Orellana 1

Bryan Orellana
Professor Lewis
English 113A
11 December 2015
Social Media Negatively Changing the World
I was born on March 4, 1997, also known as the year of the first social media website invented.
The first social media website was called Six Degrees in which it enabled a person to make friends across
the globe and upload profile pictures of their choice. With that being said it is proven that I am part of the
social media generation. For example Steven Points states, Today, websites like Facebook and Twitter
have become a basic part of our lives. Even though we can remember a life without social media, that life
is quickly moving behind us. Social media is changing our personal lives, our social lives. (We Are The
Social Media Generation). In other words, social media is changing the lives of a person personally and
socially. As of today, all of society depends on social media for news, sports, TV shows, and many more.
Not only that but it also gives the person the tool to meet with new people and keep in touch with people
who they dont see every day. However, with every pro comes along with a con, including social media
apps. Social media applications such as Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook affect the old traditional face-toface interaction, lead to hurtful cyber bullying, reveal the dangers of unknown identity, and negatively
affect our language.
Social Media applications such as, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat provide the tools and
essentials to allow the simplicity of communication with others very easy, as in a simple click of a button.
As social media application allows contact with others very easy it diminishes the chances of face-to-face
interaction with others. For example, 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 such as body language, eye contact, and tone of voice.

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Technologys rampant popularization over the past decade in terms of social media has meant that
texting, Facebook, and Twitter have inevitably taken over as the most efficient ways of
communicating with each other. (Jones).
In simple words, communication is occurring more through social media applications rather than in
person. Social media heavily affects face-to-face interaction due to the high technological essentials it
provides us with. What I mean by the high technological essentials is that social media nowadays provide
similar face-to-face interaction. As a Snapchat user myself, this particular social media pertains all the
tools to make a texting conversation very similar to a face-to-face conversation. For example, Snapchats
purpose is to allow users to have conversations with others through sending pictures and videos to one
another. Therefore, social media applications can be very similar with face-to-face interaction, which
allows the user to converse through app rather than in person.
People may say that social media applications can be useful and beneficial in their social life by
allowing them to meet new people around world and simply engaging a conversation with them. In my
opinion, because social media is very similar with face-to-face interactions it prevents the user in
knowing whom they really are talking to. For example, a show called Catfish on the Music Television
Network is based upon people who are on social media and begin to have online relationships and end up
being surprised by the fact that the person they thought they were dating was an unknown identity or an
impersonation of someone else. In social media today it is easily and very common to see users having
pictures of others to pretend that they are someone that they really are not. This is dangerous because the
person with the unknown identity can be anyone, such as a rapist, murderer, and a sex offender. For
example YouTube prankster named Coby Persin decided to make a film in the dangers of an
impersonation and unknown identity account on Facebook. In the account he made he used a picture of a
teenage boy and said he was 15 years old. He began to talk to three girls through Facebook messenger for
three days. All three supposed it was the teenager on the picture but when they met with teenage boy
they had rude awakening upon them because not only was the Coby Persin waiting for the girl but also

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her parents. In other words, the message behind this video was that people are gullible in believing that
picture on their profile picture is really who they are. So that makes it very a dangerous because it can be
anyone behind that computer. Therefore, the prevention of face-to-face interaction can lead to unknown
identities, which can be very unsafe.
This leads to my third point in which the prevention of face-to-face interaction can lead to
harmful and dangerous risks such as, cyber bulling. Cyber bulling is defined as the bullying to others
through an electronic use to threaten and hurt others. Other than it being dangerous for unknown
identities, there have been numerous cases of cyber bulling on social media applications. For example
Internet Safety 101 states, 95% of social media-using teens who have witnessed cruel behavior on

social networking sites. This means a large amount of people witness some type of cruelty
through social media applications. Also it is proven that people who are cyber bullied through
social media have a lower self-esteem, which leads to lack of interaction with others in general.
The lack of interacting with others occurs due to the damage and cruelty a person has
experienced through social media. As an ex-Twitter user myself I witnessed and encountered
cyber bulling myself. I would sometimes get cyber bullied because of the fact that I would
express my own opinion and someone else would disagree. As the person disagrees they began to
say unkind things to me, they thought it was cool because they knew they were gaining
followers. I was having a miserable time because I was being harassed and embarrassed by
someone in front of thousands, it is not a good feeling. In other words, this Twitter user found it
easy to cyber bully me because he gained followers, and he knew I was never going to see him in
person. Unfortunately, as more people are joining the social media world today, they numbers of
cyber bulling are increasing. As cyber bulling continues to occur, people who have been through
that horrifying have a habit of lacking face-to-face experience because of the damage they have
endured.

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Also as social media gets more popularized throughout the globe, our language is
drastically changing in a negative way. I consider myself as a victim who uses our language in an
incorrect way. Todays generation have frequently been using acronyms when they speak or text.
For example people use acronyms such as: rofl, lol, aoas, gtg, ttyl, and many more. These
acronyms are used when a person wants to keep their post short or they are just too lazy to spell
the word out completely. Twitter users are often forced to use acronyms when they want to tweet
because a tweet is only allowed to have 140 characters, which is not very much. Also when a
person wants to send a direct message on Twitter they have a certain amount characters for it to
be able to send, which forces the user to keep the message length concise. How does a Twitter
user keep tweet or direct message short and concise? They use emoticons and acronyms. In other
words, people on twitter use acronyms to fit their message into one single tweet. Another way
our language is changing is by using emoticons. Emoticons are defined as a non-verbal
communication, with the use of happy faces, sad faces, crying faces, and other types of faces.
Emoticons are very popular till this day, they are seen everywhere. I believe they have taken over
our language in way because people find it easier to send a happy face to show their emotion
rather than typing what they actually feel. From my point of view, Snapchat users heavily use
emoticons because they have a tendency of putting them over their face to ether cover it or show
how they feel. People may say that emoticons can keep messages or posts short.
However, this affects our language in a negative way because it a person is not simply
using words, which is not considered language. We can all agree that emoticons are not a
language because they dont consist of letters of words. Emoticons and acronyms are used a lot
because of the lack of face-to-face interaction. The lack of face-to-face interaction leads people
to social media in which they are introduced with one thing, different use of language. As a

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social media user sees the different form of language on their story or news feed they begin to
adapt and use it to fit in with others, it is common sense. In my case, before social media came
into my life I would use the English language properly because back then emoticons and
acronyms were not familiarized to me yet. Although, Facebook was introduced to me and I
began to use it because it was very popular among my friends and the first thing I noticed was
that they were using acronyms and emoticons. I understood the emoticons because they were
self-explanatory but the acronyms were hard to understand. As a result, I knew that these
emoticons and acronyms were going to be the next big thing in social media. Social media
throughout the years has evolved their type of language.
In addition, people say that it keeps a message or post short and precise, but it is an unprofessional way of communication for others. It is an un-professional way of communication
because its not something you would use when you write or talk to others. Therefore, the social
media language is called, fingered speech which enables a person to express their emotions in
a concise way by using emoticons and acronyms. Overall, social media has brought this new
form of language to people who have quickly adapted to it and think it is correct and
professional. Unfortunately, it is not and it negatively affects our language.
Social media affects our face-to-face interaction because Snapchat allows others to have
similar in person conversations. As face-to-face interaction is being prevented due to social
media apps, it can lead to cyber bullying and the dangers of unknown identities. On other hand,
Twitter has largely affected our language as of today with the use of acronyms and emoticons,
also known as fingered speech. Therefore, social media has negatively impacted in various ways
due to it providing us with the tools in making face-to-face interaction unnecessary for everyone.

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Work Cited Bibliography

"Cyberbullying Statistics." InternetSafety101.org: Statistics. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
"Social Media's Affect on Human Interaction." HASTAC. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
"The Dangers Of Social Media (Child Predator Social Experiment) Girl Edition!" YouTube.
YouTube. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
"We Are the Social Media Generation." We Are the Social Media Generation. Web. 29 Nov.
2015.