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Social Media Its Affects on Relationships

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Submitted By bmccrary06
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<Name> Brandi McCrary
<Course> UNV 104
<Date> March 20, 2016
<Instructor> Megan Castles

Social Media and the Affects it has on Relationships
Welcome to the digital age. Today’s society is constantly logged onto social media sites such as Facebook, twitter or Instagram. It is often over looked how much influence those sites have. They are used regularly throughout people lives, it has practically become part of their routine. Social media keeps people in contact and updated on their relations with family members and other people in their lives. With this contact, many forms of relationships are developed. Social media can affect relationships with friends, family as well as the relationships people have with their own self.
Friends come and go, that is a simple fact of life. While social media has made it easier to stay connected, it has also played a role in tearing friends apart. Social media gives users a sense of belonging, allowing them to stay connected with friends during daily life activities and special occasions. Even though they may not be in the same city or state, giving them the chance to keep old friends and make new ones as well (Baron & Gomez, 2013, p279). This allows one to seek advice and vent to their friends when they are in need of help or just need to release some pent up stress. Venting on social media can sometimes be a bad idea, especially if it is posted publically. A public post can be read by all and those who do not fully understand what is going on can misinterpret the post. Another friend could draw up assumptions about the post and become upset with the party that posted. Which this can lead to a person getting so obsessed with reading a particular post that they can become introverted and become jealous of the people who are posting (Matook & Bala, 2015). Jealously is like a poisonous spider bite, it can keep infecting the relationship until the time comes to treat it and eventually get rid of it completely.
Although friends come and go, family will always be family. This world is a big place and family can be found living in separate areas of the country or even a completely different country. However social media sites and the tools associated with it, has made the world seem a lot smaller. Sooner than later, people will be able to video chat with family members from their social media sites (Magee, IBT 2011). It will be as if they were in the same room. Allowing people to have communication with everyone in the household at one time instead of one person. This can allow the distant family members to feel closer and help those relationships strengthen. (Steijn & Schouten, 2013, P583). On the other hand, a smaller world may not always be a good thing, especially when there are those select few family members, a person would rather not have to deal with or want knowing particular information. The information that is posted online is seen by everyone. While the sites do allow for selection of what is private and what is public. Information still can get back to that person. This could regretfully cause fights or disappointments between family members (Kobayashi & Arita, 2013).
Views of who and what society, friends and family all think that a person should be is posted for all to see and sometimes that can confuse a person and cause them to lose themselves.
Sometimes a person will compare themselves to other users who they believe are their peers. This can lead a person to positively see themselves as better off and increase feelings of self-worth (Bessenoff, 2006). Seeing their peers doing well can motivate one to better as well, and also give them support while doing so. Increasing their self-esteem. However, it can often emphasize things that people cannot do themselves. This leads into a spiral of self-doubt and loathing (Bessenoff, 2006). People will create identities for themselves based on what posts they see, ideas that other people have and take them as their own. They become a chameleon instead of allowing people to see who they truly are. They show and say only what they think others would want to see or hear. Social media is basically used as a mask, a barrier to protect themselves from getting hurt.
Many people will come to realize how constantly using social networks can affect a person’s self-perception, the relationships with family members as well as their friendships. Bringing people together making it a smaller world, but that small world can sometimes feel a little claustrophobic. Friends and family that have not been seen in a while, are now involved in one’s daily life. Helping one feel interconnected and not quite as alone. Depending on how the user partakes in the social networking sites, the effects on the user’s life could ultimately be positive or negative.

References
Baron, L. F., & Gomez, R. (2013). Relationships and connectedness: Weak ties that help social inclusion through public access computing. Information Technology for Development, 19(4), 271-295.
Bessenoff, G. (2006). Can the media affect us? Social comparison, self-discrepancy, and the thin ideal. Psychology of Women Quarterly. 30, 239-251
Kobayashi, J., & Arita, S. (2013). Does social media change societies? The 2012 Japan- Korea joint panel at the annual meeting of the Japan Sociological Society. International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 22, 178-180
Magee, David (2013), How face book and skype are changing social media. International
Business Times.
Matook, S., Cummings, J., & Bala, H. (2015). Are you feeling lonely? The impact of relationship characteristics and online social network features on loneliness. Journal of Management Information Systems, 31(4), 278-310
Steijn, W. M., & Schouten, A. P. (2013). Information sharing and relationships on social networking sites. Cyber psychology, Behavior & Social Networking. 16(8), 582-587

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