The Social Media Effect
By Gursimrat Tiwana
FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram; these are all universal social media sites that everyone knows about now. Before 2000, there was little to no knowledge about the internet and what we could learn from it. In 2015, we can message, tweet, or blog to people from all around the world within minutes. What once took months to hit the national newspapers is now easily shared with the click of a button via social media sites. We all hear about the dangers of social media addiction, but we fail to recognize that we are already sucked in and addicted to sharing everything about our lives, whether we know it or not. Social media has undoubtably allowed individuals to reconnect with long lost relatives and learn …show more content…
Social media has both positive and negative effects on modern society, however, the negatives far outweigh the positive effects. There is a new type of problem associated with the usage of social media platforms called “virtual distance”. Virtual distance is described as “…the feeling or perception that you are far away from someone, even if you happen to be relatively close.” (Statesman, n.pag.) This is very common in today’s generation since individuals rely on their phones and other screens to do all the communication, even if the individual they are talking to is merely feet away. This form of communication enables us to create a false perception of the individual we are communicating with (Statesman, n.pag.). This is because we think of the other individual in our own way, making up our own perceptions of who this individual is, and when there is real life interaction with this individual, they do not live up to the standards of which we set them up to be. A reason for this false perception was described in …show more content…
There are many psychological effects of social platforms on our minds. One of which allows us to believe in our audience in order to raise our self-esteem based on how many likes and comments we get on our posts (Brown). This allows us to create our own dopamine reward system that mimics that of drug usage. We allow ourselves to share everything about our lives openly, not knowing who is out there to see what we are seeing, but merely to feel better about ourselves overall. There has been an increase in the number of youths who have social anxiety due to their high reliance on social media and its technologies (Brown). These individuals are unable to speak to others, which causes immense pressure and anxiety attacks amongst one another. There is a new theory of how technology no longer allows us to value face to face interactions, which diminishes the social skills aspect of learning.
Overall, I believe that social media has negatively effected human interactions in the modern society. The reliance on modern technology and social media to stay in touch with individuals who are feet away from us has caused our ability to communicate effectively
By Gursimrat Tiwana
FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram; these are all universal social media sites that everyone knows about now. Before 2000, there was little to no knowledge about the internet and what we could learn from it. In 2015, we can message, tweet, or blog to people from all around the world within minutes. What once took months to hit the national newspapers is now easily shared with the click of a button via social media sites. We all hear about the dangers of social media addiction, but we fail to recognize that we are already sucked in and addicted to sharing everything about our lives, whether we know it or not. Social media has undoubtably allowed individuals to reconnect with long lost relatives and learn …show more content…
Social media has both positive and negative effects on modern society, however, the negatives far outweigh the positive effects. There is a new type of problem associated with the usage of social media platforms called “virtual distance”. Virtual distance is described as “…the feeling or perception that you are far away from someone, even if you happen to be relatively close.” (Statesman, n.pag.) This is very common in today’s generation since individuals rely on their phones and other screens to do all the communication, even if the individual they are talking to is merely feet away. This form of communication enables us to create a false perception of the individual we are communicating with (Statesman, n.pag.). This is because we think of the other individual in our own way, making up our own perceptions of who this individual is, and when there is real life interaction with this individual, they do not live up to the standards of which we set them up to be. A reason for this false perception was described in …show more content…
There are many psychological effects of social platforms on our minds. One of which allows us to believe in our audience in order to raise our self-esteem based on how many likes and comments we get on our posts (Brown). This allows us to create our own dopamine reward system that mimics that of drug usage. We allow ourselves to share everything about our lives openly, not knowing who is out there to see what we are seeing, but merely to feel better about ourselves overall. There has been an increase in the number of youths who have social anxiety due to their high reliance on social media and its technologies (Brown). These individuals are unable to speak to others, which causes immense pressure and anxiety attacks amongst one another. There is a new theory of how technology no longer allows us to value face to face interactions, which diminishes the social skills aspect of learning.
Overall, I believe that social media has negatively effected human interactions in the modern society. The reliance on modern technology and social media to stay in touch with individuals who are feet away from us has caused our ability to communicate effectively