There is no doubt that social media has great power, but how does it
affect today’s society? I am going to elaborate positive and negative effects
on this intensive mobile use. I am also going to talk about how social media
has taken over our lives. Research shows that in average people check their
phone 110 times a day. News, messages, music, games, calls, surfing, videos,
pictures, articles and access to see what your friends are doing draws our
attention, it has become a huge part of our lives and a large part of young
people are more or less addicted. Whatever we do, our phone is with us.
Positive sides of
social media
There
are 2 billion social network users each month around the globe. Together we
constitute a large network, all connected to each other through mutual friends
and acquaintances. The internet has become our way to connect and create a
community. We are reducing communication barriers and learning to get along
with other cultures and religions. Another thing social media contributes with
is building relationships and making new friends. You can meet people with the
same interests as you or you can contact old friends you have not spoken with
for years. There are countless dating sites where you can date people online.
It
has also become a way to empathize with each other. For instance when you lose someone
you loved and post a eulogy on Facebook, people will comment and condolence. When
the massacre on Utøya happened, news and affected wrote and posted on social
media and people who did not even know the victims, showed so much empathy and
sympathy.
The
internet is also a place where your voice can be heard, either through blogging,
commenting on news, posting and sharing on Facebook and Twitter or writing
directly to the person/persons you want to receive your message. Social media
allows us to inspire each other. You can watch a girl from another country’s
YouTube video and get inspired. Maybe she is dressing a certain way that you
like or having a lifestyle that you want. Maybe you want to travel the world
and find inspiration in someone who has done it already.
The
internet is also a great place to find information. Whether you are writing an
article about dinosaurs or you want to know how far away Jupiter is. You can
also ask questions and get answers. There are several forum pages where people
can discuss and ask questions to both professionals and each other. If you are
pregnant, for instance, there are forums for pregnant women where they discuss
and asks each other questions. If you are sick or having weird symptoms, you
can ask a doctor online what you are suffering from and what you can do to feel
better. If you are interested in the ocean, you can find almost all the
information there is to find about the ocean, on the internet.
A
huge part of social media includes entertainment. Surfing, scrolling through
Instagram photos, watching Youtube videos, playing games and chatting with
friends are all things I find myself doing when I am bored, waiting for
something/someone or just want to avoid certain situations. I do not think I only speak for myself when I
say that I have a tendency to use social media as an excuse to avoid
uncomfortable conversations and situations I don’t want to take part in. When I
am sitting on the bus, on my way home from school and I am tired and exhausted,
I usually pick up my phone to listen to music. We have access to entertainment
via our smartphones and computers, wherever we are, whenever we want.
Almost
all kinds of business happens over the internet, shopping online is getting
more and more popular and communication between countries happens through the
internet. Social media enhances our connectivity. Many would say that we are
getting in touch with the world.
Negative sides of
social media
Even
though there are many positive sides with social media, it is far from only
good aspects; loneliness, isolation and depression are just some of the
negative ones. People feel lonelier even though they are surrounded by people,
because the social media has become some sort of a new reality for many. When
we write a message to someone or post something, we expect responds and if we
don’t get attention we feel lonely, just like in the real world, if you feel
that nobody cares or gives you attention, you feel lonely. Let’s say you post
something you are proud of on Facebook, then you go to your feed and leave
friendly comments and like others pictures and updates, you also send a few
messages to your closest friends. It is getting late so you go to bed, but you
have this inner turmoil, you need to check Facebook one last time. You log in
and expect replies and comments on your recent post, but all you meet is an
empty notification and an empty inbox. You get dissatisfied. You get irritated.
No one is around to talk to you, and you feel… lonely. It has become an
obsession because we are always checking the news feed, recent messages, missed
calls, forecast, the latest music, celebrity world, likes on photos and videos,
what your friends are doing and so on. Social networking platforms like Facebook,
Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube and Tumblr draws our interest and can
keep our attention for long periods.
“Social
media is addictive precisely because it gives us something which the real world
lacks: it gives us immediacy, direction, and value as an individual.”
- David Amerland (“15 inspiring social media quotes,” 01:54:27 UTC)
Talking
about liking and commenting on your friend’s posts, people have a bad habit of
comparing their own lives with others. People want to show off their best side,
which means that they only share the most beautiful photos, funniest videos and
exiting stories. After logging off social media, many feel that their life is
boring and sad compared to others, but even though friends and strangers has an
impact on us, fashion world has most of the influence on today’s society. Models,
style icons and celebrities have long, thick and healthy hair, flawless skin
and thin and toned bodies. This is an example of proliferation of
misinformation even though the opposite is proved. We make ourselves believe
that this is real, even though we all know the photos is photo-shopped and
edited. Why is that? Probably because we are surrounded by it all the time and
it has become a new reality for us. Peoples’ self-esteem is weakened and
countless young girls are really struggling. Regardless of this, these celebrities
are role models for countless young people nowadays and their fanbase need to
know every single detail about them. Did Beyoncé take plastic surgery? Who is
Justin Biebers new girlfriend? Is Kim Kardashian pregnant? Their lives are
definitely not private, because everything they do gets published and shared
with the entire human race. They are like a book without a locker and everyone
who would like to can read it. This allows the population to make conclusions
about them without knowing them in real life. Many of these conclusions are rumours
or misinterpreted situations.
Speaking
about rumours. Cyber bullying has become a major problem around the world.
Cases of appearance bullying and made up stories are numerous. Approximately
80% thinks that online bullying is easier to get away with than bullying in
person. About 43% of kids and teenagers has been bullied, and nearly 4500 are
committing suicide because of it, per year! This is a serious problem and can
seriously undermine a person’s life.
Social
networking sites encourage people to be more public about their personal lives,
because intimate details of our lives can be posted so easily. Name, date of
birth, where you live, where you come from, personal details and other things
that refers to a person's identity is published in several social media and the
information can be retrieved from the entire world's population. This exposes especially
children to online predators. Men, mostly, are taking advantages of young
teenagers and children who doesn’t have netiquette.
Social
media are encouraging poor grammar and spelling. Are you writing an article in
school, you make sure that the grammar is right and that you have remembered
uppercase and lowercase letters. After school, however, it is much faster to
write shorter sentences with abbreviations and slang. This becomes a bad habit as
young children grow and develop their writing skills, their writing at school
are influenced by bad writing outside of school.
Our
obsession about social media leads us to multitask. Even though the internet
has become some sort of a new reality, we still have things to do in real life.
For example, you are having a conversation with someone on the phone, you are
listening to music and you are thinking about what you are going to eat for
dinner today, all this while you are driving a car. Research has shown that our
brains don’t have the capacity to fully focus our attention on two things at
once. Multitasking hinders information processing and productivity.
I
think that social media has its benefits. I use it every day, but I am not
abusing it. I try not to spend too much time on my electronics, but I find it
hard sometimes when my friends in the USA are calling me on Skype eleven pm and
my phone in blinking constantly because I’m a member in several group chats. It
is rare that I cannot find answer to my questions on the internet, I find a lot
of information and facts on pages like Wikipedia. If not, I just ask friends
and family on Facebook. Social media allows me to keep in touch with people I
live far away from and haven’t seen in a long time. For example, I keep in
touch with several of my second cousins and third cousins from Oslo and
Stavanger. I am also having conversations with people I met on Mathilde
expedition, 3 years ago. My aunt just moved to Lofoten so now I can keep in
touch with her also through social media. I can’t ignore that social media
has had an impact on my self esteem sometimes, nut I don’t think that I have any bad experiences
with social media, because my parents learned me netiquette and how to behave
online from an early stage. I do know people who abuse social media and have
gotten problems because of it, though. Young people need to learn how to use
social media correctly, how else will they know what is right and what is
wrong? And what is smart not share with everyone. Social media takes a huge
part of our lives. We are available from the moment we open our eyes in the
morning until we close them again at night. For many, the first and the last
thing they do during the day, is checking their phone. I think social media is
a good thing as long as we learn to use it wisely.
