Blog Post # 1: The Impact of Social Media
We’ve been going through a social media revolution for many years now and I see no stop coming anytime soon. With the rise of the internet came the ability to connect with anyone around the world also with internet access and share ideas or facts. Social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube are some of the most well-known and have allowed for millions upon millions of people to interact with each other in numerous different ways. However, because social media is still so new and constantly evolving, it still under study about its effects and uses. Many studies have been done to see who is using them and how it affects them. While it depends mostly on each individual using it, many times the use of social media is increasingly widespread and commonly has more positive outcomes.
When doing research on social media this week, we were provided two articles, Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences and Social Media Use in 2021, in which statistics about social media were provided. Overall, between the two articles, it was seen that as an increased amount of people bought smart phones, a significant amount of those people also joined in on using social media in its many different forms. Both teens and adults use social media in their own ways whether to stay connected with friends and family or to stay updated with what is going on around them in the world.
Overall, when teens were asked about their experiences with social media, the majority said that it was beneficial for their mental health including helped them to feel less lonely and depressed. It follows the switch of the majority of teens over the past few years shifting away from preferring in person interactions compared to using other forms of communication including social media. Even teens who are more self-conscious about their social media agree that social media has a positive affect on them rather than negative. Adults appear to agree as the majority of adults use social media in some form, the majority being in the age range of 18 to 29. Social media also gives people the ability to build an online portfolio for themselves that can help them in the future. Social media sites like LinkedIn are created for those purposes, allowing people to represent themselves online in ways that can help them to get jobs or form connections with others in their prospective fields.
However, despite teenagers claiming that social media has a positive influence on their life, it has just as many negative effects on them. It causes distractions for them that prevent them from paying attention to the world around them. One of the most talked about risks is distracted driving where people want to check on their phones while they’re driving and put themselves as well as those around them at risk.
Not only can social media be a distraction, but even if most people see social media in an overall positive way, that doesn’t mean that it can’t still negatively affect people as well. 54% of teens admit that if their parent knew what they saw on social media, they’d be more worried for their children being on those sites. The internet is free for anyone to use and social media isn’t restricted for things that teens shouldn’t be seeing at their age yet. Not only that, but social media offers a greater chance for cyberbullying no matter how severe. While some teens may not consider their experiences that severe for cyberbullying, it can still put social media into a negative light for them and cause their mental health to decline just as easily as someone who is dealing with a more severe case.
Overall, I do think that some of the statistics were very interesting to learn about, especially for adults. Seeing the differences in reported percentages for age groups using social media seemed the most notable to me. While it makes sense for the differences, it’s still surprising to see how significant they can be for different social media apps. Even YouTube, which is arguably on of the most widely used social media sites on the internet, has a difference of 46% between the age ranges of 18 to 29 and 65+ which seems larger than I would have originally imagined it.
While social media likely will continue to change and grow for many more years, I do think it’s important to take note of statistics of like these to know things that may need to change either across all social media sites or just for you personally. It’s always interesting to learn more about social media, especially how the statistics change over the years and hopefully they will continue to show more positive outcomes.
