The Negative Effects Of Social Media

Social Media is affecting our society in a negative way. From being the number one cause of divorce, ruining people’s careers, and being a haven for teen suicides, many misfortunes arise due to social media. People may not notice its damaging side effects yet it is slowly but surely proving detrimental to all involved in the game. By taking a step back and maintaining self-control, any human being immersed in the frenzy of social media can enjoy its perks without getting caught up in the whirlwind of unfortunate events.

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.

Mark Mckinnon, vice-president of an international communications consulting firm stated, “Technology and social media have brought power back to the people.” It makes sense that he would possess such a positive view of social media, because his job more or less depends on it. However, the reality is a little less sunshine and rainbows. Social media has undoubtedly changed the way humans can communicate with each other, even making it possible to contact people in a far off country. There is a bit of a catch though. For all of its perks, social media is creating a profoundly negative effect on those that use it. Through social media’s constant influence on lives, millions are left with the desire to change

In today's world, people view social media as either a social benefit or a social detriment. Social media helps us with our day to day lives like helping people connect with one another, determine whether or not someone would be fit for a job, and allows us to have easy access to news, but it does have its downfalls. Some of these downfalls include cyberbullying, overexposure, and making us to addicted to our technology.

“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.

With the development of technology, the social media has become an obbligato part of our life. In the 19th century, people still used the newspapers as their main source of information about their city; in the 20th century, with the popularity of electricity, people started to listen to radio and watch television to know the event of their country; in the 21st century, computers and mobile phones gradually become popular, people enjoy the convenience and comfort of internet. However, does the social media usually give people a positive impact? Just like Allcott and Gentzkow said, “American democracy has been repeatedly buffeted by changes in media technology.” (211) Social Media creates a negative effect on today’s world by influencing the presidential election, disrupting politics, and controlling the business. Some people use social media to spread rumors and satisfy an own personal desire, and the biggest and the nearest effect of our daily life is the 2016 presidential election of the United States.

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.

Social media is dangerous. In other words, the advances of technical communication and networking have contributed to the declining mental health status of the American youth. As a matter of fact, it has been linked to body insecurities, depression, and addictive or obsessive thoughts and habits.

Social media is globally recognized as a phenomenon that has taken over the internet. Some view social media as a counterproductive platform that will lead to societal disintegration. Others think it empowers users and can positively transform the world. Social media is handy and highly relevant, however, many common flaws are associated with the use of social media, ranging from wasting time to compromisation of privacy. Some of the reasons why social media has harmful effects on today’s youth are: everyday social media lowers a teenagers self confidence, teens today are more focused on social media than their school work, and online predators are all over social media simply looking for their next victim. Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter can cause teens to fall into these negative situations and the social media situation needs to change.

Social Media is any website that allows social interaction between people, from everywhere in the world. Social Media is growing extremely fast throughout the entire world. Adults and teenagers are joining social media sites everyday such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. When Facebook first came about it was used for family and friends to stay connected while in different parts of the world. It is also a way for entrepreneurs and companies to market and promote their businesses. The introduction of social media has changed the world both negatively and positively.

Although it has helped us in many ways, social media has multiple negative effects on our lives. When technology began to advance, we used it to our

Social media plays a huge role in today’s society. As technology continues to advance social media does too. While social networking sites become more popular the age of users on the site becomes younger. Social media has been around for what seems like forever, but it has only been around for less than two decades, “SixDegree.com, which existed from 1997-2001, is considered the first social networking site because it allowed users to create personal spaces and connect with friends online” (ProCon.org). Since the first social media site was created, there has been multiple new ones created like, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and many other commonly used sites. “As of Sep. 2014, 51% of US adults use YouTube, 28% use Pinterest, 28% use LinkedIn, 26% use Instagram, and 23% use Twitter” (ProCon.org). When analyzing the amount of time people spend on social media there are shocking results, “‘According to a [December] 2012 Nielsen…Americans spent 74 billion minutes on social media via a home computer, 40.8 billion minutes via apps, and 5.7 billion minutes via mobile web browser for a total of 121.1 billion minutes on social networking sites’” (ProCon.org). The large amounts of time people spend on social media affects society and people around by taking away face to face communication skills, making relationships weaker, lowering mental health, and

I’ve learned that everything that glitters ain’t gold. In my middle school days I’ve experienced the negative effects of social media, Now when I say social media, I’m referring to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. By me being very active on social media I’ve been taunted, teased, threatened and harassed along with having low- self esteem and some suicidal thoughts . According to a recent study in the JAMA pediatrics, 23% of teens report they are or have been the target of cyberbullying . “A National survey of over 10,000 adolescents showed that 1 in 3 teens met criteria for an anxiety disorder. Severe anxiety, including panic disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias, afflicts 8.3% of all teens. 5% to 8% of U.S. teens attempt suicide yearly. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, it states that 92% of teens use their smartphones to access social media daily while 24% say they access it almost constantly”. Even though some people believe social media opens up a large network, social media do have an negative effect on teens because it is one of the main reasons for Poor Academic Performance, It causes teens to have Emotional Implications and Limiting time spent on social media can reduce the chance of being Cyberbullied.