Negative aspects of Social Media
Abstract
Individuals are not aware that social media can still be harmful to our youth and people around us. Even though the mainstream of social media is the best way of communication among peers and friends it can still be harmful. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing as a Chinese proverb says it. Social media is used to promote events and keep in contact with many people and avoiding the loss of contact information. Almost everything can be done from your home or a mobile device just as long there is wifi or internet available. Humanity is relying on technology to take care of needs that used to be done only in person. Humanity is losing the sense of what humanity means because not many have human contact with their family and peers because they are too busy sucked into their mobile devices to realize there is a world they might be missing out on.
Negative aspects of Social Media
In the early 2000s the first cases of cyberbullying started with the outbreak of the Star Wars Kid video. This young boy was harassed in way where his peers invaded his privacy by uploading a video on Social Media that no one was supposed to see ever since it was filmed in the privacy of his basement. Once the video had been uploaded at school the teasing began in school, and going viral in the internet. This was not the first case of cyberbullying but it was the most publicized just when the internet was barely blooming. As of 2014 over 52% of young individuals have reported to being bullied via cell phone or internet although only 25% of these individuals have reported it. In addition, over 55% of individuals “have witnessed outright bullying” and have done nothing about it other than laugh or contribute to this dilemma. The communication among students and parents is not sufficient to have knowledge what is happening in social media. People do not see social media as harm to the youth but social media is becoming a leading cause of suicides among the youth. Therefore, for the past reasons and to raise concern the following questions will be analyzed:
· What do students use social media for mostly?
· Why may parents be concerned of their kids/teens using social media?
· What ages causes issues with social media?
· Does cyberbullying still exist?
Through the use of articles, literary works, newscasts, and student body feedback the negative aspects of social media will be analyzed to inform that there is still an issue with mass social media and the inability of controlling trolls.
What do students use social media for mostly?
According to dictionary.reference.com social media is defined as websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts. Students use social media by either as a mean of entertainment or follow news and anything that will inform them in what is happening around them. Social media is a means of mass communication where they can talk to peers and educators to get a message across and get some sort of action to occur. Students focus on social media to vent and share their interests and hobbies. Social media is broad although you can establish that emails, LinkedIn, newscasts apps, and some professional twitter and Facebook accounts. Facebook and twitter have the capability of being professional and social in their information. Major news, organizations, and even politicians have their own pages to keep their followers informed. In a social aspect the mainstreams are Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and many more that allow their followers to have contact with their friends, met new people, and share their personal thoughts, and interests. Sharing your thoughts that not everyone agrees to is where the issues start happening. There are people who make a fake profile or trolls that will jump into the conversations to simply be rude.
According to Social Networking ProCon an article published in September 23, 2014 that states positive and negative effects of Social media. ProCon states that students who used social media during the semester had a GPA of 3.06 compared to a student who did not use social media had a GPA of 3.82. In addition to this there are more issues with social media like the following. First as of 2012 there is evidence that social media enables the spread of unreliable and false information. This occurs because of spams and false websites or the misinformation by the source you are reading. The statistic for misinformed via social media is 49.1%. Second, Social networking sites lack privacy and expose users to government and corporate intrusions. No one really takes the time to read all the clauses that companies ask to agree to simply because they are long and lengthy to get through. These clauses state what their privacy settings and how someone can be affected by them, yet no one reads them. Also the National Security Agency, NSA, invades privacy through any technological device we may be using; the government can track us at any given time. Third, Social networking sites can lead to stress and offline relationship problem. In a study done at the University of Edinburgh Business school social media heavy users are more likely to lose the face-to-face contact with their peers and make their friendships end. Fourth, using social media can harm job stability and employment prospects. When an individual applies for a job social media is investigated because job recruiters find 61% profanity, 54% bad grammar/spelling, 78% illegal drugs, 66% sexual content, 47% alcohol pictures, and 26% religious content. When this generation applies for a graduate school of any kind social media shenanigans will appear and may determine the acceptance of the individual, which means this is not only applied to jobs. Fifth, the use of social networking sites is correlated with personality and brain disorders. This includes the inability to have in person conversations, Attention deficiency hyperactive disorder, self-centered personalities, which leads to an individual feeling loneliness, depression, anxiety and general distress. Mental disorders arise from the over use of social networking along with many more harms.
What social gatherings look now-a-days.
Why may parents be concerned of their kids/teens using social media?
Many parents have the worry of their children having a social media or do not worry because to them nothing is wrong with social media and give them too much liberty. There is cyber ethics that not many teens know about or should know about. According to Cybersmart, 13 is the minimum age to use a social media, although the recommend age is 17. At 13 it is proven that children do not have the maturity and what they will share will be somehow of a vent. These kids are seen as exposing themselves to cyberbullying or the world of sexting (ProCon). Parents have every right to protect their children from the web by overseeing what they are doing, managing their privacy settings, and most importantly see who they are friends with or at least making sure they actually know the person. Parents are frightened by when they see in the news when pictures are leaked, or media has been hacked. These events cause fear in parents and it is a wakeup call to talk to their children to be safe in what they are posting (CNN). Parents have the ability to take charge of what is happening in the social media of their children by going on CyberSmart, because on the site teaches a parent how to talk about the dangers of the web to their kids. In addition parents can read on how to detect if their child is being cyberbullied, or is depressed by the use of social media.
Our children are our future therefore taking care of their actions is very important. An article published in 2012 by future of children gives parents a detailed pamphlet of social networking safety. This pamphlet includes what teens minds will say to parents to allow them to use social media, what kind of things children will see on the web, and most importantly how parents can still be involved with their children’s life online. The pamphlet emphasizes on bad choices teens make and how parents can improve those bad choices. They are key points that seem redundant like being selective, responsible, a leader, and not to post any personal information. Even though those aspects are constantly mentioned there are teens who still post information such as their debit card number, and security pin, just like “bae” and many others have done that on twitter. Parents have the fear that their kids will do mistakes that will haunt them for an eternity.
What ages causes issues with social media?
The major issue with social media is the age individuals start using them and expose themselves to other individuals who comment rudely to what other individuals have expressed about. The hype of social media begins at age 13 when a teen is in middle school. According to pew research center and a survey conducted in January 2014 72% of social media users are still in high school. The most active users of social media are between the ages of 18 through 29 ranking an 89% of users. Although most of the users are in a somewhat a college level, most of these individuals have already built a character to be ready to defend themselves as compared to a teen who is barely building their character (CS). Preteens are the ones who are getting affected by the negative aspects of social media since they are ones who find a mean of expressing themselves and someone ends up bashing on them. As the first amendment states we are all entitled to our freedom of speech but we are also entitled that morally some comments are inappropriate and should be reported.
National youth violence prevention resource center estimates that 30% of American youth is either bullied or a target of bullying (SUCC). Ryan Halligan age 13 hung himself after his classmates had bullied him online and in the classroom itself. This happened in 2003 in the state of Vermont. Megan Meier hung herself three weeks before her fourteenth birthday, because of cyberbullying. This occurred in Missouri, in 2006, because of a fake profile created in myspace that lead her on and eventually just insulted her till embarrassment especially because this individual was also a female. Jessica Logan age 18 high school senior hung herself in Alabama after a nude photo of her was leaked through social media. This occurred in 2008 and a year later Hope Sitwell age 13 in Florida hung herself after a picture of her breasts was leaked from her boyfriend. Tyler Clementi age 18 was accused of being gay and blasted on social media as such. His roommate took a photo of him kissing another man to ridicule him on social media which caused Tyler to jump off George Washington’s Bridge in 2010. Amanda Todd age 15 hung herself in British Colombia because of blackmail in 2012. She had been video chatting and exposed her breasts to where a photo was taken to later be leaked on social media driving her to her death and suicide video.
Does cyberbullying still exist?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth people with approximately 4,400 deaths every year. More than 30 percent of these deaths are because of cyberbullying and increasing yearly. Our government has slowly been implementing laws against cyberbullying since freedom of speech is not something that can be controlled. Therefore, the laws of Texas regarding cyberbullying are found in stopbullying, which gives you step by step on what to do against bullying, harassment, and cyberbullying. Federal and state laws have been applied to protect the youth. According to a survey that was conducted at the University of Texas at El Paso more than 50 percent of students have had some sort of cyberbully out of 100 students surveyed. This concludes that the issue is still there and persistent.
The University of Texas at El Paso about two weeks ago brought down their Facebook Confessions page. It will soon be up again, but for now that has been banned from the usage. It had been reported because of some students claiming that they were having issues and wanted to kill themselves and people were encouraging them. In August 17th, 2014 a body was found hanging in the tree at the University of Texas at El Paso in front of their library. This happened right after the news of Robbin Williams suicide. The body found had no sign of foul play and made the correlation suicide, according to the UTEP Prospector, although the family asked for privacy therefore no other information has been released.
In conclusion, even though social media is extremely useful and helpful it may be taking away our youth and time. Social media is now being a negative side effect on humanity than helping them. If we look at our evolution we are now relying and depending on technology rather than using our brain. This can simply be analyzed by how many phone numbers a person actually knows rather than just having them in their contacts. In addition, keep your head up because you might be missing out on what is happening around you because you are too busy on your social media. Wasting precious time on those who love and care about you for being on a mobile device. It is never too late to change.
References:
100 Utep students through survey monkey.
Cable News Network. http://www.cnn.com. (CNN)
CyberSmart. from http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Parents/Cyber issues/Social networking.aspx (CS)
Future of Children. from http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/events/events-050108-willard.pdf (FoC)
Six Unforgettable Cyberbullying Cases. from http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/ (SUCC)
Social Networking Fact Sheet. from http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/ (SNFS)
Social Networking ProCon.org. from http://socialnetworking.procon.org/ (ProCon)
Texas Anti-Bullying Laws & Policies. http://www.stopbullying.gov/laws/texas.html. (TXAB)
Abstract
Individuals are not aware that social media can still be harmful to our youth and people around us. Even though the mainstream of social media is the best way of communication among peers and friends it can still be harmful. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing as a Chinese proverb says it. Social media is used to promote events and keep in contact with many people and avoiding the loss of contact information. Almost everything can be done from your home or a mobile device just as long there is wifi or internet available. Humanity is relying on technology to take care of needs that used to be done only in person. Humanity is losing the sense of what humanity means because not many have human contact with their family and peers because they are too busy sucked into their mobile devices to realize there is a world they might be missing out on.
Negative aspects of Social Media
In the early 2000s the first cases of cyberbullying started with the outbreak of the Star Wars Kid video. This young boy was harassed in way where his peers invaded his privacy by uploading a video on Social Media that no one was supposed to see ever since it was filmed in the privacy of his basement. Once the video had been uploaded at school the teasing began in school, and going viral in the internet. This was not the first case of cyberbullying but it was the most publicized just when the internet was barely blooming. As of 2014 over 52% of young individuals have reported to being bullied via cell phone or internet although only 25% of these individuals have reported it. In addition, over 55% of individuals “have witnessed outright bullying” and have done nothing about it other than laugh or contribute to this dilemma. The communication among students and parents is not sufficient to have knowledge what is happening in social media. People do not see social media as harm to the youth but social media is becoming a leading cause of suicides among the youth. Therefore, for the past reasons and to raise concern the following questions will be analyzed:
· What do students use social media for mostly?
· Why may parents be concerned of their kids/teens using social media?
· What ages causes issues with social media?
· Does cyberbullying still exist?
Through the use of articles, literary works, newscasts, and student body feedback the negative aspects of social media will be analyzed to inform that there is still an issue with mass social media and the inability of controlling trolls.
What do students use social media for mostly?
According to dictionary.reference.com social media is defined as websites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts. Students use social media by either as a mean of entertainment or follow news and anything that will inform them in what is happening around them. Social media is a means of mass communication where they can talk to peers and educators to get a message across and get some sort of action to occur. Students focus on social media to vent and share their interests and hobbies. Social media is broad although you can establish that emails, LinkedIn, newscasts apps, and some professional twitter and Facebook accounts. Facebook and twitter have the capability of being professional and social in their information. Major news, organizations, and even politicians have their own pages to keep their followers informed. In a social aspect the mainstreams are Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and many more that allow their followers to have contact with their friends, met new people, and share their personal thoughts, and interests. Sharing your thoughts that not everyone agrees to is where the issues start happening. There are people who make a fake profile or trolls that will jump into the conversations to simply be rude.
According to Social Networking ProCon an article published in September 23, 2014 that states positive and negative effects of Social media. ProCon states that students who used social media during the semester had a GPA of 3.06 compared to a student who did not use social media had a GPA of 3.82. In addition to this there are more issues with social media like the following. First as of 2012 there is evidence that social media enables the spread of unreliable and false information. This occurs because of spams and false websites or the misinformation by the source you are reading. The statistic for misinformed via social media is 49.1%. Second, Social networking sites lack privacy and expose users to government and corporate intrusions. No one really takes the time to read all the clauses that companies ask to agree to simply because they are long and lengthy to get through. These clauses state what their privacy settings and how someone can be affected by them, yet no one reads them. Also the National Security Agency, NSA, invades privacy through any technological device we may be using; the government can track us at any given time. Third, Social networking sites can lead to stress and offline relationship problem. In a study done at the University of Edinburgh Business school social media heavy users are more likely to lose the face-to-face contact with their peers and make their friendships end. Fourth, using social media can harm job stability and employment prospects. When an individual applies for a job social media is investigated because job recruiters find 61% profanity, 54% bad grammar/spelling, 78% illegal drugs, 66% sexual content, 47% alcohol pictures, and 26% religious content. When this generation applies for a graduate school of any kind social media shenanigans will appear and may determine the acceptance of the individual, which means this is not only applied to jobs. Fifth, the use of social networking sites is correlated with personality and brain disorders. This includes the inability to have in person conversations, Attention deficiency hyperactive disorder, self-centered personalities, which leads to an individual feeling loneliness, depression, anxiety and general distress. Mental disorders arise from the over use of social networking along with many more harms.
What social gatherings look now-a-days.
Why may parents be concerned of their kids/teens using social media?
Many parents have the worry of their children having a social media or do not worry because to them nothing is wrong with social media and give them too much liberty. There is cyber ethics that not many teens know about or should know about. According to Cybersmart, 13 is the minimum age to use a social media, although the recommend age is 17. At 13 it is proven that children do not have the maturity and what they will share will be somehow of a vent. These kids are seen as exposing themselves to cyberbullying or the world of sexting (ProCon). Parents have every right to protect their children from the web by overseeing what they are doing, managing their privacy settings, and most importantly see who they are friends with or at least making sure they actually know the person. Parents are frightened by when they see in the news when pictures are leaked, or media has been hacked. These events cause fear in parents and it is a wakeup call to talk to their children to be safe in what they are posting (CNN). Parents have the ability to take charge of what is happening in the social media of their children by going on CyberSmart, because on the site teaches a parent how to talk about the dangers of the web to their kids. In addition parents can read on how to detect if their child is being cyberbullied, or is depressed by the use of social media.
Our children are our future therefore taking care of their actions is very important. An article published in 2012 by future of children gives parents a detailed pamphlet of social networking safety. This pamphlet includes what teens minds will say to parents to allow them to use social media, what kind of things children will see on the web, and most importantly how parents can still be involved with their children’s life online. The pamphlet emphasizes on bad choices teens make and how parents can improve those bad choices. They are key points that seem redundant like being selective, responsible, a leader, and not to post any personal information. Even though those aspects are constantly mentioned there are teens who still post information such as their debit card number, and security pin, just like “bae” and many others have done that on twitter. Parents have the fear that their kids will do mistakes that will haunt them for an eternity.
What ages causes issues with social media?
The major issue with social media is the age individuals start using them and expose themselves to other individuals who comment rudely to what other individuals have expressed about. The hype of social media begins at age 13 when a teen is in middle school. According to pew research center and a survey conducted in January 2014 72% of social media users are still in high school. The most active users of social media are between the ages of 18 through 29 ranking an 89% of users. Although most of the users are in a somewhat a college level, most of these individuals have already built a character to be ready to defend themselves as compared to a teen who is barely building their character (CS). Preteens are the ones who are getting affected by the negative aspects of social media since they are ones who find a mean of expressing themselves and someone ends up bashing on them. As the first amendment states we are all entitled to our freedom of speech but we are also entitled that morally some comments are inappropriate and should be reported.
National youth violence prevention resource center estimates that 30% of American youth is either bullied or a target of bullying (SUCC). Ryan Halligan age 13 hung himself after his classmates had bullied him online and in the classroom itself. This happened in 2003 in the state of Vermont. Megan Meier hung herself three weeks before her fourteenth birthday, because of cyberbullying. This occurred in Missouri, in 2006, because of a fake profile created in myspace that lead her on and eventually just insulted her till embarrassment especially because this individual was also a female. Jessica Logan age 18 high school senior hung herself in Alabama after a nude photo of her was leaked through social media. This occurred in 2008 and a year later Hope Sitwell age 13 in Florida hung herself after a picture of her breasts was leaked from her boyfriend. Tyler Clementi age 18 was accused of being gay and blasted on social media as such. His roommate took a photo of him kissing another man to ridicule him on social media which caused Tyler to jump off George Washington’s Bridge in 2010. Amanda Todd age 15 hung herself in British Colombia because of blackmail in 2012. She had been video chatting and exposed her breasts to where a photo was taken to later be leaked on social media driving her to her death and suicide video.
Does cyberbullying still exist?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth people with approximately 4,400 deaths every year. More than 30 percent of these deaths are because of cyberbullying and increasing yearly. Our government has slowly been implementing laws against cyberbullying since freedom of speech is not something that can be controlled. Therefore, the laws of Texas regarding cyberbullying are found in stopbullying, which gives you step by step on what to do against bullying, harassment, and cyberbullying. Federal and state laws have been applied to protect the youth. According to a survey that was conducted at the University of Texas at El Paso more than 50 percent of students have had some sort of cyberbully out of 100 students surveyed. This concludes that the issue is still there and persistent.
The University of Texas at El Paso about two weeks ago brought down their Facebook Confessions page. It will soon be up again, but for now that has been banned from the usage. It had been reported because of some students claiming that they were having issues and wanted to kill themselves and people were encouraging them. In August 17th, 2014 a body was found hanging in the tree at the University of Texas at El Paso in front of their library. This happened right after the news of Robbin Williams suicide. The body found had no sign of foul play and made the correlation suicide, according to the UTEP Prospector, although the family asked for privacy therefore no other information has been released.
In conclusion, even though social media is extremely useful and helpful it may be taking away our youth and time. Social media is now being a negative side effect on humanity than helping them. If we look at our evolution we are now relying and depending on technology rather than using our brain. This can simply be analyzed by how many phone numbers a person actually knows rather than just having them in their contacts. In addition, keep your head up because you might be missing out on what is happening around you because you are too busy on your social media. Wasting precious time on those who love and care about you for being on a mobile device. It is never too late to change.
References:
100 Utep students through survey monkey.
Cable News Network. http://www.cnn.com. (CNN)
CyberSmart. from http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Parents/Cyber issues/Social networking.aspx (CS)
Future of Children. from http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/events/events-050108-willard.pdf (FoC)
Six Unforgettable Cyberbullying Cases. from http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/ (SUCC)
Social Networking Fact Sheet. from http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/ (SNFS)
Social Networking ProCon.org. from http://socialnetworking.procon.org/ (ProCon)
Texas Anti-Bullying Laws & Policies. http://www.stopbullying.gov/laws/texas.html. (TXAB)