Introduction
Around a decade back, staying in touch with the school and college friends was seen quite rare. Although internet was present during that time but there was a missing link that could enable people to search their colleagues and chat with them and share their thoughts etc. It was almost inevitable to lose touch especially in the case of moving away.
Social networks have made is easier for people to remain in touch even after moving far away. These networks also allow people to search other people whom they already know but have lost touch with them. People can reconnect with their old friends over these social networks. These networks offer an effective way of sharing what’s happening in a person’s life with their family and friends. People are also allowed to interact with other people having similar interest and hobbies etc. .
The lifestyles of people around the globe has been deeply affected by the advancements taking place in social media sector. Extensive research studies have been carried out to understand the underlying reasons of its impact on day to day life pattern. Technological revolution in the 21st century has played an essential role in modulating the life styles of people from all age brackets. There many well-known platforms are available for people to interact easily and frequently.
Social interaction sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter have been very active and popular in altering the lifestyle of people. The trickle down effects of social media on the lives are both positive as well as negative.
The new and quick means of interaction have both facets, advantages and disadvantages. It may tend to cause apprehension, poor levels of self-respect and one of the foremost cause of friendship and work loss. There can be an endless debate on the addictive nature of social media, and apparently some people are totally controlled by the social interaction means. Email, text message, WhatsApp and likewise platforms are increasingly causing more and more addiction.
Some people are of the view that social media affects their self-esteem, by having updated information about their friends and family members, especially about their achievement may tend to cause resentment and feelings of failure. People end up in making a comparison and if they conclude that they are not doing as incredible as done by the people in their social circle they start feeling worthless and dejected. People some time start fabricating stories to protect their image in front of others and in that process the fear of being got caught brings endless levels of shame and disrespect .
Following are the major effects of social network: -
Effects on Politics
Today, almost every single politician wants to stay on top in the discussions on social networks. The reason behind this is that social networking websites have played an important and deciding role in various recent elections throughout the world.
There have been instances where the ruling government has been overthrown through campaigns on social network followed by real life campaigns. Social networks have served the purpose of causing mass movements as well as political unrest within a country. Any bad publicity on social media spread like a wildfire so politicians give due consideration to their publicity on social media.
Effects on business
Internet savvy organizations are making increased use of social media to market their brands and products. It helps the emerging business to create brand awareness and develop customer loyalty and long-lasting customer relationship. The frequent and consistent feedback from customer end helps business to improve their business activities and to enhance or change the marketing strategies to attract and retain customers.
Organizations have adopted new methods to attract customers at their social media sites, by offering expensive prizes, special discount offers and free tickets to Movie Theater. Previously, organizations were more dependent on electric and print media for the advertisement and promotion of the product, it was the most expensive method ever used. Social media on the other hand is very cheap and has shown tremendous results in creating brand image and increased number of sales.
Effects on Socialization
Social media platforms have been very instrumental in connecting people and in reunions. People can get re-connected to old friends with whom the connection was lost for years and can also make new friends, share innovative and creative ideas, share pictures, videos, and content and updated news from all over the world.
The social media users are well informed about latest development in technology and in science fields and can take an active part in the activities of their chosen field. The professional people use social media sites to enhance their chances to grab new and better job, as companies have started head hunting by placing ads on social media sites. The students have great opportunities to interact, discuss and share academic knowledge and skills with each other’s. Another very import aspect is, to get firsthand knowledge about any country or its culture by making friend from that country on social media sites .
Negative Effects of Social Networking
Following are the major negative effects of social networks on people’s life: -
- Privacy concerns
Privacy concerns have been a major source of debate about the advocates of social networking. Privacy is considered to be the most discussed issue pertaining to social media on and off social media forums. It is inevitable for a social networking website to collect the personal data of a user in order to make a personal profile. The same data is disseminated to other users or is made available to them if the users allows so. Social networking essentially requires the social networking websites to share the personal information to other websites especially search engine in order to allow people to search other relevant people. Young teens and kids who are highly active on social media are regarded as insecure and unsafe by their parents in terms of their privacy and especially regarding their personal photos.
There are several stories that emerge on regular basis regarding abuse of social networking websites through violating privacy of individuals. The social networking websites have been involved in increasing the security of the social networking platforms. These companies are also offering custom controls to the user in order to enable the user to decide by themselves about how much privacy they desire to have on the personal information or data uploaded on the social networking websites.
Most of the teenagers nowadays, use social networking websites in quite a dangerous manner. Their priority is more towards impressing other people rather than safeguarding their privacy. The do not possess much of the logical reasoning and their emotions lead their decisions instead of simple common sense. They are always after gaining popularity through posting their personal photos and videos. They leave status and comments on their pages that tell more to other than as compared to what other people should be knowing. The teenagers get involved with people over social networking websites at quite personal level without confirming his/her identity.
Sometimes the other person is not actually what he/she tells over social networking platform and tries to gain true information about the teenager in which the other person normally succeeds due to the lack of maturity in the teenager. In several cases sharing of private photos and videos have resulted in blackmailing from the other party. In one recent instance the blackmailing resulted in suicide committed by the teenager. Teenagers often post controversial photos and videos of themselves in order to catch attention of their friends and other people added on their profile .
- Emotional impact
Young teens and students spend a lot of time on social networking websites while interacting with their friends added in their profile and doing other activities on social networking pages. It is shown in a research that spending lots of time on social networking website does not bring happiness to the user. In fact, it is shown in the same research that it brings sadness, loneliness and boredom to the user. Social networking websites’ users develop different perception of their relationships with other which is based on the appearance of others on social networking website. Students as well as professionals start to lose their focus from their primary tasks due to the addiction of usage of social networking media. The extensive time spent on social networking websites can be utilized in building real world relations and practicing real world jobs. The emotional impact of usage of social networking website differs for each person and also depends on the activities a person carries out while using social networking platforms.
- Impact on the future generations
Young children especially teens have high tendency to share their personal detail on social networking websites which has started trends of doing so. The future generations would certainly follow the footsteps of present generations and in fact, they might go further in the same direction. An important issue pertaining to social networking websites is that the photos and videos stored on these websites are stored forever and even if deleted, the same remains in the storage server of the company that can be retrieved. Young teens who share such things that could affect their future employment, do not possess such maturity that their future boss might also be using the same social networking website and may develop bad impression about them. A large number of job applications have been rejected by employers based on the bad behavior of the applicant on social networking websites. Parents are mostly unaware of such problems that would be faced by their kids in future .
- Impacts on self-perception
Social media is not considered to be consistent or pervasive rather it requires participation from its users to keep it updated. Facebook WhatsApp and Instagram concept can’t be applied on all social media platform. Examples Like LinkedIn, it helps to generate virtual and detailed business profile and has replaced the traditional printed style of resume in no time. People don’t mention the requirements of being active on social media while posting a job ad. As a matter of fact people tend to avoid mentioning negative aspect on social profile. This is the reason people are being fooled by believing what is presented to them on social media sites. An important aspect to remember is, everyone wears a mask to hide real face .
- False Sense of Relationship
People on social media start to think that they are connected to people who are present on their friends list; however, the same is not the case. People wishing birthday on social media do not wish birthday because they remember the data but because the social networking website brings an automated reminder of birthday of everyone in the friends list. The real life relations get affected due to addiction of the fake relations on social networking websites. In many cases the identity of the individual with whom a user of social networking website interact and thinks to have a healthy relation is not actually the same person. People use fake profile to hide identifies and get more and more information from others.
- Cyber-bullying
The closeness offered by social media platform is available equally to friends as well as predators. Teenagers and kids are more vulnerable to get attacked by cyber bulls. Perpetrators slowly and gradually acquires the trust and later on victims is being terrorized in front of his family and friends. These online social abuses leave everlasting and deep imprints on the minds of the victim. It has been reported through several researches that cyber bullying may at time result in suicidal attempt by the victim. Youth has been reported to be the highly exposed by the cyber bulls, as per the reported news of CBS 42% of the youth have been targeted by the year 2010.
- Decreased Productivity
There is a large number of companies using social networking websites to communicate with their customers and market their products. However, the same websites bring low productivity to these companies through the use of social networking platform for unproductive activities. A large number of employees in companies at present use social networking website during their working hours that results in decreased productivity. The social networking is considered a great distraction platform by the employers due to the wastage of time by employees. There have been several studies carried out confirming damage to the productivity levels of employees due to usage of social networking websites during working hours. There are several tools available to block usage of social networking websites in the workplace; however, the effectiveness of such tools is a subjective matter .
- Wastage of money
It has been revealed through research that people using various social networking apps end up spending money of unnecessary purchases. It is often thought that social networking website are cost free but the apps such as various games are free for playing but various upgrades available in these games cost a lot of money. Kids and teens are highly affected by such problems and end up spending lots of money on useless things due to their addiction to the app or game.
- Appetite Disorder
According to a research, high addiction of social networking brings disorders in the user’s appetite in one of the two ways i.e. increasing the appetite or decreasing appetite. The addictive use lowers the need of food through diverting the attention from appetite to the addictive matter on social networking platform. On the other hand, looking at photos of food and especially delicious food increases the appetite of the person seeing such photos on social networking platform.
- Self-Esteem related issues
It has been discovered through research that every one person in three started to feel worst about themselves as compared to before using social networking website. This psychological issue is due to the perceived sense of inferiority while comparing oneself with others on social networking website .
- People becoming products
Services offered on social networking websites are free except some apps and games’ upgrades. It is difficult to comprehend for a common person the concept of such a free service that keeps record of everything that we share. The money that is spent on maintaining such platforms is quite big and is generated through the ads that a social networking users click. In this manner the products that are sold by the social networking giants are the people using these platforms. In this manner the users of social networking platforms are not people to these companies but rather products to generate revenues.
- Negative Health Consequences
It is confirmed through research that addictive usage of social networking websites result in various forms of illness. These include physical as well as mental health related issues. The physical issues include physical fatigue, eyesight problems and digestive disorders. The psychological problems include sadness, loneliness, sense of inferiority and misconceptions etc.
- Isolation
It appears to most people that social networking websites are a way of getting to know more people and socializing; however, this is not the case for most of the people. People end up feeling lonelier than before using social networking websites. People are living their lives without interacting with each other in most cases of social networking. In today’s world, most of the people do not know their neighbors. Even in schools and colleges, the students are often seen to by using their smartphones for social networking while sitting alone instead of interacting with people in person. People are living a physically more isolated life nowadays as compared to the time before social networking came into use.
- Other Effects
Multiple studies have established a correlation between the social media and the harmful consequences it causes. There are various arguments that support that fact that there are various harmful and negative consequences that are not studied as yet. Few of these negative effects that people believe are not accounted in any study are listed below : -
- The increasing trend of using inappropriate spellings, grammar and sentence structure.
- The wide spread of rumors and wrong information among the masses despite having true facts that negate.
- Predators have increased chances to trap children and teenagers.
- Encouraging the culture where a minor mistake like a comment or racy picture may tend to cause irreparable damage to reputation.
- Rapid decline in the productivity, people are more involved in checking the updates at social media site therefore the output graph tends to do downwards.
- Identity theft is very common, enough information at social media sites are available that may increase the risk.
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