Does the Addiction to Social Networks Affect Our Modern Society?

Since the advent of social networks, we have discovered various ways it reshapes our culture and society. Walk down any street or walk into any office and I can assure you that you’ll see many individuals glued to their phones, on one social media platform or the other. The likes of Facebook and Twitter have now become the ‘Titanic’ on which the ‘Rose’ and ‘Jack’ of our modern society meet each other. People now post virtually every occurrence going on in their lives on social media, from the very ridiculous to the very important ones.

Indeed, we can now safely say that our society is addicted to social networks. However, we have also derived wonderful benefits from these platforms. This therefore means that; for us to properly consider the effects of social networks on our society, we must consider the pain and the pleasure.

So, yes; social networks have indeed affected our society. We will be looking at the general negative and positive effects of social media, as well as its effects on some specific areas of our modern society.

Negative effects of social media

1. Cyberbullying

Many people have fallen victims to cyberbullying because social media facilitates it. Cyberbullying becomes worse because people upload a lot of information concerning their personal lives on social media. This makes it easy for others to use such information to insult and even threaten them. This also explains why there are so many celebrity impostors online.

2. Loss of productivity

Social media can be very addictive such that; people focus on projecting a perfect image on social media, to the detriment of their actual lives. This leads to poor performance and distractions in the workplace.

3. Spread of unconfirmed information

One of the benefits of social media is the speed with which information can travel around the world. However, this advantage comes with its own unique disadvantage, and this is the fact that; unconfirmed and even wrong information can easily spread like wildfire through social media.

Positive effects of social media

1. Wonderful marketing tool

Social media has become so instrumental to marketing. Social media is a place where we connect with other people all over the world. This means that if properly used, social media provides access to a wide range and a large number of people. This makes it the perfect marketing tool.

2. Staying in touch

This is another incredible benefit of the social media. We can always remain in touch with one another via social media, irrespective of distance. I can have video chats with my spouse from any part of the world. So, social media closes the gap between us, even when we are continents apart.

3. Networking

Use of social media has also made networking so easy for us. With social media, I can easily relate with others in my field or people whom we share common interest. Social media platforms like LinkedIn give us access to a community of professionals.

Effects of social networks on particular aspects of society

1. Education

Social networks affect our education system positively and negatively. Students usually use social media during essay writing, whether college paper writing or high school essay. Students can easily find suitable writing services via social networks. In fact, a professor advised that; to know a genuine writing service company, it is important to check their social media reputation.

2. Politics

In politics it has become pivotal for candidates and parties to have active social media accounts, if they are going to get votes.  In recent elections, all parties involved used social media for intensive communication.

Conclusion

As we already know, social media addiction has found its place in our society. It is imperative for us to acknowledge the fact that it affects us in a number of ways. But the good news is; these effects are not all negative, many are positive effects.

About the Author

Justin is a blogger from Leicester, England, UK. When not teaching his little students and rooting for Leicester FC, he loves to share his thoughts and opinions about education, writing for term paper writing help  and blogging with other people on different blogs and forums. Follow Justin on Facebook and Twitter.