Social media are not entirely good, there are so many threats caused by it. As time goes on, more and more people become dependent on the internet. They use the internet as the main means of their social interactions such as chatting with friends, documenting their lives, playing online games, or visiting online dating sites to meet new people. Indeed, some people argue that the Internet is the best way to meet new friends, especially if you are the type of person who is always busy and does not have time to socialize with people around. So, why do some people want to have social media? what are the threats of social media?
A new Pew Research Centre survey for teenagers who are using social media revealed that social media can help them feel more connected with their friends, and social networks can also help them interact with more diverse groups of people and make them feel as if they have a support system during hard times. Furthermore, when they are asked about what they feel after playing social media most of them report that they feel more positive. However, along with the benefits offered by social media, they cannot ensure that social media provides reliable information. In addition, there are also a large number of schools that are starting to require students to have social media to make it easier for them to get important information in schools such as assignments and others. Therefore, if they do not have social media it is certain that they will miss a lot of important information in their school. This is the reason why many parents worry that it will adversely affect the development of their children.
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According to research conducted by We Are Social, a British media company working with Hootsuite, as many as four billion people from around the world are social media users. Social media turns out to be able to make many people addicted to it. By using social media, we can spend many hours looking at our cell phones. Unfortunately, this social media addiction can hurt our psychology such as obsession, ambition, and self-deception. Many people are ultimately obsessed with doing or getting something just because they see other people get it on social media. Some people can even deceive themselves and have different personalities on social media which is certainly a bad psychological problem.
There are so many cases caused by social media addiction. An example is a case from Aol.com, 'Man Fired Twice Over Twitter Addiction'. The man named Larry Carlat was very addicted to the Social Media platform called Twitter, he played it every morning, afternoon, evening, and night to the point that he couldn't manage the time to work and play with his family. Consequently, his wife filed for divorce and also, and he was finally fired from his job because he often skipped work. He claimed to have reached the highest stress level when his son threatened to unfollow his Twitter account. From this case, we can see that social media addiction not only harms ourselves but also can harm others.
Researchers say social media can lead to feelings of social isolation if viewing it as 'social experiences in the real world,' causing feelings of not being invited after seeing photos of friends having fun at events they are not invited to, or can make us think that other people have happier or more successful lives because often they describe the ideal life on their social media. Many social media users also end up not having the time to interact with the people around them.
After knowing the effects of social media, we know that even though social media has many positive impacts, there will still be people who use social media badly which eventually causes some negative impacts. Hence, we as young people and parents have to use social media wisely so that social media can be beneficial and not have a bad effect on its users. Social media should not be a substitute for social interaction, we must balance the time spent in the real world and the virtual world.