The Increasing Use of Social Media

Discuss about the Effects Of Social Media Usage And Social Media.

Technological advancement has changed human operations significantly. These advancements have made previously challenging tasks such as production, transportation, and construction easy. Nonetheless, the most significant achievement of technology is the way it has compressed the world into a small village. The innovation of the social media has made human interaction and communication efficient, affordable, and reliable. With the social media, a person can connect with friends or relatives in any part of the world. However, the rapid spread in social media use has attracted diverging opinions from scholars. Some scholars opine that the social media enhances the socialisation skills of the users. On the other hand, some scholars contend that social media impact adversely on the users’ interpersonal skills and lowers academic performance. Despite its importance in the contemporary society, excessive use of the social media ruins the lives of its users by causing poor academic performance, depression, and poor interpersonal skills.

The number of people using the social media has increased substantially in the last ten years. Experts forecast that this number is likely to grow in the coming years as internet penetration increases globally. According to data released by Statista (2018), there were approximately 2.46 billion social network users globally. This figure is expected to grow to 2.77 billion users in 2019. As Statista (2018) expounds, 71% of internet users in 2017 were social network users. These statistics prove that social networking in an indispensable part of the contemporary society.

Social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions)

Source:https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/

However, this increasing use of the social media has had mixed impacts on the society. Particularly, the social media has impacted adversely on the young people who happen to be the bulk users of the various social media sites. Scholars point out that the excessive use of the social media inhibits the intellectual development of students. According to Lau (2017), students can use the social media for academic or non-academic purposes. However, most students use the social media sites for non-academic purposes out of the belief that these sites are meant for socialisation. Consequently, Lau (2017) established that use of the social media sites for non-academic reasons such as gaming makes students to lose focus on their academics.

Supporting this finding by Lau (2017), Salmela-Aro et al. (2017) elaborate that excessive use of the social media results in burnout in students, subsequently leading to dwindling academic performance. Students spend a significant percentage of their time using the various social media sites and less time studying. As a consequence of this poor time management, students perform dismally in their studies.

Social Media and Young People’s Academic Performance

Importantly, weariness due to disproportionate social media use lowers the concentration span of students during studies. Salmela-Aro et al. (2017) point out that some students spend an entire night on the social media chatting and playing online games. Consequently, due to fatigue, such students struggle in their studies. In this respect, it is instrumental for the students to balance between studying and using the social media for non-academic purposes to avert burnout and a decline in their academic performance.

Psychologists also attest that excessive social media use destabilises the users psychologically. A study conducted by Sampasa-Kanyinga and Lewis (2015) on Canadian high school students established a positive correlation between frequent use of the social media and poor psychological functioning. According to Sampasa-Kanyinga and Lewis (2015), students who use the social media for more than two hours in a day experience significant levels of psychological distress and suicidal ideation. Apart from fatigue, psychological distress also emanates from cyberbullying (Salmela-Aro et al., 2017). In Australia for instance, a survey conducted by Reachout Australia ranked online platform as the third common forum for bullying as illustrated in the graph below. These findings insist that increased social media use is likely to deteriorate the psychological health of an individual.

Platforms where bullying occurs

Source:https://about.au.reachout.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Bullying-Research-Summary_FINAL.pdf

Besides, there is a growing body of research indicating that the social media is equally addictive as drugs (Andreassen, 2015). Young people are increasingly becoming dependent on the social media. In fact, psychologists affirm that social media addiction exhibits the same symptoms as any other conventional form of addiction (Andreassen, 2015). According to Andreassen (2015), social media addiction is illustrated by withdrawal, conflict, intolerance, relapse, and mood alteration. Among these symptoms, withdrawal is the dominant one. Social media addicts spent most of their time on their devices and cut contact with the outside world. Such people are lost in the virtual world of Facebook and Twitter which makes them lose contact with the real world.

Nonetheless, the tendency of the social media users to compare their life with that of their online friends serves as the biggest source of depression (Fardouly, et al., 2015). The society has been used to the virtual world of the social media making it challenging for people to differentiate real life from illusions (Salmela-Aro et al., 2017). Peer comparison has emerged as the greatest vice killing the self-esteem of millions of social media users. According to Fardouly (2015), individuals tend to be dissatisfied with their appearance or abilities when they perceive their social media friends as being successful or attractive than them. Although this reaction depends on personality, it adversely affects the self–esteem of individuals and in extreme cases results in depression.

Social Media and Psychological Functioning

Humans are social beings.  As such, they rely on socialisation to deliberate on effective ways of improving their livelihood. One of most misinterpreted implications of the social media is its effect of socialisation. There is a misconstrued belief that since the social media has made communications faster and efficient, then, it has enhanced socialisation. In contrast, sociologists and other experts confirm that the social media has made people more antisocial.  According to Sriwilai and Charoensukmongkol (2016), social media sites such as Facebook has drastically reduced face-to-face interactions between individuals.

Instead, these sites have turned people into machines that interact in a virtual world. This shift from the traditional form of interaction has made people less sympathetic toward others (Sriwilai & Charoensukmongkol, 2016). People no longer have intimate attachments with each other as it is supposed to be in the human society. Currently, people have very few in-person relationships. Besides, individuals have located more time to the social media minimising the number of occasions that they interact face-to-face (Sriwilai & Charoensukmongkol, 2016). In fact, in the contemporary society, it is common to find people seated in a group but not talking to each other as each of them is busy on the social media (Salmela-Aro et al., 2017). As such, the social media has transformed humans into robots making them increasingly antisocial.

Nevertheless, the social media has impacted positively on the society. Precisely, the benefits or detriments of the social media depends on its usage. For instance, Lau (2017) points out that the social media can improve students’ academic performance if it is used for educational purposes. Besides, some individuals have acquired motivation to excel and live a positive life through the social media. Importantly, the social has emerged a vital source of information and a channel of communication. The mass media use the social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to update the society on breaking news and other ongoing activities. As such, it is instrumental to appreciate the positives that the social media has impacted on the society.

Conclusively, the social media is like a drug. This view implies it can either be helpful or harmful depending on how it is used. As illustrated in the analysis, excessive social media use results in poor academic performance, depression, and poor interpersonal skills, thus destroying lives. On the other hand, moderated use of the social media enhances communication and socialisation in the society. Consequently, it is advisable to use the social media moderately and constructively to avert adversities such as depression and dwindling academic performance.

The social media can be beneficial or detrimental depending on how it is used. Consequently, this analysis recommends that the parents and teachers need to guide the young people on how to use the social media appropriately.  For instance, the teacher can inform the students on how to use the social media for educational purposes such as research, group work and networking with other students and scholars. Importantly, this analysis recommends that parents need to monitor how their children are using the social media to avoid suffering from adversities emanating from excessive social media use. Parents should ensure that the young people do not spend all their time on the social media.

Reference List

Andreassen, C. S., 2015. Online Social Network Site Addiction: A Comprehensive Review. Current Addiction Reports, 2(2), p. 175–184.

Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R. & Halliwell, E., 2015. Social comparisons on social media: The impact of Facebook on young women’s body image concerns and mood. Body Image, Volume 13, pp. 38-45.

Lau, W. W., 2017. Effects of social media usage and social media multitasking on the academic performance of university students. Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 68, pp. 286-291.

Salmela-Aro, K. et al., 2017. The dark side of internet use: two longitudinal studies of excessive internet use, depressive symptoms, school burnout and engagement among Finnish early and late adolescents. Journal of youth and adolescence, 46(2), pp. 343-357.

Sampasa-Kanyinga, H. & Lewis, R. F., 2015. Frequent use of social networking sites is associated with poor psychological functioning among children and adolescents. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(7), pp. 380-385.

Sriwilai, K. & Charoensukmongkol, P., 2016. Face it, don’t Facebook it: impacts of social media addiction on mindfulness, coping strategies and the consequence on emotional exhaustion. Stress and Health, 32(4), pp. 427-434.

Statista, 2018. Number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions). [Online]Available at https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/