The Negative Effects Of Social Media

Social media has become a part of our life, and no one can imagine living without it. Social media has grown a lot over the several years. Young individuals have always thought that social media is a marvelous piece of technology, but they never think about the negative effects of ‘like’ culture, which contributes to conformity and other negative consequences. The article, The Insidious Evils of ‘Like’ Culture, written by Neil Strauss, tells us about to what people can go to get more “likes.”

Social media is an outlet that lets people post everything and anything on to a social media site. Users are compelled to post things onto social media to try and get as many likes and retweets as possible. Between food, parties, bullying, and to new life adventures it gets posted onto the internet without anyone thinking about the consequences that could come from a post. Once it is posted on the site people are constantly checking to see how many likes they have received.Society as a whole has let social media control almost every aspect of their life. Social media has also opened a door for cyber bullying, this has made it hard for kids to have a safe place to go because people have to be on their

Growing up in the age of internet and being millennials, social media is as natural to the people of today as breathing or drinking water. Social media is a “series of websites and applications that have been designed to allow people to share content and communicate with each other quickly and efficiently” (“What is Social Media, 2017). A few people have a more confined perspective of social media likening it to mean the same as social networking on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. The power of social media is such that, the number of people using it worldwide is expected to reach 2.95 billion by 2020, which is a third of the world’s entire population (Facts, 2017). Social media has been described as being more addictive than even cigarettes and alcohol because it has entered so deeply into the lives of young people that it is almost impossible to stop using it every day (Winefield, Gill, Taylor & Pilkington, 2017). Today, social media can serve as a helping tool in changing a person’s life but at the same time it could also lead to a conflict which might have a negative impact on a person. As summarized by Huppert “Psychological well-being is all about the lives going well. It is a dual combination of feeling good and functioning effectively” (2009, p.137). Social media affects our psychological well-being in many different ways, both positively and negatively. Due to the broad nature of this topic, this essay will focus equally on both the pros and cons

Many students walk around campus with their eyes on their phones checking up on the new trends or pop culture. Is social media affecting college students in a negative way? Yes, their grades drop, become less focused in their daily lives, and social media can make someone less social. When do you see a full classroom with no people on their phone for the whole duration of the class? The answer to that is rare to never happening. Freedom is a huge reason for the amount of people on social media.

A world where everyone is connected on a single platform. All the people in the world are able to communicate without having trouble. Social media has become a great influence in today’s modern world because it has helped the economy improve from time to time. It helps us get information spread easier and faster to extremely far locations around the world. The media has changed the impact on how we view the world. Though many people see the negative influence towards social media there is actually a greater impact to social media than negatives. Social media has a very positive influence on the world today.

With the growth of Social Media, the way society communicates with each other changed forever. A social network allowing users to share the events of their lives through posting photos and status updates, to monitor the lives of their friends, and to communicate directly via a built-in messenger has revolutionized Internet communication, causing millions of people all over the world to share all kinds of information about themselves. There were, of course, other social networks before Facebook, but none of them garnered such a significant user base, remained as persistent, and continued to act as an effective form of communication as much as Facebook did. Along with Facebook, currently there are many other social networks, each with their own features and purposes; what unites them all, though, is the idea of sharing. Seemingly, this should positively impact the communication skills of users, since it allows communication even for people far away from each other, or who are unable to communicate live. However, there have been numerous research studies proving the opposite: social media platforms not only impair a user’s ability to share thoughts, but distort communication processes, creating more problems than they solve.

Social media/networking has many negative impacts on youth and young adults. We get addicted to many medias such as instagram, snapchat, tumblr, facebook, twitter and many other things. By doing so, we lose touch with the real world, we don’t have good communication, and soft skills. For example, sometimes when my parents talk to me, i don’t look at them and make eye contact but instead answer with my eyes on my phone or ipad, which is a very bad habit and horrible soft skills.

A question the online world is wondering still looms over society like a stormcloud. There is an unsuspected lightning bolt coming down on us that is the consequences of our Internet. What teens and kids are not thinking is that the Internet seems to be hurting us from the inside out, hurting our health, our schooling, and our connections with friends and family. Who are the role models of the Internet, if there are any?

Social Media: good, bad, or ugly? Millennials would say that social media is beneficial, entertaining, and provides valuable information to young adolescents. Some older people love social media, though some would argue that social media has a negative effect on society and is the source of distorted information, miscommunication, and failure in relationships. What happened to one on one conversations with colleagues or activities that included running, going outside, or even just sightseeing? The relationships between people have been disrupted due to social media's negative effect on the idea of a healthy relationship; False expectations, mental health issues, and lack of communication prevent strong relationships to begin and grow.

Social media has led us to have fewer interactions with people in real life. Many people would rather use social media to communicate with their friends than they would in person, mostly because it makes the communication process easier. More people have become antisocial by spending too much time on social media, and studies show that people have less interest in interacting with other people in their age group and other age groups. Social media is not only decreasing the quality of interactions, but it is also drastically changed the amount of relationships that people have in person as well. Most people have a lack of interest in talking to one another while in person, and it’s been proven that 93% of communication is nonverbal. Cornell University did a study that found that people have a hard time distinguishing between meaningful relationships that they build in the real world and the numerous casual relationships built through social networking sites. Also, allowing social media to prevent you from experiencing genuine human experiences such as spending time with your family or spending time outdoors can be very unhealthy.

With the emergence of Facebook, the way people communicate with each other changed forever. A social network allowing users to share the events of their lives through posting photos and status updates, to monitor the lives of their friends, and to communicate directly via a built-in messenger has revolutionized Internet communication, causing millions of people all over the world to share all kinds of information about themselves. There were, of course, other social networks before Facebook, but none of them garnered such a significant user base, remained as persistent, and continued to act as an effective form of communication as much as Facebook did. Along with Facebook, currently there are many other social networks, each with their own features and purposes; what unites them all, though, is the idea of sharing. Seemingly, this should positively impact the communication skills of users, since it allows communication even for people far away from each other, or who are unable to communicate live. However, there have been numerous research studies proving the opposite: social media platforms not only impair a user’s ability to share thoughts, but distort communication processes, creating more problems than they solve.

How many hours a day do you think you spend using social media? Some people spend hours on hours of time on social media. When people spend so many hours on their phones and computers looking at social media it tends to make them lazy and anti-social. People end up getting addicted to social media and it affects their work performance, the employees would be on their phones looking at Facebook and other social media platforms instead of doing their work. Social media is also the reason for social standards, and people, mainly teenagers, think poorly of themselves and how they look to others. There are many negative effects of social media, it makes people hate the way they look, making teens lazy, and it also can hurt people’s chances of getting a job or keeping it.

Before the era of social media, vacations got their meaning from the quality of the memories that were brought home; however, with technology and social media becoming increasingly more prevalent in today’s society, this is not the case anymore. With 76% of travelers posting their vacation pictures online through some social media platform, the “success” of a trip is now often defined by the number of “likes” that our posted photos receive (Frenaye). In this new culture of daily-life sharing, society has become addicted to the number of “likes” received; Consequently, there are unmistakable harmful psychological effects that develop in users of social media. Many travel photography accounts on social media, such as @MuradOsmann, create idealized lifestyles that negatively influence others’ self-perception and personal expectations due to frequent comparison to these professionally-edited images that display high economic status and perfect relationships.

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