Analysis of the Negative Impacts of Social Media on Individuals

This essay comprehensively examines the negative impacts of social media on individuals and society. It highlights issues such as the creation of false connections, contributing to feelings of isolation and weakening real-life relationships. The essay also explores the link between social media and teenage suicide, emphasizing the role of cyberbullying and exposure to harmful content. Furthermore, it discusses the impact of social media on productivity, with excessive usage leading to decreased work performance and academic struggles. Privacy concerns, mental and physical health issues, and the promotion of unrealistic standards are also addressed. The essay concludes by suggesting measures like health promotion programs, government policies, and the establishment of monitoring bodies to mitigate these negative effects and promote responsible social media use.

Running head: NEGATVE IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
NEGATVE IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
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NEGATVE IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
With the technological advancement, social media is developing at a rapid rate. It is helping
people all over the world to catch up with the fast pace of life. It has helped people all over the
world by making life easier like hen gathering any new information, buying o selling things,
availing transport, sharing good news and socializing (Pteffur et al.). However, it has also
resulted in many negative impacts which is described in the coming paragraphs.
The first negative impact that has been stated by experienced researchers over the years is
that it creates a false sense of connection. Social media sites makes our life more complicated as
an individual fails to differentiate between meaningful relationships in reality and numerous
casual relationships which are formed through social media. Many individuals tend to spend
much time as well as psychic energy on less meaningful relationship (Perloff). As a result our
meaningful relationships existing in reality gets weakened and connections are lost. As a result
the individuals suffer when he is in distress real friends and relatives do not remain available to
them.
Moreover, researchers are also of the opinions that social media applications have become a
primary cause behind teenage suicides which have made the nations very much concerned. It has
been seen that social media nowadays contains huge amount of information of suicides which
make the vulnerable teenagers prone to destruction of their lives. Moreover cyber bullying is one
of the most important factors that also contribute to suicides (Fardouly et al.). Kids and teenagers
who are more impulsive than the adults are more prone to cyber bullying where the perpetrators
terrorize vulnerable people, body shame others, breaks trust or others. All these tend to leave
mental scar and even more serious situation which make them exposed to the tendency of
suicides.

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Another negative aspect which is intricately associated with social media is decrease of
productivity. As most individuals remain intrigued with social apps and social media for a large
amount of their productive day, their career gets affected. Excessive use of Smartphone in
childhood, in teenage lives and also during office work hampers productive output. Children and
teenagers affect their academic lives by spending more time on this media rather than on their
studies (Hutter et al.). Office goers also spend time on this which affect both individual and team
performance. Organizations face loss due to individuals using social media at a frequent rate.
Researchers are of the opinion that people using Facebook results in reduction of 1.5% office
productivity. These in turn affects their careers where students score poor marks and develop no
knowledge on their subjects. These also affect the professionals by making their career stagnant
and staling their promotions.
Researchers also state that social networking affect privacy of people. This media encourages
individuals to be more social and public about their personal lives. Often individuals therefore
provide many intimate details of their lives on the media which can be used as weapons for the
perpetrators. Things which are posts often can be seen by all, it can affect safety of individuals as
it may lead to unnecessary stalling, jotting down of information by hackers, gathering trails by
kidnappers and many others (Perloff). Moreover, another aspect is that information which is
provided by an individual may not be liked or appreciated by others. When this occurs between
students and teachers, employers and employees, it may create biasness, negativity and others
which might hamper their lives.
Another negative aspect is that this form of media can affect individuals mentally and physically.
Often lives of an individual may make another jealous or envious creating depression.
Comparing own lives with others make individual unhappy and destroy quality lives. It may also

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lead to destruction in relationships and even misunderstanding. Moreover, advertisements of fast
foods, wrong information regarding cosmetology, diet and others may expose them to wrong
practices which may hamper their physical health (Fardouly et al.).
Each and every child from the early age should be monitored properly so that they can use the
social media in a responsible way. They should be taught about their negative and positive
aspects by teachers and parents so that they can be counseled properly. Moreover, adults should
be made careful by widespread health promotion programs where negative aspects of the media
use can be informed to patients (Goh, Heng and Lin). Moreover, local, state and national level
government should intervene and publish policies which would help every states and
communities to tackle the issue respectively. Each and every adult need to be responsible
themselves after the negative impacts are known and they have to be honest in their approaches
for their own betterment. Moreover the government should publish monitoring bodies that would
look and restrict different harmful information and sites which would achieve complaints or
would prove t be harmful for citizens.
Social media has many negative impacts like cyber-bullying, body shaming, lack of productivity,
los of real relationships, unhealthy physical and mental condition, suicides and many others.
Therefore health promotion programs proper policies, making individuals self responsible for
their health, establishment of monitoring bodies for controlling information and others are
relieved to help in changing the present condition of the increasing negative impacts on social
media and protect people from their negative impacts.

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References:
Pfeffer, Jürgen, Thomas Zorbach, and Kathleen M. Carley. "Understanding online firestorms:
Negative word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks." Journal of Marketing
Communications 20.1-2 (2014): 117-128.
Perloff, R.M., 2014. Social media effects on young women’s body image concerns: Theoretical
perspectives and an agenda for research. Sex Roles, 71(11-12), pp.363-377.
Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P.C., Vartanian, L.R. and Halliwell, E., 2015. Social comparisons on
social media: The impact of Facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. Body
Image, 13, pp.38-45.
Hutter, K., Hautz, J., Dennhardt, S. and Füller, J., 2013. The impact of user interactions in social
media on brand awareness and purchase intention: the case of MINI on Facebook. Journal of
Product & Brand Management, 22(5/6), pp.342-351.
Goh, K.Y., Heng, C.S. and Lin, Z., 2013. Social media brand community and consumer
behavior: Quantifying the relative impact of user-and marketer-generated content. Information
Systems Research, 24(1), pp.88-107.