Social Networking and Social Media

Social Networking and Social Media: Harmful or Helpful?

Online social media have gained astounding worldwide growth and popularity which has led to attracting attention from a variety of researchers globally. Social media effects millions of people worldwide daily and many teens spend at least a hour a day on social networking sites, today we will decide whether or not social media is a hindrance or a tool for teens and adults. Although with time all generations have come to accept the new technologies and offspring that it has, one of the offspring from technology in the 21st century is social media. Social networking has brought about, teenagers and young adults are the most fanatic users of these sites. According to various research studies in the field of online social networks, it has been revealed that these sites are impacting the lives of the youth greatly. When using these sites such as Twitter, Facebook or MySpace, there are both positive and negative effects on the youth and today we are going to contrast the two sides to see if the negative effects outweigh the positive effects. Some of the points that will be argued are that many people believe the use of social media helps with communicating but is not allowing us to make connections with the people we are interacting with. One of the most negative effects of social media is the reoccurring cases of cyber bullying; almost all teens that have social media accounts have seen or been involved in cyber bullying. Lastly we will discuss many positive effects of social media and how it can help keep people connected from all over the world. Today, technologically advanced mobile phones are all the rage. They are setting a new tone for the way we communicate and engage with one another. These mobile devices have changed not only the way we communicate with each other, but also how we behave. They have changed our personalities. By being constantly connected with one another, we are actually trying to hide ourselves from having actual communication. We fear to have real conversations. Advanced communication technology allows us to keep people at right distance, not too far, but not too close. E-mails, instant massages, posts in Facebook and “tweets” in Twitter cannot replace conversation, but they are occupying more space in our lives with each passing day. Technology makes us expect fast answers, while face-to-face conversation teaches us to be patient to a companion. Moreover, in the process of conversation with others we learn about our own personality. Technology takes away this possibility of self-reflection, instead it offers us the opportunity to present ourselves in a way we want to be, but not in a way we truly are. It makes us believe that our online voices, faces and bodies are more appealing to others than our real personalities. The biggest emerging problem with social networking and social media is the effects of cyber bullying. To define this type of social harassment; it is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. By definition, it occurs among young people. When an adult is involved, it may meet the definition of cyber harassment or cyber stalking, a crime that can have legal consequences and involve jail time. The newest form of cyber bullying is by subtweeting, subtweeting is when an individual posts about others on social media (twitter being one of the sites hence the inspired name) to spread rumours and gossip but does not tag the other person specifically. To put this in perspective recent studies about cyber bullying rates have found that about 1 in 4 teens have been the victims of cyber bullying, and about 1 in 6 admit to having cyber bullied someone. In some studies, more than half of the teens surveyed said that they've experienced abuse through social and digital media. Cyber bullying can be worse than other types of bullying because the bully may be anonymous or meaner than they would be in person, and the bullying can come at any time and in any place. Cyber bullying is related to short and long term problems for the victims and the bullies, such as depression, anxiety, poor school attendance and performance, and feeling fear and mistrust toward others. It is important to stop cyber bullying and get help for the victims and even the bully. Some ways that to help stop cyber bullying from starting or continuing would be to: block the bully, many if not all social media and social networking sites allow you to block users so that they cannot see your content and they cannot send you any messages or posts. Another option is save the content and evidence that an individual is cyber bullying you, one of the positives of cyber bullying is that almost all evidence can be captured and saved so you can show it to someone who can help you. The final argument of the essay is presenting some of the strong positive effects of using social media. Without a doubt, the best reason to join any social networking site is that it lets you make connections with other people. You can use social networking sites to stay up to speed with what your friends are doing. If the social network is popular, you may be able to track down old friends and acquaintances and renew long-forgotten friendships. When you participate in a social network community, you can pick and choose those individuals whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours and build your network around those commonalities. For instance, if you are a sports fanatic or a video game expert, you can find and interact with those who share your interest. Because you are connecting digitally instead of having to physically attend meetings, you have the luxury of joining many more groups and communities. You can meet with your friends anytime you have an Internet connection and whenever you find them online. Another benefit of using social networking websites is that many job recruiters use these websites to search for potential employees who have specific skills they need, an example of one of these websites would be something such as LinkedIn. Furthermore from what has been explained in the previous paragraphs I believe that there are many ways you could decide if social media is a hindrance to teens and adults. My decision between whether or not social media and is harmful or helpful is clear. I believe social media is more harmful to a teen then beneficial, one of the many reasons why I think the harmful effects outweigh the positive effects is the fact of how many teens are bullied and socially abused on these websites daily, from my own personal experience, just yesterday I counted almost 10 cases I would consider cyber bullying on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. These consisted of rude comments on pictures, public messages about someone’s personal life, and subtweeting about other people. Just last year 4500 teens committed suicide due to cyber bullying and 20% of teens who are cyber bullied think about suicide and 1 in 10 attempt it. Due to these numbers alone I believe that social media is a severe hindrance to teens growing up, no one should have to experience bullying every day. By: Lucas MacLellan