Impact of Social Media on Young Adults Essay Example

Technology has a significant impact on us, especially as young adults. Social media is a big part of technology. People can be cyberbullying on social media, which is a big problem for us as we can develop mental health problems such as depression, loneliness, anxiety, etc. Social media takes over people's lives in reality, and in social media, people can see what others are doing each day depending on how often they keep it track, which is a huge distraction. Technology impacts us emerging adulthood to lean against the internet more and be more distracting in our daily lives. We are more addicted to using technology than the older generations that grew up without technologies. Social media impacts us, young adults, as emerging adults to have mental health, distraction, and seeking approvals. 

Social media can make us seek approvals in us which is not suitable for addiction. Social media like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Youtube, and Twitter all provide views, likes, or comments( reactions) to these posts or videos, where we would keep an update on how much you get. "Instagram was examined due to the high potential for status-seeking behavior on this platform, which is photo-based, highly visual, and centered on peer feedback in the form of likes." (Dumas, 741). People on social media are more likely to be looking at likes, views, and comments which is a bad addiction to be looking at. When people are looking at those, they can be thinking about how they can raise the number of views and likes. Some people look at their posts every minute or hour because it is very addicting. Mainly Instagram can collect the number of people's opinions by going to other people's profiles, homes, explore, and others. These put in our brains to be developing this in our everyday life. "Thus, concurrent validity of digital status-seeking also was assessed through associations between digital status-seeking and the number of photos participants posted with their same-age peers as well as the number of selfies posted." (Dumas, 741). We can be posting posts without getting as many likes as followers or followers vs. following, and people are just looking or maybe worried about that. "I purposefully post on social media during 'high traffic' times (i.e., times that I know most people will see it) so that my posts/photos get more likes and comments" and (b) "If something I post does not get a lot of likes or comments, I might take it down" (α = .80)." (Dumas, 743). Our brains post more at a specific time to get their followers' attention, mentioning our brains as adulthood using technology to affect their audience. 

Increasing use of technology like social media can cause many mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, etc. Due to the amount of technology in us, we are more likely to be stuck in a room and be using it from day to night and not get any exercise which can cause mental health because you aren't getting the outside view and going out to make friends. In "the empathy diaries," it refers that "we say we turn to our phone when we're "bored".... We pay attention to what interests us and then we look into our devices to find something it does". And we often find ourselves because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment". (turkle, 379). being mentioned in this text saying our minds are telling us to pay attention more to what's very interesting or important, and when your brain is turning down, you feel you would turn to your phone for more intereexcitings even if you're in a class, meeting or even talking to friends or people. "Anxiety leads to interpersonal reassurance-seeking behaviors so that individuals with anxiety may engage in extreme reassurance-seeking to endorse their self-worth or reduce feelings of uncertainty/worry by posting more frequently to get more "favs" and "likes." (Senturk, 261). People start to get anxious when their posts don't get too noticeable. People also don't find time to do something outside or make new friends or social life because they have most of their time available on social media. "It was found that the teenagers emotionally invested too much in social media during night and day, had low sleep quality, low self-esteem, high anxiety, and high depression levels. Meaning this may adolescents are not connected to social media, they may feel isolated and stressed, and may lead to increased anxiety and depression" (Kırcaburun, 894). We spend time on social media from day to night and are most likely to have less sleep than others. We would feel more lonely than others because we spent less time outside. 

Distraction is one of the biggest problems through social media and the internet. You could be distracted through social media when you're being cyberbullied. It is so distracting that it takes away productivity and can lead to poor grades. "Many young drivers aged 17 to 25 years report accessing interactive social technology (i.e., applications where the user communicates with other people) such as Snapchat and Facebook on their smartphone while driving…" (Gauld, 127). We are distracted by many things, and as a young adult takes this generation, we are more likely to multitask, such as driving and texting or snapping back at our friends on our phones. "The heavy use of Facebook or the Internet for entertainment could alter students' habitual behavior in reading, writing, and attention for completing academic tasks. It is referred to as academic distraction, which could eventually lead to a ripple effect on academic achievement. In this study, we aim to explore the relations among the Internet and Facebook usage, academic distraction and academic achievement of college students." (Feng, 42). We are often distracted by notifications as we receive comments on our posts. We are more likely to click it at first sight whether we're in class and working on a job. 

As technology impacts us all as emerging adulthood, it affects us all learned to lean toward everything through the internet and affects our brains as we grow up with technology. Technology not only causes distraction but also causes people to be seeking approval and to cause mental health. Social media is one part of technology that we are primarily on in our daily life. When people get bored, they're most likely to be put in their brain to be on or scrolling through social media. Social media is also one of the biggest distractions in our life. Technology has changed many of us as emerging adults as we are more based on technology to do things even when we get bored.