Poordehghan 1

Pegah Poordehghan
Professor Rosenfeld
English 113B
6 May 2015
So Helpful yet so Dangerous
How can something so helpful that is used daily be so dangerous? It is always the
things we enjoy that harm us the most. Social media is a tool that every individual uses to
stay connected with one another. However all of individuals forget about all the
psychological and physiological negative effects that it can have. Social media has been
around longer than imagined. According to the article by Erica Cerulo, in 1971 was when
the first email was sent between two computers, one meter apart. As well as in 1997 was
when AOL Instant Messenger was introduced and was used to keep in contact with
people you previously knew and where you were able to meet new people. The AOL
Instant Messenger was the very first chat room. Nonetheless it is only in the last decade
where social media has developed the most and has been used the most. It has truly made
a difference, and transformed the way individuals connect and keep in touch. In the
article, The History of Social Media and its Impact on Business, the history of social
media is portrayed. According to the article, In the year 2000 was when many social
networking sites ease interaction with people that share common interest (Watson). It is
only in the last 15 years where social media has really become available and accessible to
most people. Even though social networking websites have been around since 1971,
Myspace, was the first most popular form of social media. Myspace was the first initial
form of social networking; it was created in Beverly Hills, and became well known, but
was eventually overtaken in 2008 by Facebook (Watson). Although some may believe

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social media is the new way to interact and socialize, the use of social media has made
having face-to-face conversations much more difficult, and led to some physiological and
psychological effects, such as, not being able to focus, the inability to read a book, or do
homework. Furthermore, it has made it easier for people to establish fake identities and
hide behind it. Nonetheless it has also made it very easy to bully someone and stalk his or
her personal life.
Although some say that social media is fantastic and can make socializing much
more easier and global; I argue that it can create negative psychological effects. By
constantly using a phone or a laptop to communicate with peers, it causes for people to be
less social in person. It becomes much harder for an individual to have a face-to-face
conversation with the person in front of them because they are not used to talking.
Physically and mentally it is hard for them to verbally talk to someone and communicate.
According to the article Dealing with Side Effects of Social Media, social media has
many negative side effects. In the article it is mentioned that, It feels like the human life
has lost its sanctity (Dosari). This is very true, the fact that it is complicated for people
to have face-to-face conversations; it displays how the importance of life is destroyed.
Due to the constant use of social networking, the way a person meets another person, and
their relationship, it is completely artificial rather than natural. Some people have more
friends online, and a reason can be because it is easier to talk to someone over a text
message or a direct message rather than communicating in person. In the article
Facebook, the Mean Girls and Me, written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, the author
mentions a story of a very artificial friendship. She stopped being friends with her middle
school friends however she reunited with them through Facebook. She was able to find

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all of them and now she is friends with them on Facebook. Social media and social
networking lets you be friends with people you would not normally talk to or keep in
contact. It creates this very artificial friendship that is based on Lols and likes (554).
This is considered a fake friendship due to the fact that if Facebook was not a factor in
connecting people together these individuals would not even bother to keep in touch
with one another. Even now, being friends on Facebook, there is no real meaning behind
their friendship, all there is likes but that is not what a real friendship is about.
Facebookinpopularcultureisdeemedmerelyascompetitionbetweenpeopleastowho
hasthemostfriendsorwhogetsthemostlikestherefore,justifyingFacebookasbeinga
reliablesourceinestablishinglonglastingfriendshipsisunrealistic
Some may argue that social media is a great way to find information and answers;
however it can get in the way of studying, homework, and being productive. It can
interfere with quality time with family and friends because everyone is too busy checking
their social media accounts and their phones. As seen in this visual, social media can
intervene way more than wanted. This image portrays how a student genuinely wants to
focus on school and do his work, however Facebook is distracting him. In this image, the
Facebook logo is personified, and in a way looks a like kid who really needs attention.
This image illustrates that even if a person wants to do their work, social media is so
strong and powerful that it can pull a person away from their work. As a student myself,
this has happen to me thousands of times. It has taken me twice the time to finish an
assignment because of the distraction that social media creates. What I concluded from
the survey that was done is class, was that social media while doing homework also
distracts 95% of the students in this class. As well as 30% of them have five or more

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social accounts, which creates more procrastination, because checking each social
network takes time. It really makes it hard to focus on a task. In the article Is Google
Making Us Stupid?, by Nicholas Carr, he mentions how he realizes his mind does not
take in information the same way it did before all the access to internet. He mentions,
they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing (533). This is something
that social media has created; it has led to people to be less focused. In the article, it talks
about Literature majors who love reading and writing, but yet they have trouble reading
because social media has taken away their focus and attention span. They have trouble
doing what they love because of the strength that social media has over them.
To some people, social media is a great way to be aware and updated, however it
can lead to some very heartbreaking and dangerous endings, some very heartbreaking
issues hat are caused by social media are bullying and stalking. Some major
psychological issue caused my social media
is stalking. Andrew Lam, the author of I
Tweet, Therefore I Am: Life in the Hall of
Mirrors believes tweeting, which is a form
of social media is a way to broadcast your
own life. According to the article, a young
woman who was being stalked would tweet
about her life (540). She would tweet about
her own death without even realizing it and essentially broadcasted her own death and
what led up to it. She cared more about her social sites and letting her followers know
what is happening in her life rather than taking serious action and reporting her stalker.

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With people posting pictures and statues about where they are and what they are doing, it
makes it way simpler for someone else to follow their every move and stalk them without
the other person realizing. Unfortunately, sometimes, it can lead to incidents such as the
one that happened to the young girl. She ended up being murdered by her stalker. Social
networking can cause a person to become very obsessed with another individual, which
can be the cause of the psychological problem. Sadly, another very harmful activity that
is very common is cyber bullying. A very ordinary way to easily cyber bully someone is
through starting rumors. In the article When Bullying Goes High-Teach by Elizabeth
Landau, she explains a story of young boy who was cyber bullied because of rumors.
Brandon Turley was new in his school and did not have friends. Later on he discovered
that students from his new school have posted a bulletin- a message visible to multiple
people (Landau). In that bulletin the students that have never even spoken to him stated
that he was a fag. Other students that he also never had contacted with commented that
they agreed with the statement. This false rumor started problems for Brandon Turley.
StudentswouldapproachBrandonandtellhimextremelyharshthingssuchas,stop
comingtoschoolnoonewantsyouhere,anditwouldbebetterforeveryoneifyoujust
killedyourself which is an example of a negative outcome social media has on young
teens (Landau).Brandonfortunatelywasstrongenoughtoputasidethehateful
commentsandriseabovethenastyremarksandfightthroughthisbecauseusuallyin
situationsliketheseteensarefragileandeasilybrokendown,drivingthemtosuicideto
endtheirsufferingbecausetheyfeelthereisnowayout.
Although social networking has its own positive effects, it still has major negative
effects, as well as psychological and physiological effects. Social media can lead to a

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fake identity, procrastination, stalking, cyber bullying, and much more artificial
relationships. It makes it a lot easier for a person to lie to someone else because they have
a screen to hide behind. Social networks make it very simple for someone to follow your
every move, and that can lead to stalking, and later resulting in dangerous endings. Social
media also takes away a huge time that can be used for being productive. Instead of being
useful and productive, a person just lays and stares at their phone instead of reading a
book or helping a family member out. Social media is very influential and can lead to
students to do something they usually would not do, for example assuming a rumor they
heard online is true and bully that student for it. It is so strange to see something so
powerful that can be helpful and yet so harmful. The best way to prevent the negative
effects of social media is to manage your time properly while on the sites, and to not have
too many social media account to distract you from your daily routines.

WorksCited

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BrodesserAkner,Taffy."Facebook,theMeanGirlsandMe."Dialogues.8thed.New
Jersey:Pearson,2015.554.Print.
Cerulo,Erica."TheHistoryOfSocialMedia.WhenDidItReallyBegin?YouMayBe
Surprised.[Infographic]."TheInquisitrNews.N.p.,n.d.Web.04May2015.
Dealing with side effects of social media. (2014, Sep 02). Arab News
Edosomwan, Simeon, Sitalaskshmi Kalangot Prakasan, Doriane Kouame, Jonelle
Watson, and Tom Seymour. "The History of Social Media and Its Impact on
Business." Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 16.3 (2011):
79.
Lam, Andrew. "I Tweet, Therefore I Am: Life in the Hall of Mirrors." Dialogues. 8th ed.
New Jersey: Pearson, 2015. 540. Print.
Landau, Elizabeth. "When Bullying Goes High-tech - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News
Network, n.d. Web. 03 May 2015.