The Impact of Social Media: An Argumentative Essay on Networking

This argumentative essay explores the multifaceted impact of social media, specifically focusing on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The essay begins by acknowledging the widespread influence of the internet and social networking sites on human lives, highlighting the concerns surrounding their effects on mental health. It then presents arguments both in favor of and against social media usage. The arguments in favor emphasize the advantages of social media, such as easy communication, business marketing opportunities, and access to information. The essay also includes a counter-argument, discussing the negative impacts of social media, including the potential for depression, loneliness, and the fear of missing out (FOMO). The essay concludes by summarizing the arguments and acknowledging the complexities of social media's impact on society, referencing supporting studies and research throughout.

Running head: ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
Argumentative Essay
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
Introduction
Internet has influenced the human lives in various ways. The introduction of social
networking sites to the human lives is one of the influences of Information and
Communication Technology brought about by the internet facilities. It has been found that
most of the people spend the maximum amount of time on these social networking sites
affecting the mental health of people as it has been criticized (Saboo, Kumar & Ramani,
2016). It is also been stated that the use of social networking websites are creating many
problems to the human lives as well. Therefore the following argumentative essay would
state how the social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook is advocating social
networking and if it has been creating problems or having advantageous effect on the people.
Argument 1 in favor of the perspective
There are various advantages that social networking sites have been providing the
users with and if it comes to the average uses of an individual social networking site user, it is
also been researched about that the relevant forms of social media networks like Facebook
and Twitter have exposed the people to the world of internet to be connected to one another.
The cultural influence of social networking sites has also been adding positive values and
merging the gaps between different cultural backgrounds. People understand each other's
cultural differences and have come to a place where communication is forming the bridge
between the differences (Brady et al., 2017). They have been various advantages that social
media network is providing comma including the easy and instant communication and
general opportunities for business owners to spread the marketing of their products and
services and also the random access to information and real-time news (Buglass et al., 2017).
Therefore, the prolonged use of the social networking sites are only making people are much
more aware of their surroundings and also providing and informative atmosphere, even if the
prolonged use of the social networking sites are not much solicited.

2ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
Argument 2 in favor of the perspective
There are other advantages of social media as well that put forward the fact that social
media also provides advantageous effect on the society as well. A procrastination platform
for online destruction is not what social media was develop for. The news alerts and
Information sharing was just part of it and mostly it was developed for increasing awareness
of the surroundings with the help of the social media networks (Karajeh et al., 2018). Being
aware of all the information regarding the surroundings was one of the best outlets that social
media could provide to the society. Checking out the posts and latest information about the
people all around general human mass is what was focused on. The idea was to have a better
exposure to the entire world about any information so that any kind of help needed in any
adverse situation can be readily available due to the sharing randomness of the information.
Counter-argument refuting the perspective
Other than the advantages that social media network is starting to provide the society,
there have been numerous research is that social media induces depression and loneliness
within the users (Shakya & Christakis, 2017). There is lingo for linguistic deciphered that
millennials use more often, known as FOMO, which is an abbreviated form of the term "fear
of missing out". This has been researched and found out that FOMO can be classified as
affecting the mental health of user that makes a person depressed if catching up at par with a
friend or with an acquaintance in consideration of the posts or information list share over
social media network is not sufficed. Approximately 77% of the American people has been
found to be falling into depression due to social media profiles and information available
within them (Alwagait, Shahzad & Alim, 2015). Where on the other hand, there have also
been studies that link the use of social media networking to be inducing depression, sleep
quality, anxiety, in a tension, lower self-esteem and hyperactivity. These are mostly found in
teens and adolescence whose minds are most important of being influenced.

3ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
Conclusion
Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that there have been various arguments about
social media networks like Twitter and Facebook providing positive or negative impact to the
society and this has been argued about as above. The essay has found out that even if there
are various advantages of social media network that was the initial idea of developing them, it
is slowly made the people falling into various mental health related issues. The argument has
been described in details in the essay as above.

4ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
References
Alwagait, E., Shahzad, B., & Alim, S. (2015). Impact of social media usage on students
academic performance in Saudi Arabia. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 1092-
1097.
Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion
shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 114(28), 7313-7318.
Buglass, S. L., Binder, J. F., Betts, L. R., & Underwood, J. D. (2017). Motivators of online
vulnerability: The impact of social network site use and FOMO. Computers in
Human Behavior, 66, 248-255.
Karajeh, H., Maqableh, M., Rajab, L., Mohammad, H., Khatib, T., Al-Qirim, N., & Tarhini,
A. (2018). Social media networks and pedagogy at the University of
Jordan. Education and Information Technologies, 23(5), 2073-2090.
Saboo, A. R., Kumar, V., & Ramani, G. (2016). Evaluating the impact of social media
activities on human brand sales. International Journal of Research in
Marketing, 33(3), 524-541.
Shakya HB & Christakis N.A. (2017, April). A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The
More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel. Harvard Business Review, Retrieved
from https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-the-more-you-use-
facebook-the-worse-you-feel