Effects of Social Media - Free Essay for Students

Social media and web sharing have definitely have impacts on a persons behaviour and also on the entire society. This is because people tent to imitate the kinds of lifestyle that are exhibited on such platforms and also, they get to be introduced to new ideas and things which were not there in there (Slater, 2007). Even the trends also influence the way people who use social media behave and in the long run the society experiences effects of the same due to the fact that a great portion of the people making up the society are connected to the social media platforms today and only a small part of the society are completely excluded from the internet trends. The effects of social media, web sharing as well as the internet trends on a person or the society in general are both positive and negative. This is due to the fact that not all that is shared on these platforms is positive or negative (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010).

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Positive effects of Social media and web sharing

There are a number of positive outcomes that result from the interaction that people have on the internet especially on social media platforms. One of the positive outcomes is that interaction on social media opens up the peoples mind and makes them outgoing (Bakshy et al, 2012). This is because, on the internet, people share many ideas about crucial issues affecting various aspects of life such as family planning, governments position regarding education in a country among other crucial ideas. This informs an individual appropriately on issues that he or she was not aware of and helps in making him open minded over many life issues.

Secondly, interaction of people on social media platforms and through internet can create a healthy discursion that can lead to abstinence from a certain primitive activities in the society (Slater, 2007). For example, a discussion can be initiated on the social media platform about female genital mutilation and facts and important issues will be raise by different people and these issues can be deliberated on and have an impact on those practicing such an activity and help in changing their mind which may eventually lead to them abandoning such a primitive practice and start leading a healthy life free from such backward acts.

Social media web pages which are geared towards moral guidance of the youth in the society can help a lot in changing the lives of many people who engage in the discussions that are run on such web pages. Social media pages which for example carry out campaigns against drug abuse can go a long way in helping an individual to stop abusing drugs so as to avoid the dire consequences of abusing drugs that are exhibited through pictures and videos uploaded by different people from different parts of the world (Lenhart et al, 2010).

The social media and web sharing can transform an average academic performer to an excellent performer in a school, college or university. The success stories that are posted by many people who proud themselves to have succeeded in life despite having challenges here and there may inspire a student and make him or her to work extra harder in school so as to achieve the best that he or she is capable of in life. This can result to tremendous improvement in performance of a student in academic work. This is most likely to happen to those people who are not accessible to a variety of resource persons rather than their teachers and parents.

Social media and web sharing is likely to influence the general behaviour of a person and also the society with regard to eating habits. Health thoughts that are posted by health specialists about diet are very important for they caution people against certain eating habits because of the negative health implications that poor eating habits may have. According to DiMaggio (2001), people who may not have a chance to talk to a health specialist are likely to learn a lot and this influences their behaviour regarding their eating habits. This goes a long way in improving the health of the society due to implementation of good feeding habits.

Negative effects of social media and web sharing

Although internet sharing and social media influences our lives positively, negative outcomes are also experiences as a result of the interaction on the internet.

Internet sharing websites such as YouTube sometimes exposes bad behaviour to especially young people such as drug abuse. This makes the youth in the society to start practicing such vices and this goes a long way in creating moral decadence in the society especially among the youth.

Internet sharing as well as social media affects negatively the dressing of people in the society. Photos of young women with very short skirts are very tight skinned cloths that expose their body morphology too much to the onlookers have created a dressing crisis in the society today. School girls today want to put on very short skirts because they have seen someone on Facebook for example putting it on. This has led erosion of the moral values among individuals and more especially among the young people in the society (Bakshy et al, 2012).

Social media can sometimes be used to perpetuate negative attitude towards a certain community in the society and this can lead to isolation and even marginalization of the affected community. According to Slater (2007), people can post false information about a certain community or a person and these thoughts can aid in changing the attitude of a certain group of people towards a community or a group. As such, an individual may start avoiding certain people from a certain region and this affects the wellbeing of the effected people because of the isolation and marginalization in many issues concerning life.

Other negative outcomes of social media and web sharing are increased crime rate among the people and too much time is lost on the internet and this affects the economy of a person and the society

In conclusion, social media, web sharing and internet trends have both positive and negative effects on the behaviour of an individual as well as on the behaviour of the whole society. This is because as people interact, they may pick positive aspects or negative aspects from the internet because different people have different motives and as a result they share issues and ideas on mixed and varied aspects of human life which may be positive or negative (Vance et al, 2009).

References

Bakshy, E., Rosenn, I., Marlow, C., & Adamic, L. (2012, April). The role of social networks in information diffusion. In Proceedings of the 21st international conference on World Wide Web (pp. 519-528). ACM.

DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W. R., & Robinson, J. P. (2001). Social implications of the Internet. Annual review of sociology, 307-336.

Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., & Zickuhr, K. (2010). Social Media & Mobile Internet Use among Teens and Young Adults. Millennials. Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Slater, M. D. (2007). Reinforcing spirals: The mutual influence of media selectivity and media effects and their impact on individual behavior and social identity. Communication Theory, 17(3), 281-303.

Vance, K., Howe, W., & Dellavalle, R. P. (2009). Social internet sites as a source of public health information. Dermatologic clinics, 27(2), 133-136.