Social media is an online arena where people from various diversities use to establish social relationships. Approximately, three billion people, that is, 40 percent of the world population, are using the online social media platform (Siddiqui and Tajinder 73). Research studies show that every individual using social media spends an average of two hours each day tweeting, liking, commenting as well as updating their status on these social media platforms (Jung). In a majority of the users, social media plays an important in their lives. This has made social media to have a huge impact on human lives. In as much some of the impacts are positive, research findings have illustrated that social media has negative impacts on human lives. Too much use of social media has led to addiction and through addiction, social media users have gone to an extent of sacrificing certain issues in their lives like their well-being, health as well as time. Sacrificing such important aspects of human life has brought out the negative impacts of social media. The essay discusses the negative effects of social media on human life as well as giving possible solutions to the negative effects of social media.
There are various ways in which social media have negatively affected the lives of human beings. Among them are discussed as follows:
Health
Unessential utilization of these sites has an impact on the health of the addicted social media users. Research shows that social media has an effect on the physical as well as mental health of people. Most people spend most of their time on social media than on matters concerning their health. There are various health effects caused by addiction to social media.
Unhealthy Sleeping Patterns
Traditionally, man-kind used to spend most of their evenings in darkness, though currently people are surrounded by artificial lighting all day and all night. Scientists through their extensive research have shown that this can stop the production of melatonin hormone that helps in facilitating sleep (Miller et al. 193). The blue light that is produced by phones or tablets is accused of being the worst culprit of interfering with sleep patterns (Chen 77). In other words, when one lies on his or her bed minutes before sleeping, the individual will experience discomfort and lack of proper sleep. The University of Pittsburg conducted a research on 1700 people aged between 18 and 30 years concerning their social media and sleeping patterns (Ventola 491). Through its researchers, the University was able to discover a relationship with the unhealthy sleeping patterns and deduced that it is the blue light that plays an integral part in causes those disturbances (Haynes 108). The actual problem here is that social media makes one spend a lot of time on a mobile phone or tablet and thus increases exposure of the individual to the lights emitted by these electronic devices. Though, the research was not able to directly link social media to be the cause of unhealthy sleeping patterns in human beings.
Unhealthy Emotional Patterns
Multiple research studies have demonstrated that unrestricted social media use causes stress, bad moods as well as negative mental health diseases such as depression. Most social media users sleep very late or wake up very early to update their Instagram photos, Facebook status and to tweet. This leads to a point that it becomes emotional when the individual is not capable of getting the positive comments and the number of likes he or she is targeting. Thus, social media leads to unhealthy emotional patterns as it causes stress, changes one’s moods which later on lead to depression.
A huge number of people use social media to let off frustrations they encounter in their day-to-day life. However, the demerit to this action is that our feeds usually take after a ceaseless flow of stress. A research by Pew Research Center in Washington DC conducted a survey of 1800 people to investigate if social media use triggers more stress than it is relieving. The research findings indicated that women were more stressed than men. Besides, the research found out that Twitter is the greatest contributor to stress since it promoted women’s stress of other people’s distress. Additionally, other studies have revealed that when a user does not receive positive comments he or she seeks it can culminate to change in moods and beginning of stress. Also, when one receives negative comments and threats also leads to unhealthy emotional patterns.
A 2014 research by investigators from Austria noted that participants who reported lower moods subsequent to using Facebook for twenty minutes in comparison to those people who merely browsed over the internet. The research revealed that the compromise in moods was because they noted they had wasted their time. Bad moods could also be spread between the social media users who frustrate or make fun of their colleagues.
Generally, the main contributor to change in moods and intense stress is because of cyberbullying. This is the main problem that affects every social media user and especially teenagers. The bullying takes different forms and among them are negative feedbacks, threats and making fun of other people. All these lead to a more serious health problem known as depression. Some studies have found that depressive symptoms like feelings of hopelessness as well as low moods were associated with poor social media interactions (Bolton et al. 245). Research has found more symptoms of depression among those people who have experienced negative interactions (Siddiqui and Tajinder 71). Further studies and similar carried out in 2016 discovered threefold risk of depression as well as anxiety among individuals who carried out most social media platforms (Brooks 26). The research suggested that the reasons for these included feeling such as time spent on social media are a waste of time and resources, have a negative perception of other people’s lives together with cyberbullying.
Well-Being
There are instances that social media has destructed the well-being of its users. Social media has retarded the quality of human interaction. Social media has complicated the lives of many users. In as much as social media has simplified and made communication easy, it has also handicapped human beings as a functioning society (Nabi, Abby and Jiyeon 721). Social media is a similitude of the real life and the addicts to social media treat it as a real life. Some social media users have lost the art of real-life interaction and this has limited their offline interactions. Brooks indicated that human beings are losing real-life interaction and substituting it by relying on robots to do it for them (35). Social media is actually affecting our social skills as well as physical adaptations (Martin et al. 217).
Engagement with social media has resulted in the emergence of a phenomenon known as the fear of missing out (FOMO). FOMO refers to the anxiety of being scared of missing out on positive experience which another individual is experiencing (Jung). Engaging in social measure exposes one to a more likelihood of seeing another person experiencing a good feeling than you. In this way, one begins to lose self-esteem implying a drop in the well-being of the person. Studies show that social media platforms make more than 50 percents of its users to have a feeling of inadequacy and lack of self-worth. A study by the Penn State University in 2016 showed that selfies by other users decreased self-esteem since users make a comparison of themselves to the photos having fun and are happy (Miller et al. 79). A study on Swedish Facebook users discovered that women who devoted a majority of their time on Facebook opened up to feelings of unhappiness as well as reduced confidence (Nabi, Abby and Jiyeon 725). Majority of the social media users tend to compare their lives with other individuals who seem to be have achieved successful careers and happy in their relationship, they might have a feeling that their own lives are less successful and less happy in comparison (Martin et al. 213).
Solutions
One concern social media users should consider is that being on any social media platform exposes or her to good and bad things. It is important to note the negative impacts of these things can affect our lives. Practically, one is capable of getting anything on the social media which has numerous merits and is very dangerous to any individual (Martin et al 219). Therefore, it is important to be aware that everything one meets on these social media platforms is not an accurate demonstration of real life. Majority of thing people meet on these social media sites are fabricated and it important for one to be careful not to believe all he or she sees and get influenced. By so doing, sit will enable one to reduce pressure and stress on himself/herself, hence lower incidences of mental health and improve well-being.
Therefore, most of the solutions to the demerits of social media begin from a personal level perspective. There are several initiatives one can take to mitigate the negative impact of social media. These initiatives include un-following or removing any individual who constantly thro bad comments and suggestions at you. Most social media platform have the option of reporting abuse, therefore, it is important for the user to use such options created by the sites to mitigate the negative impact of social media. One can also amend privacy settings so that you can have extra control over who can find out information about you. Moreover, users are encouraged to schedule their time on being on social media to minimize the chances of addiction. Users are also encouraged to delete anything on their social media accounts that are not appealing and at the same time, the user can mute/block activities on social media that are not appealing such as messaging or gaming. Lastly, users are encouraged to join threads and groups that improve your self-worth and make you comprehended.
Conclusion
Social media is a platform that allows people from different places of the country and the world to come together. Even though it has improved global interaction, social media has subjected some users to addiction that has led to the emergence of negative effects. The negative effects in the lives of its users include lack of well-being as well as unhealthy patterns that have emerged. To avoid such negative effects, it is important to have control of how to use social media platforms.
Work Cited
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