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Jalen Ramiro

Stanard

English 1201

8 August 2021

Social Media Effects

Social media has taken over the world. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

were made to make it easier for people to connect, but its continuous use has created problems

with many people's social skills and mental health. When looking around everywhere, people’s

faces are likely buried in their phones and what has come from it. These distractions and other

lifestyles people see on social media have caused mental issues and lower self-esteem. Not only

that but the social skills of this generation are on an exponential decline. With the advancement

of technology, only one can hope it doesn’t get worse.

Before the creation of social media, the way many people communicated with each other

was through calling or writing letters to each other. That is until technology started becoming

more advanced with the creation of computers and the internet. Internet relay chats, or IRCs,

were first used in 1988 and continued to be used through the 90’s. This led to the creation of one

of the first social networking sites, Six Degrees, that let people create a profile and become

friends with other users which is now the basis for many other social media platforms. The early

2000’s saw the creation of sites like MySpace and LinkedIn setting the trend for many other

platforms that would come out years after. This includes YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter which

are all still used today with more and more users joining.
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According to Datareportal, as of July 2021 over 4.4 billion people around the world use

social media which is over half the people on the planet. The amount of influence and power

these platforms have is scary to think about not mentioning the average time spent on these sites.

Social media is one of the most distracting and time consuming things for a person to do.

Procrastination is nothing new but the new technology has created more ways for students and

others to not complete their work. When students study or do homework, it’s too easy to look

down at their phone to look at instagram or watch a youtube video. This creates that circle of

looking down at the phone and losing focus at what they are doing, making it hard to complete

things in an efficient and timely manner. Research conducted by Stop Procrastinating, an app,

surveyed 1500 undergraduate students and found “that 51 percent of students admit to losing at

least an hour of productivity a day to social media and internet distraction. About 44 percent of

those polled were worried about the overall quality of their work decreasing due to
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procrastination caused by the internet”. This is something many can relate to and it isn’t going to

get any easier.

In 6 Ways Social Media Affects Our Mental Health by Alice Walton, the main reasons

social media are affecting people are because: it’s addictive, causes less well being, makes

people compare themselves to others, jealousy, people think it will make them feel better, and

the illusion that more followers means their more social. One of the points emphasized is that

people believe social media will make them feel better. Like a drug people chase for that high or

feeling they get when they use it and when they don’t get it they feel terrible. Same goes for the

use of social media. People open their phones thinking they’ll feel better but end up feeling

worse. That’s where the addiction comes into play as well. People keep going back to it creating

this cycle of effects.

One of the most recent sources that has come out on the effects of social media is the

Netflix Documentary The Social Dilemma that consists of interviews with tech experts and

former employees of major platforms such as Facebook. Many of them state their companies

developed technology that effectively manipulates the human psyche. That is why all these

people are becoming addicted to social media. It's all a business model, more people on their site

equals more money. Daniel Hövermann said something that resonates well on this topic, “If

you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product”. People’s attention is worth so much

money and many social media companies are taking advantage of it. A study was conducted by

Phil Reed at Swansea University about the withdrawal effects of using the internet and social

media. The study found that people experienced the physiological effects of withdrawal when

they stopped using the internet which is commonly found with people who are addicted to
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something. This addiction is not only hurting our society but may cause the opposite of what

social media was created to do, disconnecting people from the real world.

Shying away from addiction and more so on the social side of things, Tristan Harris,

former design ethicist at Google and co-founder of Centre for Humane Technologies mentioned

in the documentary, “We’re training and conditioning a whole new generation of people that

when we are uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid we have a digital pacifier for

ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with that”. A digital pacifier is a great

word to describe what this rise in social media has done. Everyone has found this comfort in

looking at their phones that, when presented with an uncomfortable situation, then they

immediately start looking at their phones.

Also in Social media's growing impact on our lives by Summer Allen and How Using

Social Media Affects Teenagers by Rachel Ehmke dive into the idea of social displacement.

Once again this time spent on social media is reducing the amount of “face to face” time with

other individuals and deteriorating people’s social skills. Now because of this “kids are missing

out on very critical social skills… it puts everybody in a nonverbal disabled context, where body

language, facial expression, and even the smallest kinds of vocal reactions are rendered

invisible” (Ehmke). Those little social cues like body language are learned through meeting

people face to face. If everyone is using social media to “connect” with other people then their

skills in the real world are terrible. It seems like kids these days aren’t even able to talk to a wall

or even keep a conversation going because of the circumstances they live in.

Another prevailing issue from the use of social media is with people’s mental health. In

Effects of admiration of others on social media fatigue: Loneliness and anxiety as mediators by

Yupeng Chen, “according to a report by Kantar (2019), between 2017 and 2018 the number of
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users in China who thought social media had a negative impact on their lives increased by 4%,

and the number of those who experienced negative emotions as a result of seeing other users’

happy behavior increased by 10%”. This ties in with Alice’s idea of social media promoting

jealousy between people. When someone sees another person living this extravagant lifestyle, all

people tend to wish for the same. Same with how people look on social media. There is this

standard that social media creates with what the perfect person looks like and that’s why many

people have this lower self esteem about themselves. This continuous comparison people are

doing everyday is exhausting and isn’t good for the mind. J. Cole's song “Love Yourz” embodies

what people’s mindset should be. There’s always going to be someone out there that has more

but true happiness won’t come until they love what they have and be grateful.

The creation of social media was made to make it easier for people to "connect" around

the world. And it hasn’t been easier to communicate and see what’s going on with people around

the world. But it seems it is working to do the opposite of connecting. The rise of social media

has created a society that is addicted to their phones creating many negative effects. With people

constantly looking at their phones they are disconnecting from this reality. Face to face

communication is becoming a lost art and people’s mental health is coming into question.

Hopefully people find a way to overcome this addiction as the technology is constantly evolving.
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Works Cited

Allen, Summer. "Social Media's Growing Impact on Our Lives." American Psychological

Association. American Psychological Association. Web. 12 July 2021.

Chen, Y., Zhu, Y., & Jiang, Y. (2021). Effects of admiration of others on social media

fatigue: Loneliness and anxiety as mediators. Social Behavior & Personality: An

International Journal, 49(6), 1–10.

Ehmke, R. (2021, May 10). How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers. Child Mind

Institute. https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/.

Lenhart, Amanda. "Social Media and Teen Friendships." Pew Research Center: Internet,

Science & Tech. Pew Research Center, 31 Dec. 2019. Web. 12 July 2021.

Lincoln, Caesar. Social Media Addiction: The Ultimate Guide to Finally Overcoming

This Time. Förenta Staterna: Caesar Lincoln, 2015. Print.

McDavid, Jodi (2020) "The Social Dilemma," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 24 : Iss.

1 , Article 22.

Morford, Rachel. "Social Media Cited as Largest Source of Procrastination." The

Huntington News. 08 Sept. 2016. Web. 23 July 2021.

Valsesia, F., Proserpio, D., & Nunes, J. C. (2020). The Positive Effect of Not Following

Others on Social Media. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 57(6), 1152–1168.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022243720915467
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Vorhaus, M. (2020, June 25). People Increasingly Turn To Social Media For News.

Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikevorhaus/2020/06/24/people-increasingly-turn-

to-social-media-for-news/?sh=7644b54b3bcc.

Walton, A. (n.d.). 6 Ways Social Media Affects Our Mental Health.

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/59203557/6_Ways_Social_Media_Affects_Our_M

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