Critical Summary: Social Media's Impact on Modern Society

This essay provides a comprehensive summary of two articles focusing on the impact of social media on modern human life. The first article highlights social media's role in shaping social relationships, noting its evolution from traditional human interaction to virtual connections via platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It acknowledges the economic benefits derived from social media advertising but also points out the adverse effects of excessive use, such as declining academic performance and mental health issues. The second article delves into social media's impact on mental well-being, citing studies that link its use to feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and depression, particularly among young people. While the author acknowledges the negative aspects, they also emphasize social media's positive contributions, such as reconnecting individuals, promoting togetherness, and facilitating communication with distant contacts, further suggesting the potential for educational promotion through social media. The essay concludes by advocating for balanced usage to mitigate adverse effects like addiction, detachment from physical activity, and exposure to harmful content.

Running head : SUMMARY ON ARTICLES ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Summary on Articles on Social Media
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author

1SUMMARY ON ARTICLES ON SOCIAL MEDIA
This summative essay focuses on the effect of social media on the life of the human being
of this modern era. Here, the summary of the two articles are discussed. In the first one, the
role of social media in parasitizing the human brain is highlighted. This article focuses on the
social relationship among the people. From ancient era of human survival it is observed that,
the humans are living together for collecting foods, defending themselves and for connecting
with other people also. However, with the growing of the technologies, the medium of social
relationship has changed in a huge manner. In recent times, Facebook and other social media
has become the medium of interaction and social connection among the people (Boulianne
2015). By using this, now people can get into touch with each other in an easy manner and it
creates a virtual world. For maintaining this virtual contact, the person don’t even need to go
out of the house. Not only this, from social media, the owners are making a lot of money
through advertisements. For example, Twitter earned $2 billion and on the other hand
Facebook had earned $40 billion and the money from the advertisements are mainly coming
from the user’s click. So it can be said that the users are contributing to the economy in some
extent. However, more use of social media affecting the student’s academic performances
and affecting their mental health too (Sampasa-Kanyinga and Lewis 2015). The excessive
social media is like the ice cream that is, it is delicious but excessive amount can harm our
health. As a result, the people are becoming emotionless and they become more bound to the
emotions of virtual world.
The second article is purely based on the effect of social media on the mental health of the
human being. The article reported that, in UK based study on 1500 Facebook and Twitter
users, almost 67% are facing the problem of feeling inadequate and almost 60% are feeling
jealous about others. In addition, more use of social media is also promoting the issue of
depression. Most of the cases , it is observed that, the young generation of the society, are
facing the issue of depression and mood swings due to the excessive use of the social media

2SUMMARY ON ARTICLES ON SOCIAL MEDIA
as many Facebook posts are demotivating and depressing and it is negatively affecting the
mental health of the youths. In researches it is observed that, the Facebook mostly is used to
make a good impression to others by using various filters and it is recommended that, the
users should beware of the risks of its use. Therefore, if the person is already in depression,
he or she definitely seek help from their friends or from a professional person in order to
make the life happy (Pantic 2014).
As per my opinion the use of social media is not bad at all as it is helping in reconnecting
people of different communities and cultures. As a result, a perception of togetherness will
grow in the society. Not only this, it is often observed that, a person was lost and after long
years the person was found just because of the social media. Not only this, it will also help in
keeping touch with their friends. Along with this, it is also very entertaining in nature and it is
giving us the chances to know various type of people. It also help in keeping contacts with
our family members who are living abroad or in other states of the country (Gibbs et al.
2015). Therefore, with the use of the social media, I think many educational sights can be
promoted and this will help the young and youths of the society. However, like all other
tools, social media also has a few negative aspects which are affecting our life. I found that,
excessive use of the various social media can impact the educational life of the students in a
negative way. Too much addiction towards social media, are detaching them from any kind
of social activity and I also found that they lose their interest in physical activity. I think this
lack of interest in physical activity will affect their physical health and mental health too.
Therefore, it is proven that, the too much use of social media is promoting anxiety,
depression and other mental health problem among the users. Hence, it is evident that, too
much use of this social media platform will hamper the life of its users. Along with this, I
have also observed that in social media various destructive posts are circulated and it is

3SUMMARY ON ARTICLES ON SOCIAL MEDIA
affecting the youths. By those posts, they became so inspired that, they even want to follow
that and as a result they are harming themselves.
References
Boulianne, S., 2015. Social media use and participation: A meta-analysis of current
research. Information, communication & society, 18(5), pp.524-538.
Gibbs, M., Meese, J., Arnold, M., Nansen, B. and Carter, M., 2015. # Funeral and Instagram:
death, social media, and platform vernacular. Information, Communication & Society, 18(3),
pp.255-268.
Pantic, I. (2014). Online social networking and mental health. Cyberpsychology, Behavior,
and Social Networking, 17(10), 652-657.
Sampasa-Kanyinga, H. and Lewis, R.F., 2015. Frequent use of social networking sites is
associated with poor psychological functioning among children and
adolescents. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(7), pp.380-385.