Impact of Media on human behavior and attitude

INTRODUCTION

Human being are social bees, they created civilizations, countries, States and societies to stay being
social. Socializing activities included public gatherings and interactions with and within the families or
other groups. As with changing times, humans progressed mentally, physically and technologically,
Internet is one of greatest outcome of the same process. Media was created to cope with socializing
challenges that came with travel and the dispersion of population across the world.

In older times when the connection and interaction suffered due to the lack of technology and
assistance, humans attempted to keep the interaction alive through telegrams, telephone and public
conferences. Internet was a revolution; it changed the way humans interacted with each other. It helped
people who felt isolated and outcaste. Social media platforms and interactions has helped many
businesses and groups to survive, pampered start-ups and contributed in the economy. Social media has
impacted and changed our lives in more than one aspect and became an integrated part of our lives.

Media is a part of the internet assistance that transformed the perspectives towards the worldly affairs
Social media includes the platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

It is a virtual image of the global village and social gatherings, where people across the web can come
together to express themselves, can join different groups online and sustain it as long as they can.

NEED OF STUDY
Social media has impacted our lives both positive and negatively. The users are more aware and well
informed than ever, they know the whereabouts the events taking place in the different parts of the
world. People have accesses to everything on the internet today.

Social media has affected everybody regardless of their age and gender. The parents and grandparents
are more than happy to meet and interact with their old friends on Facebook, everyone joins a family
group on whatsapp and everyone wants to tweet on Twitter and post on Instagram.

Where the close friends used to connect over a conference call to know each other are now limited to
checking each other’s status online.

There is a surge in people, in general, telling everyone around them about something good or bad that
happened to them. There is a phenomenon called 'Highlight reel', this term deals with the achievements
one carries throughout their life. A social media account is like a highlight reel, on an individual level it is
the place where they post about joyful moments and other achievements.
There are no restrictions on sharing posts and stories online. It is a platform where one individual can
feel superior while another inferior at the same time.

OBJECTIVES
Media and social media have become an integral part of our lives, the human behavioral studies needs
to expand it horizons to understand and predict human reactions towards different situations.

Human beings are the most unpredictable beings in the world, but their behavior is relative to the
resources they have and the environment they live in. In a state of crisis different people reacts
differently, on an average people avoid violence and will desire to live in peace and comfort, still they to
face the consequences of the actions of the few.

Humans are also curious beings, they wants to attain information, which is one of the factors behind the
development of media itself. Printing press was invented to print information on a piece of paper,
newspaper. Attaining information is bad but the major point of concern is what people do with the
amount they attain.

Sociology is the study of social changes, causes and consequences. Media played an important role in
changing human lifestyle and behaviors, which led us to study the impact both negative and positive of
media on human behavior and attitude.

HYPOTHESIS
 Media is becoming an inseparable part of our lives, it has changed the way we think and act.
 Should social media networking sites be banned? Is media becoming one of the ills of society?

Impact of media
Media has affected every individual and our society as a whole, both positive and negatively. Some of
the positive impacts are as follows;

Positive Impact
Easy Access

Media no doubt provide us with the unlimited flow to unfiltered flow of information, which makes us
feel knowledgeable and empowered. Internet access has fastened our thinking and working efficiency. It
has expanded our horizons, created new opportunities and raised our expectations for a better future.

Connections: growing business

Social media is a term used to describe the interaction between groups or individuals in which they
produce, share, and sometimes exchange ideas, images, videos and many more over the internet and in
virtual communities. It proved to be a powerful tool to build connections online and businesses runs
over connections, the more people know you the more chances are there for your business to be
known. Social media platform is a savior for many small businesses; it gave them exposure of potential
buyers and possible conversions. This was not only helpful to sellers but also buyers as now they could
access a huge marketplace at the convenience of their home.

Covid 19

The importance of media was growing even before the occurrence of covid-19 pandemic. 2021 was an
eye-opener for the critics of media, during this hardship where everyone was forced to be isolated,
social media was the only source of communication between people, where humans lost their touch
with each other internet assess helped them survive those times. Pandemic showed the power of media
to the world.

Change revolutions

A revolution does not happen in a day it takes time. It happens when an ill of society is recognized by its
people, when they share their problems, ideas and solutions among themselves. Many revolutions
occurred during the age of information, when people started communicating on a huge level. Even
before media information was always there but people lacked the ability to access that information,
hence becoming a subject of dependence to the people who had the access to the information.

Negative
Antisocial or hyper social

The biggest irony of social media is that it’s over use is making people anti-social, contradicting the
original idea behind its origin completely. People who use social media platforms on a daily basis might
be very social online but in reality, they are utilizing the precious family time in chatting, scrolling down
endlessly through various social media platforms instead of talking to people around them, they are
building connections online instead of real life connections.

The study “Hyper natural monitoring: a social rehearsal account of smartphone addiction” suggests

that social media makes us hyper social instead of antisocial.  We may have been looking at social media
use the wrong way; maybe those who never leave their devices alone are not completely anti-social.
Instead, they just want to be watched by others and be monitored in return, as explained by Professor
Samuel Veissiere: a cognitive anthropologist who studies the evolution of today’s culture. According to
him, we have evolved into a social species that demands constant input from others.

Addiction

One of the strongest points to provide its critics with criticism is ‘addiction’. A drug or medicine is only
useful until taken in moderation and for a limited period of time. If the consumption feels too good and
uncontrollable then it needs to be stopped immediately, or else we have face terrible consequences.
Same is the case with social media, at first it seems overwhelming, then interesting, then useful and
then most of the people lose control, but it does not mean we should ban it irrespective of its benefits.
Instead we need to change our approach to it. We should be the one to control it not the vice versa.

One of the major causes of addiction is the way people relate to a particular subject, people start taking
those things seriously only when they feel emotionally connected to the subject. Many people takes
there social media presences more seriously than it has to be, after that a series of low self-esteem,
anxiety, depression follows and its worse when it combines with the ongoing situation of addiction is
there. This is why people are to be made aware of the dark side of using social media.

This whole situation can be better if people stop finding their worth online and focus on their inner self
first by knowing themselves, practicing self-help and building healthy relationships with people around
them.

Crimes

Social media has created a small world, where people can connect with anything, anyone, and anywhere
at any given time. Assessing to information was never this easy, but this blessing is in twofold, social
media has also promoted significant amount of crimes online. Everything we post only stays under the
risk of getting leaked. Hackers are more active than ever. That is why social media platforms are to be
encrypted in a way to protect the privacy of their users. Leaked information can led to anxiety,
insecurity, panic attacks in the victims. Users can also be blackmailed and bullied online.

These crimes come under cyber-crimes, and it is growing day by day resulting in more victims every
hour. Most of the people are unaware of their cyber rights which help those hackers to commit those
crimes.

Precaution is the best cure here, read the guidelines properly before signing up for any of the social
media account. Know your online privacy rights. Report and seek instant help whenever facing any
misconduct online.

Health issues

Everyone wants to be healthy, confident, feel good about themselves and be on social media. As we
generally assume that everyone online already owns those treasures of life which are definitely not true.

People constantly compare themselves with others, which led to low self-esteem and depression.
Immaturity and wrong emotional attachment are one of the causes. It may promote substance abuse,
unsafe sexual practices, aggressive and self-destructive behaviors in teenagers. This is contradictory the
main purpose they have joined the social media at the first place.
Social media detox, spending the time with your loved ones and seeking mental help is one of the way
out. Building a healthy distance and perspective towards social media is very crucial for your health.

FACEBOOK DEPRESSION- A case study

According to Jacob Amedie, Santa Clara University, Several researchers have proposed a new
phenomenon called “‘Facebook depression’, he also added,” Depression is one of the inadvertent
consequences of excessive social media usage”

STUDY AND ANALYSIS

 A journal published on 31 December, 2018, “Vol. 7 No. 2 (2018): The Journal of Social Media in
Society”, which stated that,” Results of an online survey with a total of 146 students revealed
that inspiring social media and online video use, but not overall time spent on social media was
related to everyday experiences of gratitude, awe, vitality, prosocial motivations and prosocial
behaviors, but not connectedness.”
 In ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter Volume 19, Issue 1-June, 2017. It is stated that the
spread of fake news is an serious issue as it let to false alarms and chaos in the society.
 “The rise of social media” by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina September 18, 2019, showing the rise in
media use.

CONCLUSION
Media has changed our lives drastically, so much that we cannot imagine our lives without it. Although
media is two folded, and no matter how hard we try to eradicate the ills it will always come back. Media
has impacted the way humans think and interact with each other.

So it is better to educate yourselves about the working of social media platforms. Stay cautious of false
and misleading information. Spread awareness about right to privacy and cyber-crimes can be helpful.

Media is an inseparable part of our lives; it is growing now and will continue to grow more in future. It
has made our lives so much easier and convenient. Today Media is so powerful that quitting is not an
option anymore. Many ill of society already existed before the immergence of Media, it has only
enhanced the occurrence of the crimes both online and offline.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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https://jogamayadevicollege.ac.in/uploads/1586537545.pdf

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https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=engl_176

https://www.thejsms.org/index.php/JSMS/article/view/381

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3137597.3137600