Social Media and it’s Effects on Society 

Social media is impacting out society in a negative way. It plays a big role in cyberbullying, mental health issues, spreading fake news, and sex trafficking/kidnap risks. Social medias open the doors for adolescence to hide behind screens and verbally attack their peers. They also create a “false reality” that being a made-up lifestyle created to give a false impression. These “false realities” can lead to self-esteem issues or bad self-body images. These websites also allow predators to search and mingle underage adolescence and “catfish” them. (pretending to be somebody that you are not). This is a bis issue, as children can be lured into harmful situations. These risky situations can be eliminated if we reduced or subtracted social media from our everyday lives. ?

Social Media and The Effects It Has on Our Society

Social media is good for a variety of things, for example, promoting a business, keeping in touch with family and friends, or even meeting new people online who have the same interests as you. Although social medias have these pros, there are a lot more cons that come with such websites. Social medias make it easier for kids or teens to be bullied or have unwanted exposer, can be linked to sex trafficking crimes, or catfishing/kidnaps, can cause bad mental health and or depression. Social media is also one of the biggest leading factors in spreading fake news. The amount of time our society spends a day on social media must be reduced.

According to (Mental Health Weekly Digest), “1 million children were harassed, threatened, or subject to other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook” in 2017 alone. This is only on one of the many social media applications that teenagers are using this year. When using these websites, those being Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and various dating applications the information you put in when creating the account is open to everyone else on these apps. As the years go by, more and more children are starting these websites at a younger age. It is so easy for people to hide behind screens and emotionally attack other human beings. It has been happening for the last decade and a half, ever since the first social media websites were launched.

According to (Van Hee), “Social media increases the risk of children being confronted with threatening situations including grooming or sexual transgressive behavior, and signals or depression and suicidal thoughts, and cyberbullying.” The thing about social media websites is that you can create however many accounts that you like, using any random information. For example, fake names or fake profile pictures. This makes it appealing for bullies, as they can create various accounts to harass their victims. Being a victim of cyberbullying can seriously effect children in a way that can hurt their school grades or cause various mental health issues.

Mental health has been founded to be linked with social media websites. Social media can affect someone’s sleep schedule, cause anxiety or depression, create a negative body image, and of course can be linked with bullying. The internet does not sleep, leaving restless teenagers and adolescence to stay up as long as they feel browsing through these social websites. Children tend not to have self-discipline and will continue on with these websites late at nights knowing they have school the next morning, or even an important test. According to (Knutson) “sleep loss may play a role in increased prevalence of diabetes and/or obesity.” This could be because when the human body is so exhausted and tired it tends to crash, leaving the person not wanting to do anything simply being lazy. If we were to eliminate social media usage the people using these websites would be able to get more sleep throughout the night.

mSocial media is also harmful to one’s mental health. These websites can break down user’s self-esteem. Looking at someone’s perfect “Instagram” life or body and comparing your life to theirs can build up a sense of jealousy and can lead to self-esteem problems. Rather than wasting time obsessing over someone’s false reality online, kids/adults can be using that time to reflect on their own lives and ways to make them better. “Instagram Model” has become a big term with the social media application Instagram. Although there is no real definition for an Instagram model, they tend to be very attractive and have a lot of followings. They sometimes are to be found photo shopping their pictures, making them look even more attractive than they actually are. This is a big issue, as this can create a negative body image for younger, still growing teenagers who feel the need they need to look just like these girls. When there is no such thing, as they are not real. On the topic of fake people, social media accounts carry a lot of fake accounts and catfishes.

Social media websites can be threatening to the younger community, especially the ones whose parents do not keep a close eye on. “Catfishing is the act of pretending to be someone you are not online, in order to lure someone, you’ve never met into a relationship” (Waring). This is extremely dangerous for our youth, specifically females. Growing teens, who were not taught the proper safety tips can be tricked by this act by dangerous predators. Sex trafficking acts and kidnappings can be an outcome of catfishing.

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