The Positives and Negatives of Social Media

In today's society, social media is a very important attribution to everyday life, especially to the younger generation. Today, the most popular social media outlets are Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Youtube. These medias can affect society greatly and can influence people in both a positive and in a negative way. It can shape someone into the person they are today, whether that is for the better or worse. What people see online, especially young people, can can have an impact on how they view the real world and themselves.

People typically use social media to share what they do in their day-to-day lives. They share posts about funny moments, times with friends and family, memes, selfies, and random thoughts. I would say this way of using social media is the most popular, from what I have seen. In my case, I use social media as a place to share parts of my life in which I want to remember, and to catch up on what my family and friends are doing. I also use social media to receive information about what is going on in the world. I typically find the news about what is going on around the world by looking at the trending topics on Twitter, watching stories from subscribed news channels on Snapchat, and looking through the trending videos on Youtube. This popular way of using these platforms is not doing any harm to anyone, but only benefiting the user, and can be considered a positive manner of using social media.

Others on the other hand, use social media to spread an important message about particular issues that are going on. These people can be activists, organizations, companies, or a single person. Social media can start movements, spread the word of a protest going on, create petitions for a change on an issue, have people look at situations from a different perspective, and can even help people feel like they are not alone or like they belong in a certain group.

The Black Lives Matter movement is an example of how social media can have a positive impact on society. The movement started on Twitter with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. It is based on raising awareness on violence and racism towards African Americans. It is because of social media that it became an international activist movement. Black Lives Matter helped people be informed on an important race issue by seeing content such as videos and posts about African Americans experiencing racism. I personally did not pay attention or stop and think about all the horrible experiences African Americans go through, until I saw it trending on Twitter. Twitter and other social media platforms help important issues like racism be reached to a larger audience.

The other part of social media spreads negativity. A very well known issue on social media is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying consists of harassment and bullying others on social media sites. It has become a problem as the online world grows. Online bullying can be done through posting mean comments, videos, sharing pictures, and even impersonating the victim. Fortunately, social media has helped spread awareness to this issue by arranging protests and creating movements to prevent cyber bullying.

Social media can unfortunately also be used to spread fake news and change someone's point of view in a negative way. Anyone can post a video or comment about anything, and some people would believe it, even if it is a lie. For example, during the 2016 election, there was an overwhelming amount of fake posts about the results of the election maps. Although fake news can happen anywhere, Twitter is significant because it was on the trending page and the incorrect information was being spread across the media. Many people were misinformed and led to much confusion to Twitter users, as well as the users on other social media sites, since the fake news was being spread quickly. A negative side of being on social media is that no one really knows whether the news they are reading online is true or false.

Another unfortunate aspect that comes with social media is the fact that no one seems to be present and in the moment anymore, because they are always thinking they have to post everything online. Social media is a part of most people's everyday routine, but it can cause lack of real life communication with others. I as a teenager see the problem with others who are practically addicted to social media. Some people are obsessed with sharing every moment of their lives, which at a point can become unhealthy. It becomes unhealthy when it takes over everything they do. Older generations spotted this problem when social media first started to become popular, but now it is more clear than ever. This is a problem because being too obsessed with the online world can affect someone's life. A person who is addicted can put into their head that they have to always care about what others think, how they should act, how to dress, how to live their life, based on the content they see online.

Despite the negatives that social media brings, I think it has done more good than bad to this world. It is some people's happy place and has influenced many in a positive way. It gives voice to people's opinions, which I think has resulted into the society we have today. As social media becomes an even bigger phenomenon, it will only make a bigger impact.