Social Media's Effects on Decreasing Communication Skills

Introduction

Social media platforms have been blamed for the ever decreasing communication skills in the world today. Recent technological advancements have been blamed for having a major impact on how people communicate with each other. Recent research indicates that social media lost its meaning and now focusing on destroying the youths in all sectors. The argumentative paper below will be discussing how social media networks have made people to be constantly on their phones hence negatively affecting the way individuals communicate. Technological advancements have a negative effect on both the quality and quantity of communication.

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Decrease in Communication Skills

Social media has affected negatively on communication by decreasing communication skills of individuals. It is true that social media has affected how people communicate with each other; with recent technological advancements have had a negative impact on people's communication skills. Communication skills are decreasing at a rapid rate especially with the youth who are on their phone most of the time. Communication experts point out that the advancement of technology and use of smartphones has a negative effect on how people communicate and more so face to face communication (Blanchard , pg 6).

Impact on Face-to-Face Communication

Most people still use their mobile phones in the presence of their friends, showing just how bad the situation is. It is also common to see people on dates or hikes and vacations barely talking to each other and instead being focused on their phones or tablets. Gone are the days when people used to have meaningful conversations face to face. The situation is worsened by having so many social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked in and my space. People are constantly updating their statuses, uploading pictures, liking or commenting on other people's pictures to even notice what is going on in the immediate world. Bit by bit, social media has become an important part of the way people communicate nowadays, taking the place of face to face communication. This scenario shows that social media is responsible for decreasing people's communication skills because they do most of their conversations via their mobile phones.

Smart phone companies are encouraging people with their advertisements to embrace video chatting and face timing, whereby users communicate via their smart phones the way they do face to face; the only difference is that now they are doing that via the screen. Experts point out that the encouragement of screen time over face will have a negative effect on how people interact or communicate with each other. Due to the ever increasing expansion of technological advancements, many people fear that individuals may be too immersed in this digital era and not be present enough in the real world by interacting with their friends in real life. In reaction to the introduction of screen time conversations to replace face time conversations, experts are arguing that this could spell the death of face to face communication between persons. Many experts have also expressed their fears regarding the increased use of technology and how it impacts on face-to-face communication between persons, so much so that some hotels and restaurants around the world have outlawed the use of smartphones as a way of ensuring that customers enjoy both their meal and their company (Graham , pg 7).

Many studies and experiments have been showed concerning how the mobile technology affects social interaction and face-to-face communication between persons since the increase of cellphone and social media usage in the late 2000s. Experts pointed out that the recent advancements in communication technology through the invention of smart phones that has enabled billions of people to connect easily with their people over long distances. The funny things is people do not realize how that the frequent presence of mobile phones in social settings influences the way people communicate with each other. Face to face interactions have been influenced by the people having smart phones on their hands all the time (McCombs , pg 17).

Effects on Personal Relationships

Another study that examined the relationship between the presence of technological devices and the quality of real-life, in-person social interactions. In a naturalistic field experiment, the researchers found that conversations that are held in the absence of smart phone communication technologies were rated as significantly superior compared with those in the presence of a mobile device. People who had conversations face to face or without mobile phones reported a higher level of empathetic concern meaning that there conversation was meaningful while those conversing in the presence of a mobile device reported lower levels of empathy.

Face booking, Instagramming, tweeting or texting is evident in the lives of college students who prefer using social media platforms as channels of communicating with their friends. Social media interaction in today's life dominates the teens online and offline conversations. Smartphones are constantly changing the way people interact with each other as now they prefer social media networks over the normal face to face conversations. Researchers mainly focus on the effects of social media on how it impacts the lives of the youth. The current youth has grown up in the era of the internet and smartphones hence these two technological advancements form the most integral part of the lives as well as how they interact with their friends.

One can note that due to the increase in the usage of Internet in learning, communicating and entertainment, there has been a decrease in the face to face interaction among the youth who are now more focused on using their smartphones to communicate with each other. Spending too much time on their phones and less time on face to face communications can have a negative impact on their communication skills, social skills and the way they present themselves.

Social media affects relationships even on a personal level, whereby personal relations are also affected by people spending too much time on their phones than they spend talking and interacting with other people. Technology has a lot of effects on familial relationships, whereby parents on this generation spend too much time on technological devices that their children. In return, this affects how they interact with their children because children can only be disciplined by having a face to face conversation. Studies have shown that most children often complain that their parents are spending more time on their smart phones that they are spending with them. Most children also argue that their parents neglect them until they have finished what they are doing with their smart phones or internet, perhaps replying to some email or responding to a conversation from a friend (Standage , pg 16).

Conclusion

The increasing rise of social media platforms and the advancement in technology is negatively impacting on how people communicate with each other. Technological advancement has led to a decrease in communication skills whereby people are spending more time on their mobile phones that they are spending having a conversation with their friends. Most people are becoming reliant on their mobile phones with the invention of numerous social networking sites such as Facebook, snap chat, what Sapp, texts, Instagram and Twitter. I agree with the argument that the advancement of social media has negatively impacted on people's communication skills because they do not hold conversations anymore. This shows that the advancement of technology has had a lot effects on how people communicate with each other; most especially face to face communication.

Even though advancement of technology impacts negatively on face to face communication, some types of communication are not affected as such. Social media advancement has impacted positively on sharing information over long distances such s via email and texting. For this reason, technology should not be viewed as only affecting all types of communications, as it helps develop others as well. Social media is today focused on irrelevant things that do not add value to the lives of youths. Most of the youths are preoccupied with social media but on the negative effects. For instance, majority of the young people are obsessed with watching irrelevant programs and engaging in unnecessary abuses that greatly impact their communication skills.

Works Cited

Blanchard, Olivier. Social media ROI: managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization. Indinapolis : Elesevier , 2011.

Graham, Jeffrey. Video games: parents' perceptions, role of social media and effects on behavior. New York: Nova Publishers, 2014.

McCombs, Maxwell E. The news and public opinion: media effects on civic life. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011.

Standage, Tom. Writing on the wall: social media -- the first 2,000 years. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.