Communication
Downside of social media
One of the negative consequences of social media is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is an act of making someone feel under rated through an electronic medium for example: uploading embracing images or videos of someone on Facebook or spreading rumors on Twitter. Unless supervised by their parents, children and teens are exposed to cyberbullying even if it is not directly stated at them. Cyberbullying causes these children or teens to have insecurities and loss their confidence. It is worse than normal bullying since cyberbullying can be from anonymous people and can happen for 24 hours daily. On top of that, children and teens may learn inappropriate words or physical movements or even reach a point where they want to commit suicide.
Social media sites are the main reason for identity thieves growth around the world. Despite the privacy option most social media sites offer like making an account private and only visible to users’ friends, Information we post on social media sites can be accessed by anyone who is smart enough to do so, in other words hackers. They are people who know how access information on computers and networks without permission. Personal information like addresses, contact information, real names and in some cases ID numbers and bank account numbers can be easily taken from users’ profiles on social media sites by identity thieves and hackers. They make good use of these sensitive pieces information by pretending to be that person, for instance, you put your email address on your profile in Facebook and a hacker hacks into your email then sends rude emails pretending to be you.
Social media sites waste valuable time, they distract us from our duties. This is clearly stated by (Claywell, 2016)“The Global Web Index poll shows that 28 percent of the time spent online is on social networks.” This results in companies losing productivity since most of their employees spend their time on social media sites without realizing how long they were on these sites. Also parents are facing problems with their children and teens, who sit for hours socializing on social media sites instead of doing homework or chores or even sitting together as a family. Some people have reached a stage where they need help from a psychologist to stop using social media sites for a few hours.
Pop up advertisements are one of social media’s features that invade our privacy as users. They run algorithms to track the user’s web browsing habits to display targetted advertisements. Moreover, some social media sites save images, videos or chats that are sent between users or that are recorded by users through their site. This is a big risk since hackers or even the social media site itself can share these images, videos or chats with the public. Also some users would start a chat with other users without knowing them. They may share inappropriate links, distribute viruses or even trick children into doing dangerous things. These action cause people not to trust anyone, therefore creating insecurities between users. Users can be also tracked using GPS (general positioning system) through social media site, this is very dangerous since it raises terrorism and abduction risks on children and teens.
Social media sites are the reason new generations have lost communication skills. Most people nowadays can not communicate face to face, as they find it difficult to speak in public and the only way they can communicate effectively is through social media sites. Examples of these situations include eating a family dinner while everyone, including adults, are on their phones, surfing social media sites. Or having a party with our friends and everyone is spending their time taking selfies alone and posting about the party instead of talking, dancing or doing fun activities.
Social media has a negative influence on users, specially teenagers and children, who can easily be persuaded by attractive images or videos or reviews of products and fashion trends. However, not all parents are financially capable of fulfilling their children’s wants. This affects children and teenagers since they see other people in their age owning, for example, the latest bags and shoes but they do not. Also, they can be influenced by some hypes like the 100-layer challenge, people put on 100 layers of anything for example, 100 layers of nail polish. For the kylie Jenner challenge, girls use water bottles to make their lips appear bigger, and that causes less blood to reach their lips.