Social Medias Effects on Society

By: Alexander Dunn

The Rise of Technology

With the rise of technology, it brings with it a lot of benefits such as the accessibility to new information at the tip of your finger. Although technology has benefited many aspects of society there tends to be negative repercussions that follow such has the distortion of reality. The rise of technology brought things such as social media to light which became very popular among the younger generations and made them more vulnerable to things like fake news. According to BFA.org social media portrays the life of a person through the virtual aspect which blinds the reader or watcher to the true aspects of their lives ultimately distorting their reality of the world. Also, with the excessive use among the younger generations this makes them more vulnerable to things like cyber bullying or lack of privacy. Hopefully by bringing to light the aspects of social media that are not beneficial to the younger generations it will helps us to further understand the effects it has on the younger generations and how to avoid the negative repercussions.

Fake News in our Daily Lives

By first realizing what fake news is and understanding that it is everywhere from our social media post to our news broadcasts it will help to decipher between what is real or not. According to CITS.edu often times you will see news articles that are false but are used to manipulate a person’s perception of reality. This can be used in many different ways but is often times used to turn foe against foe like when people post fake tweets from high-ranking officials to get people to turn their backs on them. This does not seem to be a common problem but as we have seen in the past like the 2016 election it can become a problem very fast when fake information is being spread which ultimately put the U.S. in jeopardy of making the wrong decision for president. This can be easily avoidable though with a little bit of knowledge of the spread of fake news and the platforms that fake news is more common on. If you know the type of social media platform, then you may also know how popular it may be to see something fake like with twitter there has had a rise in fake news being posted on them. By realizing that not all the information being seen is true and which platforms/users to trust, it can help you to decipher between the true content and the fake content being posted.

Social Medias Distortion of Reality

In our daily lives we are exposed to mass amounts of fake news which can be easily avoided by knowing the aspects that come with it. By identifying the social media apps that have an uprise of fake media you are able to more easily decipher the information. When you are not able to decipher between what is fake and real it becomes to distort your sense of reality because of all of the fake news or propaganda you are seeing. For example with the rise of technology the fitness industry has seen a major boom with content creators promoting healthy lifestyles and working out. What people who are following these people do not know is what they truly have to go through to reach that physique and the sacrifices they had to make to reach that goal. If you are just an average person going to the gym seeing these people with unrealistic body figures may unmotivated you because of how unrealistic it is to reach that point. Also, for people who struggle with anxiety going to the gym is a huge task that takes lots of motivation to complete and seeing these fake expectations made on these social media platforms may make them even more anxious to go. These creators use these fake expectations to gain views but do not take into consideration how others that are not at the same level as them may feel when seeing the post because of how it distorts the true reality of the gym.

References:

“The Effects of Social Media on Teenagers.” YouTube, YouTube, 31 Jan. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl-TJyPKu_s.

“The Danger of Fake News in Inflaming or Suppressing Social Conflict.” Center for Information Technology and Society - UC Santa Barbara, https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/danger-social.

Reed, J.A. “How Social Media Distorts the Truth about Everything We Know.” New York Post, New York Post, 5 Mar. 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/03/05/how-social-media-distorts-the-truth-about-everything-we-know/.

Shabi Jabri, She is an enthusiastic Pakistan based article writer and holding master’s degree in physics. She is stay at home mom. She loves to write on different niche. “Positive & Negative Impact of Social Media on Young Generation - Journals.” Business Finance Articles, 9 Jan. 2022, https://businessfinancearticles.org/impact-of-social-media-on-young-generation.

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