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Weston Meredith

Mrs. Bell

Honors English Period 3

8 April 2019

The Negatives of Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Youtube, Tinder, always a touch away.

Drawing you in, creating an addiction that all too many people experience on a day to day basis.

The inevitable force that keeps you coming back​—​closer to society, just to get further away from

the people around you. It is the continuous, invariable, all knowing, all powerful,

nondiscriminatory force that almost every citizen in America experiences everyday. In today’s

world, there is hardly an escape from social media platforms. It constantly keeps people

connected and always aware of what is going on in other people’s lives, but it is also constantly

pressuring people to have the next best thing.

Is social media taking our society in the right direction? The excessive usage of social

media has created many mental health problems, especially for teenagers. Recently, a study was

completed on fourteen to twenty-four year olds in the UK regarding their wellbeing and social

media. The study concluded that “​Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all led to ​increased

feelings of depression​, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness” (Ehmke). Constantly seeing the

supposed success and happiness of other people is creating a longing in many teens to have their

lives be like the others. This unavoidable comparison creates holes filled with envy and

emptiness in many teens’ lives. Often times it can lead to negative feelings and can eventually

lead to a depressed state. The increased feelings of “depression, anxiety, poor body image and
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loneliness” (Ehmke) are a direct sign of the negative effects social media has left on today’s

younger

generation. Other

effects social

media has on the

younger

generation are

shown in the chart

“General

Negative Effects”

[of Social Media

Use Among U.S.

Adolescents]

(left). According to this chart, under the category, “Feel pressure to only post content that makes

me look good to others” 45% of the adolescents who were tested agreed with that statement

(“Reported”). Assuming this tested group was a fair representation of adolescents as a whole,

roughly half of all adolescents are pressured by social media in a negative way.

Teenagers are not even the youngest age group to be negatively affected. Social media

also affects elementary age children in our modern society. It shows the youngest generation

inappropriate content that cannot be avoided. Children as young as seven or eight years old could

stumble upon content containing drugs, sexual activities, violence or other crime that they would

have never seen. Worse yet, when they do discover these things, the author of the post may
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portray the harmful content in a positive light, giving children the impression that these activities

are “fun” and acceptable. Parents also won’t be able to teach that this behavior is wrong when it

is discovered because they won’t know when it was discovered.

Social Views are not the only negative effect social media has on the younger generation.

Social media also negatively affects the education of today’s minors. Based on the findings of

Social media strongly diverts the attention students so desperately need to be giving their studies

(“Negative”). It is a constant attention magnet, being just a click away at any given second,

students are constantly drawn from their studies and coaxed into the wide world of social media.

Although there are many other attention grabbers, stealing the focus from class time, social

media seems to fall into the number one slot among students. Another negative aspect social

media has on the student’s daily life is what it takes away from learning to study. Social media

makes information easily accessible. This sways students from learning how to gather

information from old fashioned resources such as books, encyclopedias and credible online

reference sources. This abundant information could dampen the effect the information would

have on them because it was so easily found. It also adds mass quantities of non credible

information that also could provide false content to a student. Without social media, students

would have to search harder and truly learn the newly accessed, correct information, rather than

scrolling through it all quickly and not allowing the content soak into their brain. This easy

access to information may not be the worst product of social media, and, in some cases can help

students learn, but it is not helping them learn to ​learn​.

Harmful content is not just a problem with young children though. All age groups are

seeing this content in a whole new light. Before social media, if one did not naturally associate
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with people in the culture of drugs, one would never view those things in a positive light and

would likely never become involved with them. Today, however, drugs are displayed

everywhere, uncensored. Someone could post about how much they love doing drugs and an

impressionable person (likely a child or teenager) could see this and automatically think about

trying drugs and that it would not hurt them. This increased publicity and new forms of peer

pressure easily increase the amount of drug usage. Marijuana alone had an increase of 5.3

million users in the United States from 2007 to 2013 (“Nationwide”), around the same span that

social media started to explode in America. Social media is one of the most substantial forms of

propaganda ever created, just for the fact that it gets millions and millions of views daily.

Anything can be posted and said on social media, and it will not likely be removed until it is

reported or discovered by an administrator and confirmed that it is against a policy. This creates

a world wide advertisement of anything for anyone to see.

An often forgotten and quickly declining piece of our society is outdoor activities. The

world of sports, hunting, and general activity, especially in today’s youth is being erased.

Constantly, the amount of “pick-up baseball games” played in neighborhoods is declining. The

numbers of hunters in the United States has gone down drastically. In the span from 2011 to

2016 the United States lost 2.2 million hunters (“Rott”). In an inverse relationship, the obesity

levels of children has increased. In 2006, only 15.4 percent of youth were obese. In 2016, 18.5

percent were obese (“Childhood”). If children were able to put their phones down more often and

log off of social media, the amount of outdoor activity might rise, and the numbers on the scale

for some kids might go down.

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However, it is not only the younger generation that is struggling from the constant

obsession with the social media platforms. The working class citizens of today are facing

problems as a result of social media usage in the workplace. In total, almost sixteen billion

dollars are wasted in all of America every week due to time workers have spent on social media

(“This is How”). The constant addiction to social media is wasting so much time that in a week,

it adds up to a large fortune of wasted dollars. It is a distraction among workers and leads them to

misuse time that could be spent getting projects done and meeting objectives their companies

have set for them. It stops momentum by stopping what an employee may be doing, and it wastes

company time and money by paying a worker to be on their phone instead of doing the work the

company pays them to do.

Not only does social media negatively affect students in schools and adults in the

workplace, but it also affects the people in between. Often, employers check on social media

sites to find more about potential employees. If the possible employee has content on his social

media that is not to the employer’s liking such as inappropriate behavior and language, the once

possible employee might lose the possibility of that job just for that reason only (Lauren). If that

person were not on any social media sites, he might have gotten that job. Social media also hurts

people’s abilities to get jobs because it hurts communication skills among the younger

generation. The lack of proper grammar and writing in social media posts or constantly used in

Snapchat and other apps carries people’s grammar to other things where proper grammar is

important (“The Impact”). If an employer sees the use of improper grammar in ones resume that

sprouted from the constant use of social media, one might not beat out other competition to get

the job one wants or needs.

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A further weakening social media has contributed to our society is the constant repetition

of the same things. Seeing an idea or the way something is commonly performed or how

something is constantly used may put a damper on creative thinking (“Negative”). If modern

society only ever sees something one way, they won’t ever think to change the way that object is

used. If they constantly see a problem being solved one way by the entire world, they won’t

think to solve that problem an easier or better way. If today’s people only ever see the world in

their immediate paradigm, they will never know how to make a better tomorrow for the next

generation. Social media cancels out ideas that could’ve saved the world from pollution, or cured

cancer, or cleaned up crime from the streets. It keeps people thinking with a one track mind and

shuts down the bridges that lead to new ideas.

Social media may not be the most harmful aspect in today’s world. It does keep us

connected. It may help pass the time. It might help people obtain information. It may help you

think of that last idea you needed to finish a paper or find a new scientific discovery, and it may

even help get you a job, but it also could ruin friendships from seeing their behavior all the time.

It may hurt your physical health. It may expose your children to content they should never see. It

may hurt your mental health and create problems with anxiety and depression. This anxiety and

depression, if it keeps growing, could eventually lead to suicidal thoughts or possible suicidal

actions. Does this mean social media will kill you? No, but it does mean that we should be

careful about how much we use it and what we use it for. If we continue as a society to use it

constantly and never monitor what it is doing to us negatively, we will not ever realize how

much it harms our lives and the lives of other people around us. The next time you pick up your

phone, stop and think for a second. Look at your life and think about what it could be like if you
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didn’t have that magnetic-like pull to check your Instagram account, what it would be like if you

didn’t stop your work you are doing to look at what people are saying on Twitter, what you

would gain from reading a book instead of checking what people have to say about it on Tumblr,

who you could meet if you didn’t watch all those Youtube videos, or the opportunities you could

gain if you didn’t post about your crazy night you had on Facebook. If you think you don’t want

to improve, go ahead and open your phone, make that post, and check on those people you barely

know. But if you want to improve your social skills, get something done in your life, and make a

difference in the world, put your phone back down, log off, and enjoy the sweetness that

surrounds you in this beautiful world we live in.

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Works Cited

Beres, Damon. “10 Weird Negative Effects of Social Media on Your Brain.” ​Reader’s Digest,

Trusted Media Brands, Inc, 2019, www.rd.com/health/wellness/negative-effects-

of-social-media/. Accessed 7 April 2019.

Bresiger, Gregory. “This is How Much Time Employees Spend Slacking Off.” ​New York Post,

NYP Holding, Inc, 2019,

www.nypost.com/2017/07/29/this-is-how-much-time-employees -spend-slacking-off/.

Accessed 7 April 2019.

Charles, Shamard. “Social Media Linked to Rise in Mental Health Disorders in Teens, Survey

Finds.” ​NBC News, ​NBC Universal, 2019, www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-

health/social-media-linked-rise-mental-health-disorders-teens-survey-finds-n982526.

Accessed 7 April 2019.

​ tate of Obesity, 2019,

“Childhood Obesity Trends.” ​The State of Obesity, S

www.stateofobesity.org/childhood-obesity-trends/. Accessed 14 May 2019.

Ehmke, Rachel. “How Using Social Media Effects Teenagers.” ​Child Mind Institute, ​Child Mind

Institute, Inc, 2019, www.childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-

teenagers/. Accessed 7 April 2019.

File, Kelly. “Dr. Phil on Why America Has Become Too Sensitive.” ​Fox News Network, ​Fox

News Network, LLC, 2019, www.foxnews.com/transcript/dr-phil-on-why-america-

has-become-too-sensitive. Accessed 28 Mar. 2019.

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Goodie, Rodney. “How Does Social Media Affect Our Mental and Physical Health?.” ​St. Hope

​ t. Hope Foundation, 2019, www.offeringhope.org/social-media-affect-

Foundation, S

mental-health/. Accessed 7 April 2019.

​ cademia Apps
Hopkins, Bruce. “The Impact of Social Media on Education.” ​Academia Apps, A

2017, www.academiaapps.com/impact-social-media-education/. Accessed 7 April 2019.

​ eact at Cornell
“The Impact of Social Media on Employment.” ​Cornell University React, R

University, 2017, blogs.cornell.edu/react/2018/05/16/the-impact-of-social-media-on-

employment-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/. Accessed 7 April 2019.

Lauren, Lynn. “Negatives of Social Media Marketing.” ​Chron, ​Hearst Newspapers, LLC, 2019,

www.smallbusiness.chron.com/negatives-social-media-marketing-22347.html. Accessed

7 April 2019.

​ SA.gov, 2015,
“Nationwide Trends.” ​Drug Abuse, U

drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends. Accessed 14 May 2019.

“Negative Effects of Social Networking Sites for Students.” ​Performancing, ​World Press, n.d.,

www.performancing.com/negative-effects-of-social-networking-sites-for-students/.

Accessed 7 April 2019.

"Reported Effects of Social Media Use among US Adolescents, 2018." ​Gale Opposing

Viewpoints in Context​, Gale, 2019. ​Opposing Viewpoints in Context​,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/HPQMLV679941407/OVIC?u=pl2127&sid=OVIC&xid=a

5ab43f3. Accessed 3 Apr. 2019.

Rott, Nathan. “Decline in Hunters Threatens How U.S. Pays for Conservation.” ​NPR, ​NPR,

2019,
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www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-cons

ervation. Accessed 14 May 2019.

Thomas, Paul. “Many Aspects of Society Are Less Civil.” ​Is Society Becoming Less Civil?,

edited by Louise Gerdes, Greenhaven Press, 2014, p. 7.