Persuasive Essay about Negative Effects of Social Media

With over 3.6 million individuals using social media, it's an expansive and active growing community around the world.  But social media is causing harm and distress to people's mental health. Social media is also manipulating people's thoughts and what they buy. Although young people appear to be increasingly using social media to communicate distress, particularly to peers, it is still harmful because some people don’t have the luxury of finding those types of people. Social media is quite harmful because “students who spent more time on Facebook were more likely to feel envious of others and worse about themselves” ( Bronfenbrenner center for translation research 1 ). Also, social platforms manipulate people, “YouTube videos were to convince me that ‘the Media is lying.’  people should respond by spending less time consuming ‘the media,’ and probably more time on YouTube. Since YouTube optimizes watch time, these videos will become highly recommended”(How Algorithms Can Learn to Discredit the Media pg 2). Although social media gives young people a place to communicate distress on social platforms, it is quite harmful because young people are manipulated into consuming more media and wanting a better body image.  

A distinct benefit of social media is its ability to develop care groups. Young teens around the world are using social media to aid other individuals, recent research shows, “Young people appear to be increasingly using social media to communicate distress, particularly to peers” (The good, the bad and the unknown 2). People construct communities to support each other on social media. In addition, social media’s ability to bring small groups of singled-out individuals who are dealing with similar problems to convene from around the world to assist each other with depression and feeling alone. To further my example of how social media benefits people is its ability to help youth seek out support and lessen the chance of self-harm.  The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research states, “Social media can have a positive impact on help-seeking and support provision, efforts to understand how to best minimize potential harm and maximize potential benefits are important next steps” (The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research 2). As a society people should take measures to minimize harm to others and maximize the benefits of social media. 

One of the biggest negatives about social media is how it manipulates people. Platforms like Youtube try to convince users to believe something, and then show people videos on it to maximize watch time. Some users report that social platforms were trying to manipulate them.  Guillaume Chaslot said  “YouTube videos were trying to convince me that the Media is lying. I would respond by spending less time consuming the media  and probably, more time on YouTube.” Since YouTube optimizes watch time, these videos will become highly recommended” (How Algorithms Can Learn to Discredit the Media pg 2). Algorithms make people spend more time on the platform by showing them what they want to see and hear. This is important to know because people are being shown one point of view and it narrows their minds. An additional example is that technology manipulates people's ideas of their bodies.  Sites like Instagram and Snapchat use filters to enhance nice facial features and make people look better while hiding imperfections. Jia Tolentino states “I told Smith that I couldn’t shake the feeling that technology is rewriting our bodies to correspond to its interests—rearranging our faces according to whatever increases engagement and likes. “Don’t you think it’s scary to imagine people doing this forever?”(The Age of Instagram Face 3) Technology is trying to make people look better in its internist.  It manipulates how we think people should look. It creates a standard people think they have to live up to, but can't, and it makes people feel bad.  Social media is manipulating people's minds and thoughts by using tools like algorithms and filters.  

Social media has shown that it severely affects people's mental health. The more time spent on social media the more envious and worse we will feel about ourselves. Facebook is making people feel worse about themselves, causing their mental health to deteriorate.  Combined with social platforms’ impact on mental health it’s no coincidence suicide and suicidal thoughts have been going up. As is shown the “Number of young people admitted to the hospital for attempting suicide or having suicidal thoughts has doubled in the past 10 years”(The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research 3). Technology is connected with higher suicide rates. It heavily affects people's mental health and body imagery causing suicide and depression.