The Negative Impact of Social Media on Society
In today’s society, one can not go for long periods of time without finding a way to entertain themselves. Many adolescents are using social media to communicate with one another, varying from across the room to across the world. Social media has become so predominant, that it is now available almost in every technological device. Although it may be a convenient way of communication and keeping in touch with long distance friends, there are many negative impacts of social media, especially on the young generation. Not only is social media slowly taking over many adults’ spare time, but it is also affecting children of all ages. When a baby is crying, adults will usually hand them a cell phone to get them to be quiet, right? This is where all the problems start. Social media is causing many problems to our society’s health including obesity, in social skills required for many jobs, and in the mentalities of the younger children. One of the greatest negative impacts of social networking is causing a rapid increase in the average weight of adolescents, which can be a serious problem in the future. As teenagers sit in front of a computer all day or lay in bed with a cellphone in their hands leads to less time being physically active, causing them to gain weight. Statistics show that childhood obesity has quadrupled over the last thirty years because they chidren are ignoring physical activity. Surprisingly, the most popular social network site, Facebook, was released in 2004, about sixteen years ago. The American Psychological Association experimented the effects of social media on the younger generation and the results were not surprising. Over 1.23 billion people have a Facebook account, and 71% of teenagers in the United States actively use Facebook. In 2015, it was proven that 73% of teenagers in the United States own a smart phone, which means easy access to social media. (pg. 63) The more teenagers drown themselves into networking, the more damage they can do to themselves. Social media is not only bad for physical health, but also for emotional health. Many teenage girls live their lives knowing they will never be as pretty as models that have edited their photos and are wearing pounds of makeup. This not only misleads teenagers into believing they have a negative body image, but this also promotes that if one does not look like the models on social media, then one is forced to believe they are not beautiful enough. Social media affects young female teenager’s mental health, which can lead to depression, anxiety, and self-consciousness. The last way social media has affected the younger generation is by stripping them of their social skills. Many jobs require being able to talk in front of a large crowd or being friendly with one another. According to Heidi Cohen, a researcher on the younger generation, one major requirement that interviewers look for is eye contact (Web. 2015). When teenagers are wasting their valuable time on a computer or a mobile device, they are looking directly at a screen. Statistics show that students are having a hard time with social skills and eye contact, which can be a major problem when one tries to seek for a job. These characteristics can only be established in one by communicating with people in person. Social media has made it really simple to communicate by sending as many texts or messages as possible. An average teenager in the United States sends about fifty text messages daily. If social media did not exist, teenagers would be forced to talk to their friends in person and communicate with strangers which would develop characteristics like eye contact. Without the crucial features that an interviewer looks for, most teenagers are out of luck when looking for a job. Not only has social networking impacted the amount of time people spend in physical contact with each other, but it has also caused deterioration in the ability of young people to effectively communicate with potential employers for entry level positions.
Another impact social media has is promoting violence and providing uncensored comments and videos. Facebook contains many violent fighting videos, and the comments on the videos are all about how the fighters deserved to get punched across the face, little do they know, there are young teenagers on the same site, which provides a negative message to the younger generation. This can lead to more violence in schools, allowing more students to be devalued by removing them from school, stopping them from receiving an education (pg. 62). In the end, the more students that are stopped from learning will only affect all of the world in the future because students now hold the future in their hands. Stopping them from going to school discourages them from being successful and one will always believe they were taken out of school because they do not belong there, even though all children should feel they belong at school. Furthermore, there are many pictures and language that shouldn’t be seen by children, but is public to everyone. Because children of all ages have social media, everything that is available for adults is also available for the children, which can alter the behavior of the youth in a negative way. As one can see, a small action can have a domino affect on an adolescent’s life.
Although social media may also have many positive sides to it as well like sharing family pictures with long distance cousins or building relationships with people that moved away, the negative sides impacts the younger generation more than the positive side. Many people may find social media convenient, but they do not realize how much of their time has been absorbed by networking. Social media can also be very dangerous in the sense of hacking and having your personal life on public for the entire world to see. There have been many cases in which personal photos were taken and fake profiles were made impersonating the person in the photos. A TV show was even released exposing the impersonators and asking for an explanation for why they did what they did. Overall, the younger generation is being hurt badly by social media in health wise, social skills and in altering mentalities of children.

DeAngellis, Tori. "Is Technology Ruining Our Kids? (Vol 49. No. 9)." American Psychological Association, Oct. 2011. Web. Pg. 62-63)

Cohen, Heidi. "2015 US Teen Social Media Use: What You Need To Know - Heidi Cohen." Market Research Insights, 13 Apr. 2015. Web.