The effect of social media
Social media definitely has an impact on how we view ourselves and the people around us. It is a tool that we associate with at a personal level, so personal that the things you do on social networks like Facebook could get you mixed up with individuals with criminal intent. Perhaps this is why researchers and psychologists are so eager to study how we interact with other human beings behind the anonymity of a screen.
What is Social Media? Social media is defined as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Using social media web sites is among the most common activity of today's children and adolescents. Any web site that allows social interaction is considered a social media site, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and blogs. Such sites allow entertainment and communication and have grown exponentially in recent years.
How is Social Media Affecting Our Society?
This technology might be doing more harm than good. It is not only changing how we communicate, but how we interact with each other in daily life. Social networking affects our lives in many ways, including our communication, self-expression, bullying, friendships, and even our own mental health.
Social media has played a big role in the lives of our children and young adults. On the surface we utilize social media to connect with others, but we neglect to acknowledge the negative impacts that social media is having on the social, emotion, and physiological development of our children and young adults.
By now, we are all aware that social media has had a tremendous impact on our culture, in business, on the world-at-large. Social media websites are some of the most popular haunts on the Internet. They have revolutionized the way people communicate and socialize on the Web.
However, aside from seeing your friends’ new baby on Facebook, or reading about Justin Bieber’s latest brush with the law on Twitter, what are some of the real impacts, both positive and negative, that social media has had on our society?
Here is a closer look at the effect of social media on politics, business, socialization as well as some of the negative effects such as cyber bullying and privacy.
Effect on Socialization
Social networks offer the opportunity for people to re-connect with their old friends and acquaintances, make new friends, trade ideas, share content and pictures, and many other activities. Users can stay abreast of the latest global and local developments, and participate in campaigns and activities of their choice. Professionals use social media sites like LinkedIn to enhance their career and business prospects. Students can collaborate with their peers to improve their academic proficiency and communication skills. You can learn about different cultures and societies by connecting with people in other countries.
Negative Effects of Social Media
Unfortunately, there are a few downsides too to social networking. Many introverts and socially reclusive users place too much emphasis on virtual interaction, and ignore the real world outside.
Impact on Privacy
If you are not careful, what you post on the Net can come back to haunt you. Revealing personal information on social sites can make users vulnerable to crimes like identity theft, stalking, etc. Many companies perform a background check on the Internet before hiring an employee. If a prospective employee has posted something embarrassing on social media, it can drastically affect their chances of getting the job. The same holds true for our relationships too, as our loved ones and friends may get to know if we post something undesirable on social networks.
Conclusion
Social media has its advantages and drawbacks as revealed in this article. It is up to each user to use social sites wisely to enhance their professional and social life, and exercise caution to ensure they do not fall victim to online dangers.
Social Media’s Impact on Relationships
Human beings yearn for connection and belonging. Numerous studies have linked social support to positive mental health. Additional studies have cited the negative emotional impact of loneliness. Research has further revealed people with fewer social relationships die earlier on average than those with more social relationships. Yet with the rise of social media, there are concerns many people appear to be substituting virtual, online connections for real-life, social relationships.
Many of those we “friend” on Facebook are also real-life friends. Should we be concerned about a trend toward developing online network connections instead of nurturing face-to-face relationships? How influential are our online “friends” able to be if we do not maintain a real-life relationship with them? As with anything, balance seems to be the key. Real-life relationships are unmatched for emotional and physical closeness. connections for real-life, social relationships.
Studies and personal experience reveal people tend to put their best foot forward while interacting on social media. Displays of emotional weakness, insecurity, or conflicts generally tend to be concealed or minimized on social networking sites. It is often difficult, if not impossible, on social media to reveal the qualities that define deep, intimate relationships. While our social media friends offer us a great deal, it is not a true substitute or even supplement for real-life interactions with others.
Online friendships, while certainly valuable in many ways, lack the ability to provide us with opportunities for deep and lasting emotional closeness. So accept and seek out your online friends, rekindle lost connections and revisit childhood friendships, as long as it is not at the expense of nurturing and deepening your real-life relationships.
The effect of Social Media on Education
1. Students are having a harder time getting to communicate face to face with people, and are losing their people skills, due to that they are spending more and more time talking from behind a screen.
2. The attention to details, attention to pronunciation and grammar, has declined drastically, due to that most of the communication that happens online is not proper.
3. Our ability to retain information has decreased, and the willingness to spend more time researching and looking up good information has reduced, due the fact that we got used to the ease of accessibility to information on social media.
4. Social Media had become a major distraction to students, causing the overall performance of students to decline, especially the ones who tend to check their Facebook and twitter while studying.
Influence of Social Media on Teenagers
The influence of social media on adolescents and teenagers is of particular importance, not only because this particular group of children is developmentally vulnerable but also because they are among the heaviest users of social networking. According to a report by Common Sense Media, 75 percent of teenagers in America currently have profiles on social networking sites, of which 68 percent use Facebook as their main social networking tool.
While social networking undoubtedly plays a vital role in broadening social connections and learning technical skills, its risks cannot be overlooked. The lack or difficulty in self-regulation and susceptibility to peer pressure makes adolescents vulnerable to such evils as Facebook depression, sexting, and cyberbullying, which are realistic threats. Other problems such as social network-induced obesity, Internet addiction and sleep deprivation are issues that continue to be under intense scrutiny for the contradictory results that have been obtained in various studies.
Family and friends
Never mix business with pleasure, they say – I wonder where you slot ‘family’ into this equation. Even when working in a 9-to-5 setting, most of us arefinding less and less time to spend with our spouses and children. Things get worse when you start hanging around on the Web. The more we are connected to the Internet, be it to reply emails, read blogs, surfsocial networking sites, or tend to our hobbies via PC, mobile or tablet, the less time we have for the people around us. Despite having hundreds (or even thousands) of friends on Facebook, how many of them do you normally go out for drinks with? And even when you do, how much face-to-face time do you give each other? Chances are, upon sitting down and making your order, you would both whip out your smartphones and start swiping through your daily tabs, news, tweets and messages before finding something to talk about with your drinking buddy. Chances are, you spend more time communicating through your friends on your phone than with your friends who are physically right in front of you. In short, the faster you connect to a nearby Wi-Fi connection, the faster you disconnect from the physical world.