The Impact of Social Media on the Society Essay

The advent of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Whatsapp has enhanced interaction and communication among people, social media platforms have not only been embraced by the young people, it has been accepted across all age groups and its significance has been propelled more by the integration of social media into the corporate world and the political world. The growth of social media usage and platforms has itself brought negative impacts to the economic, health and social order of the society. Social media is undeniably an indispensable communication tool in the modern communication. The impact of social media on the business, personal and entertainment scenes cannot be understated; social media has redefined communication and interaction between people of mutual interests. This essay will expound more on the unfavourable impacts that have been brought by social media use to the society. Social media use has had negative impacts on the society which have had greater effects than the positive effects brought by its use.

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Interactions and communications in the social media accounts have led to the increase of negative social issues and criminal activities that have been propagated through the free use of social media platforms. The use of social media platforms involves the sharing of sensitive private information is accessed by other users can be used for different negative purposes Social media allows for the creation of pseudo accounts which people can use to intimidate, threaten or send inappropriate information to other people. Furthermore cyberbullying has been made more prevalent due to the lack of legislation to regulate the conduct of social media users. The anonymity that one can achieve in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is a social threat to the personal space and peace of other users if it is used negatively for illegal activities like blackmailing and cyberbullying( Whittaker et al, 2015). Blackmailing and cyberbullying can result in depression and suicidal tendencies if the victims of these cyber-crimes do not get the psychological and legal reprieve. Social media use should thus be regulated to protect innocent users from cyber bullies and internet blackmailers.

Social media use is addictive. The addiction to social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp poses health risks to users. Some users spend many hours daily engrossed in their Facebook chats and other social media activities like posting and watching videos and pictures on Instagram. Social media addiction can cause laziness, strained relations with family members and friends, sleep deprivation and obesity which results from the lack of or inadequate exercise as most of the user's time is spent on the internet. The health risks associated with social media use is a concern that should be given significance as more people sign up for the various social media platforms. Sleep deprivation results in emotional instability, loss of concentration in school and workplaces which will decrease a user's performance in school work and job productivity. Obesity which is a health issue that may arise from lack of exercise resulting from less time being spent on physical activities can cause heart diseases and death if unchecked.

The use of social media lessens productivity of employees as most of them who are signed up on a social media platform like Facebook and WhatsApp use office time and time that they are required to be productive in various workplaces engaging in activities in the various social media platforms. The distractions offered by the social media platforms reduce the productivity of employees and encourage the indulgence in activities that jeopardize inter-employee relationship and reduce productivity in the workplace due to distractive squabbles among the employees.

The growth of social media has increased the amount of private information being shared online. Majority of the users of these interactive platforms expect privacy and confidentiality agreements concerning their shared information to adhere, but this is never the case in most instances, and the private information is sometimes shared with government institutions or other third parties. Personal information from location to a person's interests can be collected from the analysis of a social media user's account activity.

The sharing of a social media users information may be for various reasons ranging from security reasons to a business point of view. Social media companies may grant private data to the government resulting in an invasion of a user's privacy or third party companies like the case of Facebook granting Cambridge Analytica access to user's private data, which is analyzed for business and advertisement purposes against the privacy terms and conditions agreed between the users and Facebook (Dehaye, 2017).

Social media use can result in hacking in which unauthorized parties can access personal or organizational data. A user's personal information like private photos and passwords may be hacked and used for various illegal activities like blackmail or for destroying a person's reputation. The uploading of sensitive and private information is a common phenomenon; this is risky as the information can be accessed and published publicly resulting in bad publicity or even the termination of one's career. Social media can also be used to propagate hate speech and incitement in the society. The ease of access and a large number of users of social media services is a security threat in that racial, gender or other forms of discrimination can stem from the use of social media services.

Social media use provides the users with a false sense of connection. Internet friends and social media status replaces the reality, and most users abandon their real personal conversations and face to face interactions for Facebook chats and massive social media following, channelling more of their time in nurturing these internet relationships than the time spent talking with people physically or engaging in participatory physical activities with real people. The false sense of connection can be devastating to a user's psychological stability and self-esteem in case of a sudden loss in their social media status (Andreassen et al 2017).

Social media rejection can result in depression and suicidal thoughts as most social media users value acceptance and the feel-good effect of having many followers, appreciative comments and thousands of likes to their posts, failure to get noticed and be appreciated can result into depression which impacts negatively on their relationships with other people or even their level of concentration and productivity at their workplaces. The use of social media may result in low self-esteem when a user compares their lifestyle with that of the other users, the disparities in wealth, clothes and lifestyle in general on the social media platform can lead on into overthinking and low confidence.

Though social media growth and proliferation has increased the occurrence of unethical practices like cyberbullying, hacking and propagation of fake information, the importance of social media in business, politics and personal interactions is undeniably a necessity in enhancing interactions, relationships, information dissemination. Social media has enhanced the interaction and development of relationships between people through the creation of online friends and online communities where people with common interests can share and exchange communication. Interaction has been enhanced through the use of social between business organization and customers, politicians and constituents. Social media has also enabled the citizens to easily interact with government institutions through the various social media handles, which is easier and faster, compared to bureaucratic processes of physical visits to government offices.

Social media has also improved the education and democratic space in the society. The ease of access to social media services like YouTube has availed informative, educational content to users who might never have accessed them due to financial or physical inaccessibility. Social media platforms enable the sharing of lecture videos, experimental videos across different fields which is of great use to students across the world who lack the resources to conduct these experiments or attend lectures. The democracy has also been enhanced through the growth of social media usage as many people can express themselves more openly and get their voices heard (Halpern et al 2013). The democratic space has also been improved through online activism that occurs through social media use.

Conclusion

The impact of social media use is evidenced in various sectors of the society from business, personal to political. Social media is a necessity in the modern world. The benefits as a result of social media use are numerous, but if unchecked, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media platforms use has the capability of disintegrating the social and moral fabric of society, leaving relationships strained, health complications to users and less productivity as a result of procrastination.

Works cited

Andreassen, Cecilie Schou, Stale Pallesen, and Mark D. Griffiths. "The relationship between addictive use of social media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey." Addictive Behaviors 64 (2017): 287-293.

Dehaye, P. O. "Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data. Medium Retrieved May 23, 2017." (2017).

Halpern, Daniel, and Jennifer Gibbs. "Social media as a catalyst for online deliberation? Exploring the affordances of Facebook and YouTube for political expression." Computers in Human Behavior 29.3 (2013): 1159-1168.

Whittaker, Elizabeth, and Robin M. Kowalski. "Cyberbullying via social media." Journal of School Violence 14.1 (2015): 11-29.