Exploring the Negative Impacts of Social Media on Society

This essay explores the negative impacts of social media on society. It argues that excessive use leads to addiction, social isolation, and mental health issues like depression. The essay highlights how social media diminishes face-to-face communication and emotional connections, fostering feelings of isolation. It also discusses the spread of misinformation and fake news on platforms like Twitter, as well as privacy concerns and cyberbullying. The author emphasizes that while social media platforms themselves are neutral tools, their adverse effects stem from user behavior and misuse. The essay suggests that responsible usage is crucial to mitigate these negative consequences and promote a more cooperative and unified society.

Running head: BAD IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
BAD IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
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Author Note:

1BAD IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media are the interactive technologies which are mediated by the computer. It tends to
facilitate the making or sharing of various forms of data, ideas, interest in career and various
other forms of expression through the virtual communities and the networks. Despite having
several advantages in using the application, according to my opinion, it tends to have a
significantly bad impact on the society as well.
According to Grégoire, Salle and Tripp (2015), people tends to become very much
addictive to the use of the social media. On the other hand, they tend to suffer from some form of
anxiety as well as various other psychological changes when they stop using the social media
applications. I do support this fact as I believe that it tends to lessen the face to face
communication among one another. According to Miller and Tucker, 2013, the social media
applications tends to disconnect the emotional connection of one with the other. It can thus be
said that the use of the social media is very much connected to the greater feelings of social
isolation. Various studies that have been conducted on the people who tends to use social media
applications like Facebook, YouTube, Google+ , Instagram, pinterest, snap chat indicates the fact
that they are highly correlated to social isolation. According to Miller et al (2016), the more
amount of time that is being spent in the operation of the social media applications, the more
people tends to perceive themselves to be socially isolated from one another. On the other hand,
it is to be noted that perceived social isolation is considered to be one of the worst things that
tends to affect n individual both mentally and physically. Thus, according to my opinion, social
media is one of the leading cause of depression. Instead of staying in a community with mutual
respect and love for each other, the social media acts as a platform where we constantly tend to
measure our achievements through the process of comparison. Through the scrolling of the apps,
any form of comparison made, ultimately leads to the depression of an individual. However, the

2BAD IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
social media app also acts a platform for spreading unreliable and wrong information. Various
studies that have been conducted tens to claim that the 64 percent of the people who use
networking sites like Twitter for the purpose of getting news claims that they got news which
they later realized were not true. According to Pfeffer, Zorbach and Carley, 2014, a lie tends to
spread six times faster in comparison to the truth on Twitter and on the other hand, fake news
tends to get retweeted in comparison to the true news. Apart from this, the social media tends to
lack privacy and exposes its utilizers to the government and the corporate intrusions. Researches
tends to claim that that people tends to feel not very or not at all protective in sharing private
information’s in the social media applications. On the other hand, 48 % of the people reports the
fact that they face difficulty in managing the privacy settings of their account. The social media
app also acts a platform where people, tends to bully one another. This is mainly called the cyber
bullying.
Just like a coin which tends to have many sides, the social media application tends to be
have both positive and negative sides. However, too much of everything is not good. Therefore,
the negatives sides must be eradicated in order to have a better society with full of cooperation
and unity. However, it must be noted that the social media applications are just the medium or
platform for the performance. The act depends upon its users. It is we ourselves who are
misusing the application which was initially created to “connect” and not “disconnect” with one
another. The bad effect of the social media apps depends upon its users. So the users must use it
wisely in order to avoid the bad effects.

3BAD IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA
References
Grégoire, Y., Salle, A. and Tripp, T.M., 2015. Managing social media crises with your
customers: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Business Horizons, 58(2), pp.173-182.
Miller, A.R. and Tucker, C., 2013. Active social media management: the case of health
care. Information Systems Research, 24(1), pp.52-70.
Miller, D., Costa, E., Haynes, N., McDonald, T., Nicolescu, R., Sinanan, J., Spyer, J.,
Venkatraman, S. and Wang, X., 2016. How the world changed social media (Vol. 1). UCL press.
Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T. and Carley, K.M., 2014. Understanding online firestorms: Negative
word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks. Journal of Marketing
Communications, 20(1-2), pp.117-128.