Professor Summers
English 1210-C1202
18 November 2013
Negative Effects of Social Media on Real Lives Social networking has become an unquestionable part of our everyday lives and we don’t stop to think of all the effects it can have on connections made in real life situations. So many people have different accounts on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They have become a type of addiction for kids. In situations that are normally very social and interactive kids will go on their phones and check all of their profiles online instead of communicating with others. Having a reputation online has become more important than the real world. Social media has quite the impact, especially on teenagers. The negative effects of these sites outweigh the positive ones and it greatly affects the lives of all its users. Social networking destroys the true meaning of human interaction. Social networking is a pandemic that has spread all throughout the world. Years ago, before social media existed, people would go out and have a good time with friends. They would interact with a variety of different people every single day. Nowadays, the only interaction that is happening between teenagers is all online. A teenager’s perspective on popularity is now determined by the amount of followers he or she has. Even though social networking lets us communicate with family and friends in a matter of seconds. It is also destroying our ability to make connections through real conversations. Facebook is damaging to our social lives because we can just visit someone’s wall, have a brief conversation and consider that communication. Teens are relying on their blogs and pages to communicate with people and keep up with the latest trends. They stay in their own little worlds completely ignoring what is happening around them in the real world. Social media has ruined how life should be; fun, adventurous and exciting. Instead, it has turned most teenagers into anti-social couch potatoes. These sites affect more than just the connections we make. They can affect a student’s grades as well. Social networking is a huge distraction for students when they are studying or searching their course material online. They get attracted to these sites to kill the boredom in their study time, diverting their attention from their work. With social media being so accessible, it is very easy to get distracted and reduce the amount of focus on school. A lot of students will use social media sites during class, completely ignoring what the teacher is trying to teach them. Students who spend much of their time online find it hard to concentrate in class, becoming permanently distracted and have shorter attention spans. Social networking has brought about the unfortunate rise of cyber bullying; a social concern that has taken previous forms of harassment to a whole new level. Social media and bullying seem to go hand in hand. The passive aggressive nature of the internet allows for things to be said that otherwise might not have been. Kids are able to hide behind social media because it eliminates the direct contact between others. In previous years, bullies would experience the incidents first hand, having to deal with effects of their abuse or the intervention of onlookers. With social media, they are now able to cause traumatic abuse without those concerns. In the past, bullies have always had to be near their victims in order to harass them. The bullies would have to physically seek out their victims. With the introduction of the internet and the rise of cyber bullying, bullies have been granted an unlimited period of time in which they are able to carry out their abuse.
Social networking sites are becoming a lifeline for people. Many people wake up and check their Facebook and Twitter accounts instead of reading a newspaper. Addiction to social networking sites is a severe issue existing in modern life. It may appear that these sites make us more connected to each other. However, the truth is that we are more disconnected than ever. In conclusion, the negative effects of being “plugged in” are beginning to take enormous effect on kids.
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