The Negative Effects of Social Media
Katie Donnelly
Senior research paper
9/17/17
Mrs. Miller The Negative Effects of Social Media
Thirteen years old Nicole Lovell was found dead, her body discovered in North Carolina, across the state border from her family home in Virginia. Investigators said Nicole had been secretly messaging 18 year old Virginia tech student, David Eisenhauer, on a social media app. Nicole sneaked out of her parents house late one night to meet up with David but never returned home. She was missing for three days until her body was found 80 miles away. Even though social media has become a huge part of our everyday lives it can be the leading cause of cyberbullying, pornography and stalking.
Social Media & Cyberbullying
Bullying has always been an issue whether you're at school, home, or with friends. With more than 71% of teens using more than one social media app cyberbullying has now become more common (Kwan, 2017). Cyberbullying occurs when individuals write hurtful or embarrassing things to or about another person in order to shame, control, or harass them.
How Cyberbullying Happens
With high online activity teens said they have witnessed, participated in, or been a victim of cyberbullying. Some cyberbullies create one or more fake profiles in order to impersonate someone that a victim might ‘friend’ or find interesting. By impersonating, it allows the perpetrator to gain the victim's trust. Once the trust is gained, cyberbullies will reveal
It has become extremely common for an individual to sign into their Facebook account, and see a picture that they feel exposed a little too much. Check into their Instagram account, and regret letting everyone know what their location was. Feel uncomfortable, or bullied by a tweet that a person posted to their Twitter. Per Farheen’s article on negative effects of social media “participating in social media sites such as these can make you feel more connected” (Sagheer 1). It is not okay for individuals to feel victimized due to the negative effects of social media. Social media tends to distract, humiliate, and destroy one-self through entertainment. If people would donate more time to things more supplemental to their growth, and limit their use of social media, then maybe people would stop walking over the harm that social media presents to our community. Monitoring the time invested into social media will help eliminate most of the detriment, privacy issues, and bullying flowing through today’s society.
Social media is a very popular and widely used medium of entertainment in today’s society that allows people to connect and congregate from all over the world without having to leave the comfort of home. In order for many people to relieve social isolation and loneliness, social media unravels new pathways of communication and can be used to help people open up and express their opinions (Naruse). It can give people the chance to share and express their ideas to a large audience and receive feedback. Large and small businesses alike use this platform of communication in order to relay information about their products and services faster by using promotions and advertisements on social media websites. While social media has proven itself to be helpful and beneficial in today’s society, there are many studies that show how it can take quite a toll on the mental health and wellbeing of the people who constantly use it.
After debating whether social media has a positive or negative effect on teens, it has been concluded that social media has a negative impact on the developing teenager. Social media can be a great tool at times, by being a means to communicate with friends, classmates, and family members; It can also help spread your ideas, hobbies and life experiences. But after reading the article Studies Offer Mixed Messages On Social Media’s Effects On Young People, By The Baltimore Sun, it explains how social media has a negative effect on teens by causing them to compete (to have a better social media feed), change their body to fit into society (the ideal body shape) and the way it can makes someone feel.
In today’s society, social media is an important tool that many people use daily for
At any rate, cyber bullying has become teen’s number one way of harassment. In fact cybullicide has become so common kids and some adults don’t even recognize the fact they’re doing it. Additionally, research has shown that 75% of cyber bullying occurs through sites such as Facebook, twitter, kik, Instagram and Ask.fm [3] which is most notoriously known for its cases involving cyberbullying.
The Oxford dictionary defines privacy as the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people (2017). It should not come as a surprise that websites designed to share pictures, ideas, and what is for dinner, leave individuals feeling that their privacy has been invaded. It is also not surprising that some people are oblivious to the effects of what they post online. It is safe to say the loss of privacy can be self-imposed for societies need to collaborate and socialized is the reason social media sites were created in the first place. Jeff Jarvis tells the need for “publicness” or the need to be public is strong upon our society today (Berkman, 2012). In today’s technology age, when everything can be found in just a matter of clicks, it is easy to overshare. Yet the information that is published or posted on social media sites is not the only information that is gathered and stored. Many social media sites such as Facebook, collect data behind the scenes and sell it to marketing firms and other data collection firms. Every “like” or when signing into other sites using Facebook credentials, something new is learned about the user. Infringement of privacy, whether self-imposed or not, can have both positive and negative effects on an individual in a social media environment.
Is cyberbullying an old problem with a new disguise? Bullying in the real world has been around for a seemingly endless amount of time. Due to the rise of technology in society today, bullying in the cyber world, also known as cyberbullying, has erupted. Cyberbullying can be defined as using technology, such as the Internet, social media, and text messages, to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person (Hirsch). According to 11 Facts About Cyberbullying, nearly eighty-three percent of teens believe bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person. This shows that cyberbullies use online networks to camouflage themselves from reality. Cyberbullying is emotionally abusive to the victim’s mental health because the scars imprinted from the cruel remarks sent through text messages and posted throughout social media are bound to forever impact one's life.
Cyberbullying has become a prevalent problem over the past decade in the United States. This is due to the radical updates in technology and the easy access that teens have to these electronic resources. Whether at school, a local coffee shop, or in their own home, teens can gain access to computers, and are able to use them for cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place online or through any electronic device such as a computer or cellphone. There are many different ways to bully someone through these devices. This includes text messages, emails, direct messages on social media, comments on social media profiles, and much more.
Teenagers have been bullying and pushing each other around since the beginning of times, But now with technology texting, IMing, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, bullies not longer have to confront their victims face to face. They can stay in the shadows and torture their targets anonymously; this new phenomenon is called Cyberbullying. What is Cyberbullying? Cyberbullying is defined as aggressive; intentional act carried out by a group or individual using an electronic form of contact, repeatedly over a period against a victim that can‘t easily defend him or herself (National Crime Prevention, 2016). These incidents have increased over the past few years, over 81% of our teens think that cyber bullying is easier than bullying a person when 68% believe that it is a serious problem (Dosomething.org. 2016). Cyberbullying is a serious issue in the arose not only from children but our future cultures, and we should act on it now to minimize it and control it.
Bullying can be define as an act of aggressive act that is intentional, Taking force upon someone who cannot defend themselves from an individual or group. Cyberbullying is nearly the same thing as bullying but is done online, using electronic devices such as phones, emails, and social networks. Cyberbullying can happen in many different ways , through phone calls, text messages, blogs, pictures and more. The availability of internet makes it easier for bullying to take place in the long run this can cause numerous problems. The effects of bullying can cause suicides, depression and isolation.
Bullying is a major problem that has gradually gotten worser over the years. With technology evolving teens have taken bullying to a new level, by cyberbullying. Bullying is a way of verbally or physically harming someone else to try and seem superior. People who bully are very insecure about themselves so they chose to bully others in order to make themselves feel better. There are others ways that teens may use to bully such as cyberbullying. Cyber bulling is a form of harassment online through social media, email, and text messages. Cyberbullying presents a challenge because it can be done anouomusly so it may be hard to catch the person. In America, bullying is one of the greatest issues that we face and technology has only added to the problem by opening up other opportunities for bullying.
Bullying that occurs through social media, cell phones, tablets, or computers is called cyberbullying. Studies have shown that 1 in every 4 teens recieved some form of cyberbullying and that number continues to grow. Another survey showed that approximately half of the kids that took the survey had been cyberbullied through social and digital media. These studies and surveys are alarming many law enforcers, schools, and especially parents around the world because this is becoming a serious problem. The parents and families of these teens are effected most due to the emotional stress cyberbullying can put on someone. A person that is being cyberbullied may show different signs such as their grades slipping, being upset or angry after using social media, mood swings, loss of apetite, and more.
Imagine sitting in your room on a social media outlet and you then get a notification from an anonymous account making a comment referring to your self-image. Good or bad that comment will affect how that person feels about themselves for the rest of their life. In this generation people are more focused on their appearance than ever, fishing for compliments from strangers boosts one's self-esteem. Most social media accounts give a person the option to make themselves private or not. While some may make it private they may still allow random strangers follow their private life account. This then gives that stranger a free range to say whatever they want on that person’s account. Hence when cyberbullying may come into play then leading to bigger problems. Cyberbullying is sending a hateful, threatening or intimidating message electronically. This mostly happens on all social media outlets without really being noticed. NYDailyNews.com did a survey of 10,000 British teens seeing who was ever cyberbullied and found some interesting results. Author, Constance Gibbs states, “ 42% saying they were bullied on Instagram, Facebook wasn’t far behind, at 37%, Snapchat was next at
Did you know bullying is a leading factor in teen’s suicide rate here in the United States? Bullying is the act of using physical force or verbal use against an individual to make them feel uneasy or bad about themselves. In today’s society we see it more than usual and what’s the response people do. Nothing they absolutely do nothing and walk away like they didn’t see anything happening. Another form of bullying that is growing and picking up pace in society is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is the use of using social media or any means of communication that could be like text messages and Facebook to attack an individual behind closed doors. The aspect of cyberbullying that individuals love is the ability to remain anonymous and attack a wider range of individuals over a short time of period rather than using direct confrontation. With social media being a fingertip away we can easily send a Facebook status or a tweet out like that cyberbullying is picking up steam and more and more people are becoming a part of the problem instead on the solution. With the elimination of direct confrontation the individual doesn’t know who is attacking him or her and cannot do much in the process of putting a stop to it or even ask help to make it stop.
Think back to a time when the internet was a place where you can connect with friends or family members you haven’t seen in years, watch countless hours of animals doing funny things, work at home or even to do research on an upcoming school project. While you are doing those things you don’t expect to be bullied and ridiculed online by others but it happens more than you think. Cyberbullying is one of the biggest issues we face in our society today. We see it every day and it has affected the lives of so many internet users, majority of them being young teens. Cyberbullying, by definition, is when people use the internet to bully others by sending intimidating or threatening messages. It comes in many shapes and forms and sometimes we don’t even realize we are being bullied online because we have become so accustomed to it. Cyberbullying can happen anywhere online, for example, websites like Facebook and YouTube or really anywhere that allows you to post pictures, comments or videos that can hurt another person emotionally. Now that social media is on the rise and continuing to grow in popularity, cyberbullying is at its all-time high.