Addicted to Social Media: Lucas' Story - Essay Sample

Introduction

That video above relates to the antisocial network film. The video is a comedic film about the social media addict who was named Lucas. Lucas is far much consumed since the bounds between his virtual reality, and real-life are obsolete. Lucas is seen to be so much addicted to Facebook as a social media platform where even at his workplace, he uses the platform at the expense of his work (Russ, 2013). This lowers his efficiency in his job and, therefore, is confronted by his boss for not finish the work he had been assigned on time. She got a chance meeting with the girl by the name Leila who forces him to come into grips with the social media's ultimate paradox of crashing. The video was 15 minutes long. The reason why I chose it Is that I wanted to know of the aspects of the antisocial network, which is brought about by the excessive use of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, among other common platforms.

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The main observations that I made out of the video are that excessive use of social media can lead to its addiction. This will deter one from the usual activities and other essential responsibilities that he/she has to work on. Besides, the use of the media makes one lose attention very easily with those they are physically communicating with and makes one have a divided mind. It creates an urge to create more virtual friends as opposed to physical ones. The standard main interaction patterns are mainly through Facebook, whereby the main rampant interaction activity is by electronic interactions with various friends, for instance, posting, commenting, or even replying to messages and liking other people's pictures. Such kind of action is mainly intended to trigger a response from another person or are even themselves a response to the actions of someone else on Facebook. The kind of interactions, as stated in the movie, may either be private or public, leading to a communication patterns' cadre that is the electronic equivalent of the similar behaviors in the communications of face-to-face.

Chatting with other friends is also another interaction pattern with Facebook. It is through the platform that people share out to the public domain on their endeavors inclusive of the images of themselves or the exceptional food that they eat in any restaurant (Alwagait, 2015). Such postings will attract likes and comments from various friends across the globe. Another observation that I saw from the film is that people mainly increase their friendship network to sending of friend requests and this widens the number of friends that one can virtually have in the social media Facebook account.

The main behaviors that stood out in the film are anti-social behavior, especially when Lucas met with Leila, where Leila had a phobic relationship to social media. Through social media platforms, people check up on others at a high frequency than even sending messages. Also, people have a habit of self-presentation where they reveal personal attitudes through Facebook and also their interests as well as social connections through the content that one has to display on one's Facebook page. Also, people, when they have been addicted, tend to lose focus on their responsibility and behave anonymously while working without work completion on time. It is through such a scenario where one risks losing a job.

Through the film, it can be seen that human behaviors have been adversely affected by technological advancements. This impact cuts across several aspects of human interaction hence affecting people's ways of communication. The use of social networks mainly affects the relationships between humans (Malik, 2015). For instance, in the film, Leila only leaves Lucas after she realized that she was not giving her the best attention that she deserved when he was on Facebook. In addition, in the current society, Networks as the essence of the relationship itself have gone from simple family ties and kinship/friendship to a very complex mesh of connections that have come to include not only acquaintances but total strangers. The main formal relationships which have always been transformed by social media include classroom interactions, customer service, and employee or workplace relationships (Russ, 2013). The other side of the negative impact involves distractions during once performance and also while on duty. This leads to a drastic reduction in his/ her productivity at the workplace.

Various theories explain human interaction and include symbolic interactionism, structuralism, functionalism, conflict theory, feminist theory, among others. In relation to the symbolic interactionism, it is a micro-level theory that mainly focuses on the relationships among the individuals in a given society. Such perspective sees people as being active in the shaping of the social world as compared to being simply acted upon (Brown, 2011). From the video, there are various patterns of interactions that directly reflect on this theory. This is because it incorporates the use of many symbols and signs by the individuals for interaction. The process of interpretation occurring between interactions helps in the creation and recreation of the meaning. The structuralism theory implies the elements of the human culture, which must be known to a larger, overarching system or even structure. Structuralism is the belief that human life phenomena are non-intelligible despite their interrelations.

References

Alwagait, E., Shahzad, B., & Alim, S. (2015). Impact of social media usage on students academic performance in Saudi Arabia. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 1092-1097. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214004804

Brown, V. R., & Vaughn, E. D. (2011). The writing on the (Facebook) wall: The use of social networking sites in hiring decisions. Journal of Business and psychology, 26(2), 219. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317339354_Human_Behavior_and_Social_Networks

Guedes, E., Sancassiani, F., Carta, M. G., Campos, C., Machado, S., King, A. L. S., & Nardi, A. E. (2016). Internet addiction and excessive social networks use: what about Facebook?. Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health: CP & EMH, 12, 43.

Lee, Y. L., Verma, R. K., Yadav, H., & Barua, A. (2016). Health impacts of Facebook usage and mobile texting among undergraduate dental students: it's time to understand the difference between usage and excessive use. European Journal of Dental Education, 20(4), 218-228.

Malik, S., & Khan, M. (2015). Impact of Facebook addiction on narcissistic behavior and self-esteem in humans. J Pak Med Assoc, 65(3), 260-263. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sadia_Malik10/publication/275716907_Impact_of_facebook_addiction_on_narcissistic_behavior_and_Self-Esteem_among_students/links/590396d04585152d2e92f98f/Impact-of-facebook-addiction-on-narcissistic-behavior-and-Self-Esteem-among-students.pdf

Russ S. & Shae R. Jul 2, 2013. The Anti-Social Network - Short Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0H6AzEMHSc