Negative Impacts of Social Media Sites

The Negative Impacts of the Popularity of Social Media Sites on Productivity, Attitude,

Relationships and Validation

Mario Pascual

North American University

Negative Impacts of Social Media Sites

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat – these are just a few of the social media sites that

have risen in popularity in the past few years. Along with the developments in technology

came these sites with the primary objective of making communication and socializing easier

for everyone. With the creation of smartphones and faster internet services, these social

media sites are more accessible than ever – especially for the youth who literally grew up

alongside these technology. However, the impact that these social media sites to the youth of

today may be doing more harm than good when it comes to the aspects of productivity,

attitude, relationships, and validation.

Procrastination is a universal problem. Generations past all have their own forms of

procrastinating, be it playing with friends outside or reading a storybook instead of doing

academic work. According to a study entitled The Relationship Between Trait

Procrastination, Internet Use, and Psychological Functioning: Results From a Community

Sample of German Adolescents by Reinecke, et. al. (2018), procrastination poses the same

negative effects to adolescents as to those of adults. The study, however, also strongly notes

that adolescence is a developmental period for humans, and that a successful adulthood may

depend on the quality of adolescence one has. According to the same study, this

procrastination is often linked to excessive use of the internet, particularly social media. With

the seemingly endless features and services that these sites offer, the youth is more distracted

than ever. They get stuck in a Youtube video rabbit hole, they get addicted to in-app games

on Facebook, or even spend hours on Instagram scrolling and watching IG Stories. The non-

stop entertainment veers away their attention from everything else such as their academics

and their house chores. Social media has become a unique excuse for the youth to put off

completing important tasks, a type of extreme procrastination that can only be cured by

extreme self-control and discipline.

Negative Impacts of Social Media Sites

Another problem that arises out of the popular social media sites is cyberbullying.

Considering how easy it is to create an account in these sites, with some of them even

allowing anonymous participation, cyberbullying has become more widespread than ever

before. This feature renders anyone as powerful in the internet world – powerful enough to

incite hate comments and rude statements and to mindlessly drop threats and start rumors and

scandals. A 2016 study entitled Cyberbullying on Social Media Among College Students

(Johnson) concluded that victims of cyberbullying would often have tendencies of self-harm.

Most of them carry the pain as they grow older, further demonstrating the impact

cyberbullying does to someone. Without anyone knowing it, social media has become a

medium wherein bullying happens in a few keyboard taps and a few clicks.

Furthermore, social media sites have at times become a roadblock for relationships, rather

than being a bridge to build stronger propinquities. In an academic article entitled More

Information than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of

Jealousy? (2009), social media has become an avenue for jealousy and infidelity. Due to the

lack of privacy and easy access to another person’s information, the more likely a person

becomes jealous of what he or she sees in his or her significant other’s profiles. Additionally,

people find it relatively effortless to have multiple online relationships. Lake Legal, an

award-winning British law firm, stated that a third of the divorce cases they have are caused

by online infidelities (2018). While one of social media’s objective is to develop fervent

bonds with other individuals, it posits to have the opposite effect.

Lastly, social media has affected a person’s need for validation. In a research entitled

Using Social Media for Social Comparison and Feedback-Seeking: Gender and Popularity

Moderate Associations with Depressive Symptoms (2015), researchers concluded that people

have become vulnerable to negative comparisons with their peers. It was found that people

who have low self-esteem typically compare themselves with what they see online, resulting
Negative Impacts of Social Media Sites

in depressed or depression-prone individuals. Social media has been directly linked to

person’s life that seeking validation in social media platforms is normalized these days.

The rise of social media have affected people’s lives and will continue on in this modern

age. Productivity, cyberbullying, relationships and validation are just a few aspects negatively

influenced by these networking sites. While the steady developme nt of the internet is

inevitable, it is a person’s responsibility to be a rational user of social media sites.

Negative Impacts of Social Media Sites

References

Johnson, L., Haralson, A., Batts, S., Brown, E., Collins, C., Van Buren-Travis, A., &

Spencer, M. (2016). Cyberbullying on Social Media Among College Students. VISTAS.

Reinecke, L., Meier, A., Beutel, M., Schemer, C., Stark, B., Wölfling, K., & Müller, K.

(2018). The Relationship Between Trait Procrastination, Internet Use, and Psychological

Functioning: Results From a Community Sample of German Adolescents. Frontiers In

Psychology, 9. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00913

Muise Amy, Christofides Emily, Desmarias Serge. (2009). More Information than You Ever

Wanted. Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy?

Cyberpsychology & Behavior. 12.

Adam Bulger (2018). Social Media Is Leading to a New Age of Infidelity. Fatherly.

Nesi, J., & Prinstein, M. J. (2015). Using Social Media for Social Comparison and Feedback-

Seeking: Gender and Popularity Moderate Associations with Depressive Symptoms.

Journal of abnormal child psychology, 43(8), 1427–1438. doi:10.1007/s10802-015-

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