The Negative Effects Of Social Media

Erik Qualman once said, “We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it?” (Qualman, Erik). This quote clearly states that social media has become a part of today's society and that avoiding it would be nearly impossible without total isolation. The quote also ask a rhetorical question that simply queries, how properly do we use social media? Qualman made it obvious that we’re not being as effective as we should be on social media. Social media began it’s thriving point, with the 21st generation, around 2005 when the website Facebook was created. At that point and time, the website was mainly for communication purposes. Whereas now, all social media has formed into an entertainment center. Unfortunately, the original intentions of social media have reached an ultimate downfall. Social media can be used in several harmful ways; such as, the unintentional way, the intentional way, and the way that people tend to forget about.

Social media was created to bring people close and contact them wherever they are located in the world on the other hand it isolated people from the human contraction and many students spend many hours on the many websites instead of having normal face to face interaction with other as Austen McCann mentioned in one of his article on the social media, “Social media has allowed them to take their life online and instead of saying goodbye to friends at school and waiting to see them the next day...”. According to Pew Research Center, in Social Media Update 2016 “77% of school students along with 82% of college students spend most of their time on social media websites such as Instagram, Facebook, twitter, etc. These number show how much

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

Social Media use is progressively increasing and has definitely become part of our everyday life. This is occurring because there are so many benefits to using Social Media. As we move along in life people worldwide are beginning to become more reliant on Social Media and different technologies. Social Media is defined as websites and other online applications that enable users or large groups of people to create and share content or to participate in social and professional communications (The World 's). People are using Social Media and different technologies to improve communication, share ideas faster, learn new things, check for updated weather and traffic reports, and learn about what is going on around the world (Are Social Networking). In the classroom, students also can improve and better their learning experiences by the use of technology, such as Google and their various applications, such as Google Docs and Google Classroom. One major Social Networking site, Facebook, is so popular that on August 24, 2015, there was over one billion people who were active and on Facebook in one day. This is amazing because when Facebook was just starting out there were only about one million active on their site (Company Info). Social Media benefits society as a whole in many ways. However, Social Media does have some downfalls. Social Media benefits society more then it harms society.

Electronic communications have taken over young generations life. College and high school students prefers talking on social media rather than face to face conversations. Students get most of the news or information from the social media according to Rick Nauert, a senior news editor, “For most of the students reporting in the study, information of all kinds comes in an undifferentiated wave to them via social media” (Nauert). Electronic communications have disadvantages on students’ life. The articles, “Harrisburg U.’s Social-Media Blackout Is More of a Brownout,” by Don Troop and Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction,” by Matt Richtel discusses about the impact of social media on students’ life. All three articles have a commonality about the side effects of social media and its use. Over usage of social media made young generation addicted to social media, unable to concentrate on study, and encourage the universities to block social media on the campus network as an experiment.

Parents all over America worry about what their children are doing on social media every day they are on it. No one knows what is truth or what is false. Someone could be using a different identity to try to scam people on social media. In this generation, everyone is all about their snap chat streaks, how many likes they get on twitter, how many people have seen their stories on snap chat, and how many re tweets they can get on twitter. I believe that social media is harmful to the psychological well- being of young people in America.

Firstly, we need to understand what social media is. From a broader and vague perspective, social media can be referred as the wide variety of mobile and Internet-based services that allow users to contribute to online exchanges, join online communities, or contribute user-created content. Although social has helped us learn more and educate ourselves on many things, it has a lot of mental effects on our bodies. It has detrimental effects on our wellbeing (Bányai et al. 52). Social media is a platform that has an increasingly significant impact not only on our mental health but also multiple facets of modern life beyond online communication. This platform is misleading the teens and the young adults because they are the most who spent a lot of time socializing online and doing all manner of things thus exposing themselves to the risk of developing the mental problems. They get all negative effects that are associated with social media because they spent most of their time online. Although social media has more good than harm, we also need not spend most of our time online as this will bring us many mental problems that can affect our entire life. Social media has vast negative effects on oneself, specifically on depression, addiction, self-esteem, and confidence, therefore we need to regulate the usage of it to avoid these problems in the future.

There is no doubt that social media and the internet is an insanely popular way of communicating among our friends and family, but with so much time spent on social media, there are bound to be effects that can be felt by all of us. Big social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have such a widespread user base that the amount of time spent on these platforms by all users is most likely an unbelievable number. A lot of people may think that social media is a waste of time and has addictive qualities, and has mostly negative impacts on its users; Social media can also be used in a variety of ways that are more beneficial and not time wasting.

Do you really wanna spend your entire life not going to college or having a well paying job? Over these past generations, technology has made a tremendous influx in today’s society, lowering the youth’s ability to focus under any circumstances. Social media’s influence on people can be very addictive and harder to control yourself the more you use it. This leads to the lack of sleep and takes priority over school and jobs. It can potentially hurt or help your life. But ultimately, social media can substantially hurt your college and career goals. This is because of what you post on any social media is seen and can affect your life in an extraneous way. Also social media distracts people from their jobs or studies.

In social media people mostly care for shallow things; number of the followers, how many likes they have for their pictures, and how much people have interacted with their posts in these programs. Not only they will care about these things, but also they will neglect the other important things in real life. For instance, people will focus on how to achieve certain goals in social media, such as: having a big number of followers by spending a lot of time posting about their daily life. Therefore, it will affect the career life for adults, and educational life for teenagers in a negative way. They will start to delay the important tasks they have to do, and be lazy in doing their jobs in real life. Another key thing to remember it that people always wants to present their life as a perfect life in social media. Which leads people to compare them selves with others, and to being satisfied with their lives. Consequently, social media have a bad impact on individual’s life by making them have shallow way of thinking, and not being

Social media has impacted society in countless ways. It's a convenient tool to use when sharing ideas or speaking to friends and family. Social media allows individuals to grasp information and current issues that are going on across the world. Generation X and Baby Boomers see social media as an alternative for their kids to stay home from the dangers that they may encounter outside. However it can become problematic and cause severe consequences. An unfavorable post can cause an individual to take their life.

Modern society is in grave danger because of the media. Different forms of media have emerged over time, including newspaper, books, radio, television, and now the internet. Numerous studies have proven a link between poor self-image and the media, and this trend has worsened with time. It seems the more access individuals have to the rest of the world, the more self-obsessed they become, and the results can be deadly. Many psychologists have discovered a connection between media (social media primarily) and one’s self-image. Unfortunately, this connection is often a negative one, as social media has been claimed to be “more addictive than alcohol or tobacco” (Fox, para 1). There are several factors that contribute to this trend of social media negatively impacting body image, many of which are scientific and should potentially be treated as a disease like other addictions are. Society’s “ideal image” of an individual has evolved as social media has become increasingly popular, which is damaging individuals’ self-images and causing body dysmorphia in some cases. Social media and exposure to other factors such as reality television should be limited in order to prevent unrealistic body images.

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.

Over the past decade social media has been used as an outlet for self-expression. Why do people use social media to express themselves? Social media have caused negative effects on self-expression. Social media can alter people’s thoughts and feelings. Social media reduces people’s urge to write down their thoughts because they feel they will be criticized by what they wrote. Social media have also decreased social skills over time. Social media can be used as a voice and it affects the way some people express themselves.