The Negative Effects Of Social Media

The privilege of technology that we are accustomed to today is beyond amazing. Whether one is using a computer, or an iphone, the amount of options and creativity is endless. These ideas were designed for good intentions, but unfortunately that is not what it has come to be. The power spread from social media into the hands of young adults and teens is something to be concerned about. Students and teens may not think what they say on social media matters, but it truly does. College denial, lack of finding work, and social depression and anxiety are the three most important negative effects of social media use.

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.”

While analyzing the effects of social media, the negatives may outweigh the positives. The reason for this can be found right in front of our faces. Today’s society lacks the basic human social skills, and is unable to carry on a conversation without looking at their phones. Insecurity, addiction, and social skills all play an important role in the effects of social media.

Being on social media daily, affects the youth-even adults- physically, socially, and emotionally/mentally. Because technology is so addictive, over the past few years, social media has begun to influence and take control of our lives.

Social media has started to take over the lives of young and old, but with that comes some negative effects. There was on average 1.32 billion daily users on Facebook in just June of 2017 (Company Info). This is the age of technology, were new websites or apps are being made to make it easier to talk to people. While it might be a good thing that we are now able to talk to someone across the country, or the world, in real time, it is the way that we are talking to people that is alarming. Social media and texting have changed the way younger people interact with others, our social skills, and the way we write in a very negative way.

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 good and clear 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.

Researchers have discovered a phenomenon, known as Facebook depression. Facebook depression usually occurs in teens and preteens and is explained as depression that forms when an excessive amount of time is spent on social media (O’Keffe). A cause of Facebook depression is FOMO, also known as fear of missing out. It occurs when a Facebook user opens Facebook and sees their friends enjoying time together. The user could potentially begin to develop symptoms similar to those of depression, due to the feeling of being left out. A study by Ethan Cross, proved that Facebook is linked to less moment-to-moment happiness and life satisfaction (Walton). It founded that the reasons the user forms for being excluded may cause the user to feel anxious and begin to develop a neurotic personality (Whitbourne). According to San Diego State University psychologist Jean Twenge, one to two hours a day does not increase risk a lot but anymore can cause feelings of major depression. The problem with this is that many of people spend more than that amount of time on social media,

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 guess 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 to translate 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 communicating with each other. However, it could bring the negative and the positive effects for us. According to my personal experience, I think the social media is harmful for the students and It can bring a lot of negative effect for me.

The use of social media never really impacted me until the early 2010’s. It was never really my cup of tea to be on Instagram, Snapchat etc. As I gotten older and older I started to really get into things like Snapchat and Instagram. I didn’t make my first instagram until my 10th grade year of High School. Throughout the years I have met plenty of people that I have became close with through the media. Sometimes it is good sometimes it is bad and that is why I try to distance myself from it. That is pretty much my storyline of my social media life, now it's time to give it an outlook as a whole in the teenage world.

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.

Social media is a personal online website used for sharing information and ideas between many online users. Humans in general need to be social or it can drive them into insanity. But is social networking website being social or antisocial. Many people have different ideology on this topic. Teens in general are the majority of people who use social networking as the key tool to social gain. Social media can strengthen friendships or it can break them. Nevertheless, is social media good for one's health and well-being. The use of social media has negatively impacted teenagers because they have become more addicted to their mobile devices, and they have no real relationships to the outside world.

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.