Impacts of Social Media

Social media is something we all use in our daily lives, social media is a website or application we use to create and share content. Most of us have many forms of social media. For example, there is YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and one of the most popular forms of social media is TikTok. Although we may not see it, these social media apps have both positive and negative impacts on us. 

There are many positive ways social media can impact us. According to Jacob Webb, a good thing about social media is being able to “communicate with friends and family.” Many people have friends and or family that may live far away, using some sort of social media such as Snapchat you can contact them and maintain a good relationship. Another positive impact would be spreading about something you are passionate about. For example, Keegan O’Riley’s “body positivity,” is a great message that has been spread on social media. Using social media to help build others up and encourage each other can allow people’s self-esteem and confidence to increase. Lastly, social media can positively impact us due to the amount of information it gives. We all have benefited from social media by using its vast variety of information. For example, If you have a career you would like to go into but you have no idea what it requires and what the college would be for that career, then you could use the internet to figure out that information. 

There are so many more positive ways social media can impact us but there are also many ways it can negatively affect us. One of the ways social media can negatively affect us is the amount of time we spend on social media. Social media tends to try and make you stay as long as you can, they do this by personalizing what you see based on your interest. For example, on the social media platform TikTok, everyone has a for you page. On the for you page it will look different for everyone just based on what you like and dislike, which will then inform the app to provide more content similar to what you have liked. This then causes us to want to stay on the app longer. According to Kylee Brammer, getting addicted to social media is “real” and “it can happen.” If we are constantly on social media it can cause us to get addicted to it. Although it is just a screen, it can cause us to focus on it a lot more than we should. Another negative impact was cyberbullying, I’m sure all of us have heard of cyberbullying before. Cyberbullying is communication through electronics to bully someone. Cyberbullying is cruel and can really cause harm to someone’s mental health. There are many different forms of cyberbullying,  posting mean things, sending things, threatening someone, or spreading harmful information about someone are all forms of cyberbullying. 

Social media has its positive and negative impacts on us, although we like to see the positive we should always know the negatives. Anything we post and or say on social media will forever be there, future employers may find it, so if you are going to post something make sure it’s something that won’t hurt you in the long run.