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.”

According to a recent study by IDC Research, 80% of smartphone users check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up each morning.

In the article, Liliana Escobar-Chaves and Craig Anderson focus on how youth are spending more time on social media and how that time spent of social media is causing them to bring negative effects to society. The authors go on to explain how the trends in increased social media use is increasing the health risks of obesity, smoking, drinking, unsafe sex and violence. The authors provide an in-depth look into each health risk and provide multiple facts and research studies to help support their claims. These research studies provide a clear and excellent understanding into how the increase in the use of social media can have a negative effect on the health risks they mentioned in the article.

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.

We all recognize this saying that knowledge is power, but few comprehend the empowering role social media has played. Being on social media, everyone is fed by an unrestricted flow of the information to add to their knowledge bank. Currently, it is undeniable that social media plays the significant role in impacting our culture, politic, economy and the overall view of the world. This is a new view forum that brings individuals from different diversity to exchange ideas, relates to, connect with, and mobilize for a cause, offer guidance, and seek advice. Social media has removed the communication barriers and created decentralized communication means and open the door for all people to have a voice and participate in any topic brought on any social network. The network does not limit anyone. Thus, It fosters collaboration and creativity with the wide range of commentators on the number of issues i.e. the education, economy, race, health, politics, and relationships.

“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.

As technology editing tools have become even more prevalent, many feel the need to excessively use photoshop before they share an image online. In a pervasive world where images of unrealistic standards fuel the media on how one should look, social media has one of the most significant impacts on body dissatisfaction in today’s society. Throughout the last decade, social media has become one of the most common and favored ways for people to communicate, connect, and share. Thus, there have been many debates and discussions on whether the media has a positive or a negative impact on the way an individual perceives him or herself. As the rapid growth of smartphone usage among adolescents and adults has increased, social media has become an essential part of one’s daily life. Today, when most adolescents and adults turn on their smartphones, often times, the first thing they will refer to is a social media site. It has become a place where they are exposed to news, images, and expectations. Often times, these images, ideals, and expectations are ingrained in their brain and bombarded with what is considered to be beautiful in today’s society. Moreover, these unrealistic standards will often lead to a form of comparison, influencing them to take extreme measures. Although social media serves as a platform where people can connect, communicate, and share, it has a negative impact on one’s body image, because it can lead to a lack of self confidence and severe health conditions.

Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram are just a few examples of social media that our society revolves around. From hate posts to videos of dogs eating ice cream you can find pretty much anything you want with a touch of a button. Everyone has their different opinions and it is much easier to share those through that little thing you cling onto as if it somehow protects you. We have adapted to being able to type whatever we want and post it for everyone to see instead of confronting the problem face to face. Social media provides a mostly negative effect on not only our generations but past and future generations as well. There could be the best thing for America today and you will find someone who disagrees and changes that into a bad thing that should have never been introduced, self esteem is determined by how many likes you got on your last post and lastly, these poor kids can’t have their own thought process they have to go along with the “status quote.”

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?

Used by the majority of Americans, social media has become a prominent source of entertainment, education, and communication. Social media is consistently at the fingertips of the average American, however, with this much exposure it has been shown to display negative effects, including of mental illness, addiction, low self-esteem and an outlet for bullying. Eventually, this can result in the downfall of social media

People no longer stop by a friend’s house and get together around a table for lunch, when they can meet and chat with their friends online all throughout the day. Too often at parties and get-togethers, guests are attached to their smartphones texting, rather than truly interacting with the people around them. People nowadays are opting for online dating applications over face-to-face conversations and meetings. From all these transformations, it is evident that even though social media appear to have eased our lives, it has in fact made it more complex by ruining our ability to have relationships by robbing us of our precious time spent with our loved ones, interpersonal communication skills, and mental well-being.

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.

Being a student, I think the penetration rate about the social media for me is almost 100 percent. At least me and my friends use it every day. We probably used it for translator the words or chat with others. Even more we use it for fun. Everyone use social media. Undisputed, social media is another way for us to keep communicate with each other. However, it could bring the negative and the positive effects. According to my personal experience, I think the negative effects on social media is much more than the positive effects.

When someone talks about social media people hear a wide platform where one can express himself by sharing his life experiences and his opinions about anything online. Social media is taking over the world, and it is changing how people see the world. Social media such as Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter or Instagram, was made to connect people, but nothing is separating people as social media. Before social media, people used to have physical friends and now all they have is online friends. It is so sad how depression, low self-esteem, obesity and anti-social are increasing a day by a day in our lives due to the social media. Social media is negatively impacting our society.

Social interaction has always been an essential to the survival of the human race. Socializing makes it possible for people to fully function as human beings because through socialization individuals learn their roles in life, their culture's language, and form their personality (Sociology). In today’s society, media plays a powerful role in people’s lives. It provides people the ability to form broad connections through countless social media sites and apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Youtube, and Twitter. Therefore, media has been growing rapidly throughout the world and has become a part of our generation. As users increase, the debate over whether the use media give a negative or a positive influence on people’s lives increases. Nowadays, youth lives most of their lives on media networks. They share news, pictures, secrets, love, and hate through a single tap on the “post” button. Media has a positive impact on our generation, yet at the same time, it can lead to negative influences that affect our society. I agree that the overuse of media can negatively affect youth because it can lead to addiction and cyberbullying.