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Zijing Zhao
Professor Lewis
English 113A
December 11, 2015
Social Media Applications are negatively affecting us
Social media applications are very common for the society now days. The definition of
social media is mobile applications that users can create and share content to friends or other
peoples in social networking. Social media apps are not tools to communicate with others but it
only allows content to be shared with others. Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are the three most
well-known social media apps in todays society. I use Instagram and snapchat to see what is
going on with my friends and I use twitter to look at current news trends. All of us are affect by
social media apps, most of my friends are using these three social media apps. Social media apps
are taking over the role of newspaper. Social media apps are bad for people because it negatively
affects us, social media apps has taken over face-to-face interactions, affect people reading
others emotion, it affects people daily life style, cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and giving
wrong news update.
Not many peoples are using face-to-face interaction to communicate because they think
that its not important. According to Forbes magazine, only 7% of communication is based on
the verbal word. That means that over 90% of communication is based on nonverbal cues
(Jones). The author use these stats show us that only 7% of communication is being used for
face-to-face, ninety percent is using nonverbal cues, meaning that almost all of us do not
communicate through face-to-face interactions. The number will be continue to go up day by

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day, more people are going use social media apps and less face-to-face interactions. Now a days,
people communicate more on social media apps than traditional interactions. There needs to be
a constant reminder that face-to-face interaction must remain a staple in our society because it is
of a much higher quality and has the ability to satisfy so many more of our inherent social needs
(Jones). People are still saying that face-to-face interactions have higher quality than
communication on social media. I agree with that; face-to-face interaction can let us see peoples
reaction and it give us more thoughts or feelings which a person is experiencing. We think social
media apps cant do what traditional interaction can do. Face-to-face interaction can explain our
situation more clearly and in an honest way. We dont like talking to people on social media
apps, its like talking to a robot, and we cant see how other peoples feeling or reaction when we
just see bunch of text through social media apps.
Face to face interactions can help people read other peoples emotions. UCLA scientists
found that sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or
other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from
the same school who continued to spend hours each day looking at their electronic devices
(Wolpert). The author said that reading emotion can help people to communicate easier, when we
talk with people on social media apps, we dont know others emotion look like and that will
make it harder to communicate. Many peoples like to see peoples different emotion, which can
let us communicate more clearly. Weve shown a model of what more face-to-face interaction
can do, Greenfield said. Social interaction is needed to develop skills in understanding the
emotions of other people (Wolpert). Understanding peoples emotion can led to big success in
future. On the social media apps we just need to send a :) to understand that is a smile, but we
cant see what the person is thinking about and their facial expression. We like to use emoji as

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well, but emoji cant replace facial expression. Kids who spend more time engaging with a
screen than with other kids or adults can struggle to understand emotion, created strong
relationships or become more dependent on others (Johnson). Many children are using IPads to
play games instead of going outside to exercise or hangout with others. This problem will start
on your younger age and will carry on for the rest of their life. As communicating on social
media apps become more popular, face to face interaction will disappear and people no longer
can read other peoples emotion. I suggest that peoples should stop using social media apps to
communicate with others and start to use more face-to-face reaction.
Social media apps have made a big change on our lives because we uses it every day.
Social media apps have already replace talking face to face. 99% of all Americans own a
cellphone as of 2014 and 81% used their phones to send or receive text messages (Johnson).
This stats tell us that every American have a cell phone and most of them use their phone to
communicate. Teens spend more times on social media apps than talking verbally. When I
walking on the school hallway during lunch break, I saw that most people were looking at their
phone. Before the class start, most people were using their phone to communicate with others,
instead talking to their classmate, thats become a habit for them. When I wake up every day, I
always go online to check my Twitter and Instagram status, which has become everyday habit for
me. Its hard to change this daily lifestyle because when I wake up, I want to see what is going
on the world or on my friend, so its very hard to change it.
Cyberbullying are being happened on social media apps, mostly on Twitter. On Oxford
Dictionaries, the definition of cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully a
person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature. Cyberbullying
can just start with a comment on the post. Cyberbully can get into big effects for the victims, the

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effects of cyberbully can have great risk of suicidal thoughts, and complete suicide. For example,
I was cyberbullied before on Twitter about two years ago. I posted a video about basketball, one
guy came to my post and said that my basketball skills were bad, and he also said that: if I were
you, I would deleted the video and dont post anything again with basketball. When I saw that
comment, I reported that guy and blocked him. This incident was on my mind about few hours
and I didnt keep that on my mind and let it affect me. However, there is many examples of
people died that commit suicide cyberbully. We should stop using or set a time limit on using
social media apps to prevent cyberbullying happen.
Snapchat is an application that send or post photo message and video to a friend or to all
of your friends and that is called story. The story is auto deleted 24 hours after you posted. This
stats tell us that almost all of the college students use Snapchat, this include me. Most of my
friend uses Snapchat, but there are many bad things about Snapchat. People can shared
inappropriate picture to others on Snapchat. 67% of respondents said theyd received images of
inappropriate poses or gestures; 47% had received nude pictures and a further 11% claimed to
have seen images of 'criminal acts' (Libarikian). Seeing inappropriate picture or language is
very bad for kids because most of the inappropriate content is illegal and the kid will shared with
another kid, that will be affect more kids, especially when theyre growing up, that can be affect
them grow and can give them a growing shadow.
Twitter is a social media app that enables users to send and read short messages, and we
can repost or comment the message. I use twitter to check trending news to see what is going on
around the world. I also use twitter to check status about pro-gamers for League of Legend.
Twitter sometimes give wrong news to public and it can quickly affect others. During the
confusion following the bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon, would-be online sleuths

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misidentified a missing college student as a primary suspect in the case. His name ended up
trending nationally on Twitter, though he had nothing to do with the attack (Luckerson). This
news led a huge confusion to the whole nation because this event is a terrorist attack. This tweet
was posted by CNN reporter, CNNs twitter account is a verified account and it has twenty-one
million followers. Post inaccurate news on a verified account can led to many misunderstandings
to the public. Another example is that JR Smith and Lil Wayne mistakenly tweeted that Lamar
Odom died when Odom was fighting for his life in hospital. This news also shocked me, I was
feeling very sad at that moment, after I found out that this news was mistakenly tweet, I feel very
angry because those verified account should be trustworthy and they were posting wrong
information and misleading the public user.
Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat are the three common social media apps. Social media apps
are the main tools for communication; there are many bad things about these social media apps.
Social media apps are bad for us because it affect face-to-face interactions, it can happen
cyberbullying, and it gives wrong news information. Social media apps has taken over face-toface interactions, affect people reading others emotion, affect people daily living style,
cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and giving wrong news update.

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Work cited
Johnson, Chandra. "Face Time vs. Screen Time: The Technological Impact on Communication."
Deseret News National. 29 Aug. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

Jones, Haley. "Social Media's Affect on Human Interaction." Hastac. 7 June 2013. Web. 16 Nov.
2015.

Libarikian, Chantal. "The Dark Side of Snapchat 5 Things You Need to Know." Dimoso. 12
June 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
Luckerson, Victor. "Ear, Misinformation, and Social Media Complicate Ebola Fight." Time
Magazine. 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
Wolpert, Stuart. "In Our Digital World, Are Young People Losing the Ability to Read
Emotions?" UCLA Newsroom. 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.