DC2533 Module: The Effects of Digital Media on Individuals

This essay, written for a Digital Media Technology course (DC2533), examines the pervasive influence of digital media on modern life. It explores the technologies used daily, such as social media platforms, and their impact on individuals and society. The essay highlights both the benefits, such as enhanced communication and connectivity, and the drawbacks, including potential for addiction, mental health issues like depression and anxiety, cyberbullying, and unrealistic expectations. The analysis draws on various research studies to provide a comprehensive overview of the digital media's effects, considering both positive and negative aspects. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of mindful usage of digital media to mitigate its negative impacts and maximize its benefits, while also pointing out that the user should cut these addictions by not using them for a longer period.

Running head: DC2533
DC2533
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1DC2533
Discussions
In our everyday life, everyone uses the digital media technologies in their free time.
The programme in the digital media technology focuses on enabling the technologies for the
systems of digital media that consist of technologies in order to examine media, generation of
interactive media, coding and processing, optimise the wireless and the wired transfer and
then distributing the 3D contents those are digital. The digital media technologies those are
used in the daily lives by the people include television, WhatApp, Netflix, Snapchat and
many such social media platforms those are used every day (Selwyn & Stirling, 2016). The
people heavily use the digital media and they are becoming an addiction for the people. The
maximized utilisation of digital media is varying the life of people and the means by which
the people collaborate and connect in the framework of society at the civil society and at
work. Much of this influence of this utilization is beneficial to the society and the individuals.
These are enabling unparalleled intensity of interaction those are social and communication
transversely the context of time, place and society (Hoge, Bickham & Cantor, 2017).
However, not all impacts of the maximized utilization of media those are digital are good.
There are researches that have indicated that when people extremely utilise digital media it
can harmfully affect their growth in terms of behaviour and their physical and mental health.
Connectivity those are hyperactive, maximized digital connection of things and people has
probability to modify the outline of interaction those are social, as the interaction those are
face-to-face can be hanged into online interaction (Dobson, Robards & Carah, 2018). In
addition to this, the enablement of greater technology can be a threat to the job security,
which is considered as a skill in the urbanized world.
The effect of the digital technology that can be negative or positive on an individual
depends on the place where they live. A survey demonstrated that about one-quarter of

2DC2533
people from the country of USA and Germany believe that digital media has upgraded the
excellence of whole life (Voorveld et al.,2018). In contrast to this, about two third of the
people in China and Brazil believe this. The people in the Country of South Africa are
divided on this question.
Nevertheless, in spite of considering that the digital media has upgraded their life, a high
proportion of people in China and Brazil believe that they should reduce the utilisation of
digital media.
The extreme utilisation of social media also has bad effects on the people. The
negative effects of people include:
Depression of anxiety: Spending too much time on the social media can have a great effect
on mood (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). The users those are chronic have mental health those are
poor and consists of indications of depression and anxiety.
Cyber bullying: Before social media, bullying was done face to face. Social media makes it
very easy to meet new people and then make friends with them. However, it also enables
them to bully other people with very little effort (Kennedy, 2019). The people who bully
people can utilise the anonymity that are provided by the social media to gain trust of people
and then can utilise the social network to terrorize them in form of their peers.
Fear of missing out: The fear of missing out is a kind of occurrence that is natural along with
the social media. It is a kind of nervousness that the people obtain when they are afraid of
missing the knowledge those are positive.
Unrealistic expectations: most of the people on the social media form expectations those are
unrealistic of friendships and life in the minds of people. Most of the sites of social media
have a lack of authenticity online. Some of the people use SnapChat in order to share their

3DC2533
adventures those are exciting (Ganguly & Kumaraguru, 2019). However, in reality, the
people cannot know that those are real or not.
Negative Body image: the body image is a problem for everyone. People see different kinds
of people on social media who are perfect and then it makes the other people aware that how
dissimilar they look from those images.
Unhealthy patterns of sleeping: people spend too much time on social media have
unhealthy patterns of sleeping. The extreme utilisation of social media has a bad effect on
quality of sleep.
General addiction: Social media has more addiction than alcohol and cigarettes. Social
media has a draw that is powerful on many people that leads to check them every time
without thinking about them.
The social media has a great impact on the life of human beings be it positive or negative.
The negative impacts are more than the positive impacts and make a human unhealthy
mentally and physically by the excessive use of the social media. The use of social media
such as facebook, whatsapp, instagram, snapchat and the use of digital media such as
YouTube and Netflix are addictive to the human beings. These digital media are eating up
valuable time of human beings and making them less productive. People are busy in making
snapchat stories and whatsapp stories and watching TV series and movies on Netflix. People
use to watch them in their leisure time but they have started using them and doing them every
while they get time. It is important for the people to check the use of social media and the
digital media so that they can do some work those are productive.
It can be concluded by saying that people are getting more addicted to the digital
media and the social media and they should cut these addictions by not using them. It will
make the people more productive in their work and they can be focussed in their work

4DC2533
(Boulianne & Theocharis, 2018). The unhealthy habits of sleep, the mental, and the physical
disorder will vanish and they will have the energy to work properly. However, they should
sometimes watch the social media and the digital media that is important but in their leisure
time. This is the nonsense of the internet and they should be stopped or curbed by the user of
the internet otherwise they will get addicted to it.

5DC2533
References
Boulianne, S., & Theocharis, Y. (2018). Young people, digital media, and engagement: A
meta-analysis of research. Social Science Computer Review, 0894439318814190.
Dobson, A. S., Robards, B., & Carah, N. (Eds.). (2018). Digital intimate publics and social
media. Springer.
Ganguly, N., & Kumaraguru, P. (2019). The positive and negative effects of social media in
India. Communications of the ACM, 62(11), 98-99.
Hoge, E., Bickham, D., & Cantor, J. (2017). Digital media, anxiety, and depression in
children. Pediatrics, 140(Supplement 2), S76-S80.
Kennedy, K. (2019). Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Adolescent Well-
Being.
Selwyn, N., & Stirling, E. (2016). Social media and education… now the dust has
settled. Learning, media and technology, 41(1), 1-5.
Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social media its impact with positive and negative
aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and
Research, 5(2), 71-75.
Voorveld, H. A., van Noort, G., Muntinga, D. G., & Bronner, F. (2018). Engagement with
social media and social media advertising: The differentiating role of platform
type. Journal of advertising, 47(1), 38-54.