Negative Impact Of Social Media On Mental Health & Security And Solutions

Problems Associated with the Use of Social Media

Write about the Foundations of Academic Skills for Social Media.

Social media has become a very common phenomenon in the daily lives of everyone. Everyone is under the spell of the social media platforms, and they are designing their lives according to the unwritten rules of the social world (John Walker 2014). The social media boom has gone beyond the limits and has become a craze among the people. Those people who are not present in the social platforms others look at them rather suspiciously. The social media platforms such as the Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram and others were launched with the idea to kept people round the world connected and united, but these platforms now serve multiple purpose for every individual living in the society (Blau  2017). It is very evident to note that the social media has achieved such an impact on the society that the people who do not use these various social media platforms offered by different social media websites, are generally considered to be socially challenged and outdated (Denzin and Giardina 2016). Therefore, it is not irrelevant to say that social media has acquired a significant place in the lives of individuals.

Since the past ten or fifteen years, the technological advancement in the field of communication and other smart gadgets has improved to a huge extent. With the launch of the android smart phones the lives of everyone has evolved. In the recent situation, almost each individual has a smart phone which connect them to their respective social media apps and it keeps everyone busy living two lives at the same time, one is the real and another one is the virtual one (Denzin and Giardina 2016). Analysing the present situation, it can be easily said that the social media has become an important and non-detachable part of the lives of every human being (Ferguson et al. 2014). The social media has created a lot of problems in the lives of the daily users, there are several instances where these media platforms were misused on a regular basis, there were leaking of objectionable photos, news and the creation of several controversies (Ngai, Tao and Moon 2015). Apart from keeping everyone virtually connected, the social media platforms perform several other functions in the everyday life. These platforms are currently used as the most popular forums for marketing purposes (Ngai, Tao and Moon 2015). Several popular companies and other smaller business organizations also use Facebook and Twitter to reach out to a larger number of audiences (Denzin and Giardina 2016). Thus, judging from the present situation, it can be said the role of social media is indispensable in the lives of everyone.

Possible Solutions for Social Media Problems

There are several problems associated with the use of social media among which, the health and security issues are the most serious ones. Each and every day more teenagers are joining the social media platforms and this is causing a huge number of problems. The topic of health issues in adolescents and their use of social media is a growing concern among the parents and the teachers (Denzin and Giardina 2016). The teenagers are spending a lot of time in their social media accounts and most of them stay awake late at night to browse through the contents of Instagram, Facebook or chat in Whatsapp or in Facebook Messengers and other platform, resulting in sleep deprivation poor marks and loss of attendance in their schools or colleges. Often it has been noticed that social media creates a feeling of depression in the individual. For example, if a person posts a picture and it does not get enough likes that person suffers from depressing thoughts and begins to belief that he/she is not up to the mark and star assessing themselves in a bad light (Denzin and Giardina 2016). In addition to depression and sleep problems, various individuals often lose their self-esteem due to the repeated experiences of cyber bullying, which is known as trolling in the cyber language. This social media trolling puts an adverse effect on the mental state of the teenagers and in extreme cases they develop suicidal tendencies as well (Ngai, Tao and Moon 2015).

Individuals often live a lie on a daily basis through their respective social media platforms. To make themselves presentable and likeable often people go beyond their comfort zones and when they do not get the expected response then the person becomes engulfed by depressing thoughts (Ellison et al. 2014). Even the adults are also becoming addicted to the virtual world and this is heavily affecting their personal lives and their relationships. In some cases, it has been seen the parents are so engrossed in their virtual world that they kept on neglecting their own children (Denzin and Giardina 2016). A major problem associated with the social media is the leak of objectionable content, photos, videos, posts and other things. Often it has been seen that a person’s media account is hijacked and they go through severe trauma if the hijacker misuse that social media to degrade the character of the particular individual (Blau 2017). Many individuals fall prey to the internet stalkers, this happens more commonly with the young people (Denzin and Giardina 2016). These stalkers provide different offers related to job prospect, or several other related to a luxurious life and teenagers and young people become pray to them. In this course, they tend to provide their personal details such as banking details, personal identification related details and hence, it troubles them with legislative issues (Ellison et al. 2014). Thus, there are numerous problems, which are associated with the social media, and it is the responsibility of the individual, and the society around them to become aware of the issues.

Campaigns to Raise Awareness and Mental Health

There are certain solutions present for the social media problems that people face on a daily basis. At first, the parents need to be aware of the situations that their children are going through on a daily basis, and they do need to monitor the use of social media by their children (Sunstein 2018). The parents should talk with their children to find out that if there is something, which is bothering them. They should spend quality time with their children to understand their mental state and should offer moral help as sometimes children are not willing to share their issues with their parents (John Walker 2014). Hence, it is the duty of the parent to make the child feel secured and valued. The adults should make themselves aware of the negative impacts of the social media platforms and start taking control of their own lives and mend relationships with their near and dear ones (Boyd 2014). To prevent unnecessary staking and bullying on the social media platforms one should include only those people whom he/she knows in real life, with the help of privacy setting options one can control the people who can see their posts and pictures and this can help to prevent unfortunate incidents (Bender 2017).  Finally, to get over depression and low feeling one should go out in the real world, meet up with real life friends, and get in touch with the reality. Moreover, the individuals should be encouraged to focus more on their real lives and the real life activities over the virtual world experiences.

In the above sections, this assignment provided the three P’s such as the present situation, problem associated with it and possible solutions of it (Blau 2017). Apart from the above-mentioned possible solutions, in this paragraph, a proposal will be suggested and this will be another possible solution to the problem analysed in the beginning of the essay. Various mental health campaigns and programmes related to increasing depression and severe mental illness are needed to be introduced by governmental authorities at schools and offices in order to raise the awareness within the minds of people against the evils associated with the social media (Hibbard and Greene 2013). However, the primary drawback of this campaigns are their inability to overcome the reach and popularity of the social media websites, and despite of proper campaigning the number of social media users throughout the world is increasing (Ferguson et al. 2014). Hence, people need to become aware individually, as using excess amount of social media is harmful for health and it has been proven scientifically (Bolton et al. 2013). Unless every individual in made aware of the various problems associated with social media, the people will not stop obsessing over their individual social media accounts (Bender 2017). They should join physical activity related classes so that they can perform those activities at their free time instead of passing their time using social media accounts (Denzin and Giardina 2016). This only possible solution can have long-term effect on the excessive use of social media in our daily lives. Furthermore, the people should be informed about the negative impact of the excessive usage of the various platforms offered by the social media sites (Denzin and Giardina 2016). In addition to this, the individuals should be taught to value the real life experiences in contrast to the virtual experiences.

To conclude, the social media influence our lives in several ways, it takes a toll on the health of the teenagers and there are also several security issues which affect the individuals on various levels. Thus, people should be made aware of the negative impacts of the social media and they should be encouraged to lead a healthier and normal life. Therefore, it can be said that although there are several benefits of the various platforms of the social media yet the disadvantages of the social media far outweigh the advantages. 

Reference List:

Bender, S.M., 2017. Introduction. In Legacies of the Degraded Image in Violent Digital Media (pp. 1-14). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Blau, P., 2017. Exchange and power in social life. Routledge.

Bolton, R.N., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., Komarova Loureiro, Y. and Solnet, D., 2013. Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review and research agenda. Journal of service management, 24(3), pp.245-267.

Boyd, D., 2014. It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.

Denzin, N.K. and Giardina, M.D., 2016. Introduction. In Qualitative Inquiry—Past, Present, and Future (pp. 9-38). Routledge.

Ellison, N.B., Vitak, J., Gray, R. and Lampe, C., 2014. Cultivating social resources on social network sites: Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors and their role in social capital processes. Journal of Computer?Mediated Communication, 19(4), pp.855-870.

Ferguson, C.J., Muñoz, M.E., Garza, A. and Galindo, M., 2014. Concurrent and prospective analyses of peer, television and social media influences on body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms and life satisfaction in adolescent girls. Journal of youth and adolescence, 43(1), pp.1-14.

Hibbard, J.H. and Greene, J., 2013. What the evidence shows about patient activation: better health outcomes and care experiences; fewer data on costs. Health affairs, 32(2), pp.207-214.

John Walker, S., 2014. Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think.

Ngai, E.W., Tao, S.S. and Moon, K.K., 2015. Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), pp.33-44.

Sunstein, C.R., 2018. # Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton University Press.