Research Essay
The introduction of the internet and social media has led to the development of new behaviors and habits in the online world. Social media has affected social relationships in the form that every human connection, including dating, is based in the digital world. The inception of the concept of online social platforms was meant to bring everyone closer. However, the growth of social sites has also created vices that many children and teenagers are facing daily. Negative associations, such as bullying, addiction, and pornographic content, have stained social media. The growth of the three factors has increased ambivalence among parents over the usefulness and benefits of social media. The apprehension that parents hold comes from the fact that they cannot control what their children do on the internet. The qualms created by the internet have necessitated the need for policies that warrant parental supervision on all social media sites.
Social media has transformed the general outlook that people have towards relationships since it broke into the online world in 2004, with Facebook leading the front. From 2004, the company has grown to the extent that it acquired other social sites such as Instagram and Whatsapp. The exponential growth of the company prompted human behaviorists and psychologists to lock the site in a bid to learn more about human relationships (Mcandrew and Jeong 2359). The two authors note the effect that social media has had on social interaction.“ Facebook activity has puzzling and contradictory effects on social interaction. It apparently satisfies many of our interpersonal intimacy needs, but at the same time it diverts us from genuine face-to-face interaction with others”(Mcandrew and Jeong 2359). Children engage in conversations and develop relationships online at the expense of face-to-face interaction. Consequently, timid and shy individuals turn to Facebook as a tool for creating connections and friendships. However, Mcandrew and Jeong add: “Individuals who are shy or low in self-esteem clearly recognize the potential of Facebook as a vehicle for increasing social connection, but it is unclear at this time if they benefit from access to online friendship networks.” The uncertainty created shows how people associate social media sites with both good and bad effects on individuals.
The increase in social media interaction has led to the development of vices, such as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying takes different forms that teenagers characterize by the use of different names such as drama, gossip, or trolling. Bullying is primarily characterized as aggressive behavior towards people or individuals as a result of personal issues that the individuals find hard to express. Most teenagers do not realize the effects of their actions on other individuals since they view the behavior as usual. Most high school students do not view gossip, spreading rumors, or embarrassing each other as bullying. “Whereas adults might have labeled many of these practices as bullying, teens saw them as drama.” Parents view such behavior as harmful since bullying leads to tragic impacts on children. Affected children find it hard to cope with social situations, and the victims often change schools to avoid the embarrassment of facing their peers after humiliation on online platforms. In worst cases, the victims end up committing suicide or self-harming to express their frustration at such treatment.
The harshest point of social media is the extent to which it has normalized certain activities, making it difficult for individuals to understand whether they are being bullied or not.
” Those involved in the drama do not have to see themselves as aggressive or weak but simply as part of a broader—and, often, normative—social process.” Normalization of cruelty and harsh behavior on social media has made it difficult for children to realize how they hurt their friends. Parents become concerned about their children, although they themselves do not feel as if online bullying is bullying. The difference in views creates conflicting views about what should be normalized as social behavior or not.
Parents are also concerned about the level of addiction that children suffer from as a result of using social media at all times. Teenagers consistently log on their profiles at any time that they get a chance. They do not care about the consequences of their behavior or how it affects their overall lifestyle. A conversation between two friends who decided to quit addiction to social media shows the extent to which social media affects the lives of its users.” This is stupid, and it’s having control of my life, and I don’t want that with anything.”Social media controls the lives of its users, mainly when they use the internet without regulations. The users go for hours on their beds without getting sleep. In some way, social media dictates how children behave and the actions that they take. Their actions make parents wonder about the effects of the sites that they use.” When talking about teens’ engagement with social media, many adults use the concept of addiction to suggest that teens lack control.” Parents use the idea of addiction as the primary concern when it comes to limiting the usage of social media.
Social media has led to poor sleeping patterns among its consumers. The unpredictable poor sleeping patterns are because of the addiction. Most of social media consumers always spend a lot of their time chatting up to the wee hours of the night. Because of the day’s engagements that are always fixed, one will not afford enough time to get a night of healthy sleep. The article (Lau, 2017), says, “Our sleeping patterns are being affected by the social media, the sleeping is not now enjoyable because the social media has taken it by force.” Poor sleeping patterns affect our general health, and this may result in mental disorders. The poor sleeping pattern also causes poor concentration in the workplace. A person who had had a limited amount of sleep is not flesh but rigid, and he or she cannot formulate concrete ideas. For one to perform effectively, one must have a meaningful amount of sleep. Overconsumption of social media has caused poor sleeping patterns that have many implications.
It has been observed that the use of social media precipitate sadness. As people consume social media, the less happy they become. This situation is because of the isolation that social media users create as a result of the addition linked to social media. A research conducted by Brooks showed that social media used caused 40% of sadness experienced by individuals. As the mastermind of the article (Brooks 33), says that “social media is ever-increasing the cases of sadness in our world each and every day. “ The self-ingrained catastrophe has placed youths at an edge where they feel rejected and ignored. Such implications have caused deaths in the form of suicide. Moreover, parents find it hard to cope with the sadness experienced by their children. Before the introduction of social media and when the children were too young to use social media, parents found it easy to communicate and relate with activities that their children performed.
Social media has affected the performances of students in schools. It has been noted that students are really performing poorly as a result of the unregulated use of social media. Social media has caused the students to develop a spirit of procrastination. The children waste time on social media instead of studying or concentrating in classes. The level of students’ performance in school is closely related to the amount of study time. The article ( Hudson, 2015) says that “Social media is killing our education system if no one will intervene we will cry forever.”Parents find it hard to persuade their children to study or concentrate in class without forbidding their children from using the internet. Furthermore, poor study habits are also associated with cyberbullying. Students fall into depression or anxiety from social media bullying. The depression and anxiety make it difficult for the students to study when their mind is not at peace.
Social media has led to the development of mental disorders. The unhealthy mental conditions occur when people compare their appearance to that of others. There has been a lot of advertisement on the property that people own on social media. Social media users portray lavish lifestyles in the form of classic vehicles and costly houses that they own. Such portrays cause teenagers to have a craving for their lifestyle. The desire causes the teenagers to indulge themselves in anything oblivious of ethics to get what they want. Other teenagers force their parents to purchase the items for them to post pictures on social media. However, not all families can afford expensive clothes or jewelry. Children who lack access to lavish accessories develop stress, which may result in depression. The patients also develop low self-esteem for their inability to afford the items, yet their friends own the things. Kim (42) says, “People are dying because of fake comparison with celebrities whose means of acquiring wealth is questionable.” It is with no doubt that such bogus comparison can cause permanent damage to the brain and even death of children. The inability of parents to prevent the onset of the desires causes parents unwanted stress.
Social media has also sold a fake idea that the number of likes or comments one person’s post directly translate to the social skills that they have. The purported illusion is futile of some logic. The number of friends that one has on Facebook is not proof of how social one is. Virtual friends cannot feel the void of human physical interaction. Human sociability is only measurable by how a person interacts with people (Valenzuela et al., 2014). If one has poor emotional intelligence, they can have many friends on Facebook but very few friends in the real world. Facebook and other social media platforms create a fantasy world that always gives a false impression that one is popular, while this is not the case. Many youths waste their time making friend requests to people they know not, and most probably, they might not meet in the future. Such undertakings create questions in the mind of parents, primarily when their children start being affiliated with unruly clicks on social media. Moreover, the search for approval and friendships on social media causes users to indulge in behavior that their parents would not approve of. Children end up taking nude and semi-nude pictures to attract the highest number of likes and comments on their posts.
Conversely, not all aspects of social media are negative. Social media has helped youths develop meaningful connections with foreign people who turn out to become genuine friends. Some adults also met their partners on social media, and they ended up married. Social media has also provided an opportunity for people to remain connected regardless of the distance between them. Furthermore, social media has also opened up opportunities for students to access scholarships and participate in meaningful projects.
Overall, the negatives associated with social media use among children necessitate the development of policies that approve parental regulation on social media. Social media has led to the glorification of bullying, disturbance of sleeping patterns, addiction, and the development of mental illnesses. Parents are forced to create accounts to watch their children. However, their offspring find ways of hiding their behavior on social media by creating multiple accounts or blocking their parents on the sites. The development of regulations would help parents monitor their child’s behavior while they are still under 18years. Parents could significantly limit the adverse effects of social media, such as addiction and cyberbullying. Children will also learn to be responsible for their actions on the internet.
References
Brooks, Stoney. “Does personal social media usage affect efficiency and well-being?.” Computers in Human Behavior 46 (2015): 26-37.
Hudson, Simon, et al. “The effects of social media on emotions, brand relationship quality, and word of mouth: An empirical study of music festival attendees.” Tourism Management 47 (2015): 68-76.
Kim, Seunghyun, et al. “Effects of social media on firm value for US restaurant companies.” International Journal of Hospitality Management 49 (2015): 40-46.
Lau, Wilfred WF. “Effects of social media usage and social media multitasking on the academic performance of university students.” Computers in human behavior 68 (2017): 286-291.
Mcandrew, Francis T., and Hye Sun Jeong. “Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use.” Computers in Human Behavior 28.6 (2012): 2359-2365.
Valenzuela, Sebastián, Arturo Arriagada, and Andrés Scherman. “Facebook, Twitter, and youth engagement: A quasi-experimental study of social media use and protest behavior using propensity score matching.” International Journal of Communication 8 (2014): 25.