, bringing up emotions and phrases that can not be defined in typical spoken conversation. In fact, the use of slang, now used especially on social media, has always

The internet revolutionized the way of communicating. Subsequently, social media transformed the way of expressing ideas, sharing feelings, and relating to people. While more young people connect online, they never seemed more socially disconnected with each other than now. Because of the emotionless nature of the Net young people find themselves dumbfounded when confronted with real-life events in the classroom and other social activities. As a result, teenagers long for real-life interactions and meaningful life experiences without knowing where to begin.

Social media has positively impacted young adults because it creates friendships. Danah Boyd, an author, principal researcher at Microsoft and the founder of Data & Society references the story of an interview with a sixteen year-old girl, Tara in her publication “It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens.” “Tara likes Facebook because it allows her to connect with her friends. Like many of her peers, Tara spends hours each work viewing her friends’ photos and updates, writing comments, and reading comments left by others” (Boyd). Communication is a crucial element in teenager’s social lives and the social networks can help maintain that. Essentially, Boyd focuses on the fact that one of the most burdening reasons teens use social media is to connect with friends. Social media can be interpreted in several different ways, but this reasoning is often overlooked. Staying connected with

Social Media is any website that allows social interaction between people, from everywhere in the world. Social Media is growing extremely fast throughout the entire world. Adults and teenagers are joining social media sites everyday such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. When Facebook first came about it was used for family and friends to stay connected while in different parts of the world. It is also a way for entrepreneurs and companies to market and promote their businesses. The introduction of social media has changed the world both negatively and positively.

Social media is a part of society as water is to life. Without the use of social media there would be a world of close friendships and face to face communication. “It’s estimated that by 2018, 2.44 billion people will be using social networks, up from 970,000 in 2010” (Guzman). Imagine not having social media to communicate with friends and family. Think about having to have a face to face conversation instead. “We use it for every part of our lives- in our personal relationships, for entertainment, at work and in our studies… every minute we collectively send more than 30 million messages on Facebook and almost 350,000 tweets” (Guzman). Social media is becoming an increasing problem throughout society, taking away face to face communication, effecting relationships, and causing a negative effect on mental health.

In this technological age, social media has become a vital part of communication between teenagers. Developing friendships is important for a child’s growth, but researchers are questioning if social medial is impeding communication skills are taking away the ability to communicate in real life. Teens are missing opportunities to witness how words and actions affect others to expose them to feelings such as empathy, as texting and online chatting keeps others at a safe distance. Social media can give us a false sense of belonging and connecting that is not build on real-life social exchanges. This makes it increasingly easy to lose oneself to cyberspace connections and replace these online interactions with the good old face to face

Social media is a part of society as water is to life. Without the use of social media there would be a world of close friendships and face to face communication. “It’s estimated that by 2018, 2.44 billion people will be using social networks, up from 970,000 in 2010” (Guzman). Imagine not having social media to communicate with friends and family. Think about having to have a face to face conversation instead. “We use it for every part of our lives- in our personal relationships, for entertainment, at work and in our studies… every minute we collectively send more than 30 million messages on Facebook and almost 350,000 tweets” (Guzman). Social media is becoming an increasing problem throughout society, taking away face to face communication, effecting relationships, and causing a negative effect on mental health.

Over recent years, the widespread use of social media has increased exponentially. In 2008, 24% of the United States population had a social media profile, and it has grown tremendously since then. Today, social media is a key factor in our lives; 81% of the U.S. population logs onto various social networking sites every day. Most people do not realize the negative effects that social media inflicts on society, such as the addicting nature it has, it decreases productivity, the health risks it causes, and the false sense of connection it creates. It also leads to comparison and jealousy, it leaves people susceptible to cyberbullying and online dangers, and unwise posting choices can harm one’s reputation. However, along with these disadvantages there certainly are some positive effects of social media. These include the speed of which people can communicate, the opportunity for people to connect, and the enabling of people to be more creative.

At a glance, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have provided the modern day individual with a higher level of connectivity. These platforms have thus ensured a great facilitation of communication between friends, family and even new individuals across the globe. Moreover, the platforms have thereby enabled quick and efficient news and activities sharing amongst different people. In fact, social media has proven quite useful to the modern day individual making it a crucial component of the people’s everyday activities ranging from communication, businesses, and networking. All this components seem to be advantageous to the people, but as with most new technologies, social media brings forth a mixture of the good and bad outcomes to its individual users. Social media technology has thus proved to be more beneficial than it’s harmful, however, it has caused negative effects in that its results include nonexistent personal relations between individuals and isolation of such individuals leading to people being more alone.

Social media has significant consequences across all demographics. First, children are more distracted due the amount of media they utilize simultaneously. Multi-tasking is common among children. Often, children can be seen text messaging and listening to music on their IPod, while doing their homework. Results of a panel discussion by the NYU Child Study Center identify that 80% of adolescents have access to at least one type of social media. Furthermore, 54% of teens communicate through text messaging, sending over one hundred text messages each day. In the same light, children participate in bullying through social media, “because it’s harder to have empathy for your victim when you’re not face-to-face with him or her.” (Diaz, Evans, and Gallagher). Next, young adults are the most proficient and hyper-connected technologically in comparison to other generations. Raised in a time of information overload, these young people prefer text messaging a friend instead of meeting for lunch or going to a movie together. This generation develops relationships through cyber communication to, “provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship” (Turkle 2012). Simply said, millenialls have a “thirst for