The Negative Effects Of Social Media

According to the Pew Research Center, “41% of social media-users have experienced at least one negative outcome as a result of using a social networking site.” In this article, Norton uses logos, pathos, and ethos to explain his standpoint to his audience. Logos are used when Norton brings up the legal issues of social media such as privacy concerns. Bringing the reader into Norton’s own personal experiences of abuse and name-calling uses pathos. Finally, ethos are used indirectly in the article due to the fact that Norton is a writer and has experience with social networking and the negative impact it can have. Norton uses logos, pathos, and ethos by establishing evidence and logical points in his article to persuade his audience against using social networking.

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.

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

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.

People don't often realize what life really is without mass media. As I take a look and analyze how American lives would change without media, I begin to realize that it is nearly impossible to think of anything that isn't affected by media. As I think about big cities, I instantly think of LED billboards of Las Vegas or the light up signs in New York. Everyone in this world is constantly influenced in this world by books, TV shows, social media sites and news. Personally, I know multiple people that wouldn't know how to go about their day if there wasn't social media available. The change that would occur would be dramatic if there wasn't a subject telling Americans how to live, act, and think. Although there are positive aspects to the media outbreak, the negative impact on Americans and various other groups of people throughout the world, outweigh the positive.

As social media continuing to rise for the past 10 years. So, has the concern on the effect on people. A college student name Alexandra Tendler wrote an article about how social media make us anti-social and how the world evolves their lives around social media. Though social media has now become one of world’s biggest resources, it’s now affecting people on how they deal with things going on in the real world. This arguments contains visual evidence and insights to support their claims and it’s also contains a flaw or two. It’s not that Alexandra misworded or miss the point of the arguments, but this is indeed an opinionated topic and its misses the reality of things and how people actually deal with it.

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.

Isolation is increasing in my life since social media are taking such a huge roll in it. I have discovered that social media is helping me build walls in my own life. I notice the continuous blank stare at my phone as I roam the halls of Florida International University. It’s as if my social anxiety is a broken leg and my cellphone is my crutch. My cell phone brings me so much comfort, although I am comforted, I feel so disconnected with the world. Learning is much easier through social media websites. I am anti-social during school and with myself. All of this brings me to the conclusion that social media causes negative impacts in my daily life. Some of which include avoiding peers around the halls and using the internet to learn. I am not an electronic loving person, but why am I allowing social media to lock me up with handcuffs that I don’t have the keys for?

With the rapid rise in technology, it brings about a new growth in the current culture. Technology, like cell phones and computers, brings on a newer form of communication that can be both private and public. Before the rise in technology most of our communication was face to face. Social platforms (like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and etc.) were not commonly used as they are today. These social platforms became more relevant because they allow many to interact with each other on an instant level. It is easy with these platforms to keep a brief conversation with short messages; for example, with Twitter each tweet is 140 characters. Often, the person behind the messages have “followers” (they, who in a sense, are subscribed to a person) that they can leave an impression onto. Some people use their platforms for positivity while some use their platform for criticism.

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.

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.

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.

In our world of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media, we are connected with people more than ever before. One would think that we are interacting more socially and bringing people together regularly. However, with each passing generation, experts are learning the real implications of social platforms and how it is negatively affecting our social skills and mental health. According to Sherry Turkle, a social psychologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, people are more connected to one another than ever before in human history, thanks to internet-based social networking sites and text messaging. But they’re also more lonely and distant from one another in their unplugged lives.