The Negative Effect of Social Media Essay Example

Over the past few years social media has become popular as a feature friendly. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more are giving people an opportunity to connect with one another across distances. In other words, the full world has become like a small place where the information can get across the opposite parts in a matter of seconds. But among all populations, young people are particularly one of the biggest consumers of social media. Considering the broad effect of social media on populations can it all be positive? Just like a knife which can be used in two different ways, One can use it in a kitchen for food preparation, and another can use it for homicide. Social media has two ways too.  In this essay I am going to discuss the negative effects of social media .

In this paragraph, I'll discuss a number of arguments in favor of the claim that social media can contribute to psychological issues. Social media not only contributes to melancholy and anxiety, but it is also a regular source of stress for its users. In a separate study of 7,000 women, it was discovered that 42% of those who occasionally experienced Pinterest Stress were mothers who used the photo-sharing website Pinterest. One may ask how social media contributes to sadness and anxiety ? There are two ways in which social media might lead to sadness or anxiety. “ According to the social dilemma documentary, those who use social media less frequently are likely to be happier than those who use it.’’ Studies have also shown that using social media can make users feel a variety of unfavorable feelings, which can exacerbate or worsen their depressive symptoms.”  In the documentary, there is a family who uses their phone almost constantly, even when eating dinner together. When it was time for supper, their mother took their phone so, they could talk to each other. However, they were at a loss for words and each went to get their phone as a result. According to the documentary “If something is a tool, it genuinely is just sitting there waiting patiently. If something is not a tool it’s demanding things from you. It’s seducing you. It’s manipulating you. It wants things from you. And we’ve moved away from having a tools-based technology environment to an addiction- and manipulation-based tech environment. Social media isn’t a tool that’s just waiting to be used. It has its own goals and its own means of pursuing them by using your psychology against you.” By investing more of our time and energy in the illusion of social media, we endanger our more crucial relationships with our loved ones and immediate family. Social media, as a result, magnifies psychological problems such Frequent social media use encourages FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as well as feelings of helplessness, annoyance, and loneliness. Your mood is negatively affected by these feelings, which also worsen depressive, anxiety, and stress-related symptoms. Or it could reaffirm the value of our relationships with our loved ones and blood relatives. 

Another negative aspect of social media, aside from the rise in cases of anxiety and sadness, is that spending too much time on your phone during bed time might interfere with your sleep. For instance every time I go to bed I try to check instagram, and youtube. Numerous studies have demonstrated that increased social media use has a detrimental impact on the quality of your sleep. Try to limit how much time you spend on social media if you feel that your sleep patterns have become unreliable and are causing a decline in productivity. This is particularly true if you use your phone when in bed at night. It's all too easy to promise yourself that you'll check your Instagram alerts in five minutes, only to find out an hour later that you've been aimlessly scrolling through irrelevant content on Twitter. Thus, we must. Remember that social media algorithms aren't there to rob you of sleep; they're there to keep you interested for as long as possible. Getting less sleep of lower quality is a hazardous combination.

After the emotional issues stated in the preceding part, the second major idea I discuss in this essay is the facilitation of criminal action through the use of social media. As social media usage increases, bad people and negligent people take advantage of the freedom that social media platforms give them to deceive, assault, and damage others. Consider someone texting you something you don't like, and you tell them to stop sending you that message, but they don't listen and continue to send you that message. This is known as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has become a major issue among youths in recent decades, as it allows its victims to humiliate themselves in front of their peers. Bullying is defined as an aggressive act committed repeatedly and over time by a group or an individual against a victim who cannot easily defend himself or herself. With the rise of the Internet and mobile phones, a new type of bullying has emerged, called "cyberbullying." Aggression occurs through an electronic medium, specifically the Internet and social media, in cyberbullying. Aside cyberbullying, their are terrorism in social media too. In April 2013, the Syrian Electronic Army attacked the Associated Press's Twitter account and delivered a message to millions of AP Twitter users saying, "Breaking News: Two explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is hurt." Of course, the report was untrue. But within minutes, the stock market crashed, losing $136 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. This kind of cyber terrorism has the potential to undermine a country's security and economy, causing unrest around the world. The term "terrorism and social media" refers to the recruitment and radicalization of both violent and nonviolent extremists using social media platforms.Some researchers claim that because of the ease of use, low cost, and wide audience of social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, terrorist organisations and individuals have become more and more reliant on social media to further their objectives, enlist followers, and disseminate their message. The use of social media by terrorist organisations has been resisted by a number of governments and authorities. 

To sum up, social media allows for the creation of false identities and superficial connections, promotes sadness, and serves as a key recruiting tool for criminals and terrorists despite the advantages of speedy information sharing. Last but not least, I feel that the benefits of social media are stressed very often, as opposed to its drawbacks, which are rarely highlighted, because social media is a relatively new phenomenon and the impact studies conducted are also quite young. I believe that by providing people with more accurate information about all sides of the debate, my essay will inspire a shift in this tendency. Even if change is beneficial, unavoidable, and inevitable, it always has a cost.