Social media's detrimental influence on young people's social lives
A social media platform is an online platform that people use to create social networks or social relationships with others who have similar personal or professional interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections. Social networks have a significant impact on young people. It is becoming clear that social networks have become an integral part of people's lives. According to the survey conducted, 100% of the respondents claimed that they use social media. Many teenagers use laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones to check Tweets and status updates from their friends and family. Due to the advancement of technology, people are pressured to accept different lifestyles. (Akram, Kumar, 2017)
Social media hurts young people's social lives; it reduces the number of face-to-face interactions among youths because they spend the majority of their time on these online social platforms. When students studying in different universities in Pakistan were surveyed about the disadvantages of social media, 24.2% of the respondents chose the option that social media usage has decreased their social skills. It can be inferred that social media has a significant impact on young people's interpersonal relationships. Face-to-face communication as well as interaction with family members and relatives have all been disrupted as a result of the growing trend of spending the majority of one's time in the virtual world. It was also noted that youth believe their previous lifestyle has changed as they don’t do the previous activities, such as joining a library and visiting a relative or friend.
It was also discovered that their use of social media had an impact on their moods. (Baloch, 2020) The family members also feel that they don’t get enough time from them, as they often complain to them. According to the survey conducted on a scale from 1 to 10, excessive use of social media has reduced my face-to-face interaction. 18.2% of the respondents chose a score of 5, which is a moderate answer but cannot be overlooked, and 9.1% of the respondents chose a score of 10, which means that the use of social media is significantly impacting youth’s social lives. Overall, the above discussion gives the impression that the interpersonal relationships of the youth are being affected because of the use of social media. The more time the students spend on these online networking destinations, the less time they will spend interacting face-to-face with others. This decreases their relational abilities. They won't have the capacity to convey and mingle adequately face-to-face with others. Because of this, businesses are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the relational abilities of new graduates. Social media also serves as a good platform for cyber theft and bullying, which increases the likelihood and incidences of identity theft. This poses several risks to the youth because their personal information may be stolen. After all, it is stored in locations they are unaware of or whose security is unknown or questionable. Compelling relational abilities are critical to achievement in reality.
Cyber Harassment: According to a PewCenter.org report, the majority of children have become victims of cyberbullying in the past. Since anyone can make a phony record and do anything without being tailed, it has ended up being exceptionally straightforward for anyone to spook on the Internet. Dangerous messages, terrorizing messages, and bits of gossip can be sent to the majority to cause inconvenience and uproar in the general public. Hacking: Personal information and security can be hacked and shared on the Internet. Some Twitter and Facebook accounts have been hacked in the past, and the programmer posted materials that influenced the person's life. (Akram, Kumar, 2017). Social media platforms also encourage the spread of false information and news to tarnish the reputations of others or other groups of interest, such as political or religious groups. This, in turn, leads to fights and enmity between the parties involved, which can lead to divisions among tribes or between people of different ethnicities and tribes. It can also lead to joining cults and Illuminati groups, which can lead to the frequent killing of people in society, particularly loved ones, as a sacrifice to these cults. In the opinion of 89% of youth, the lure to use social media shifts their concentration away from academic activities or study. 94% of youth opined that social media is used to spread misinformation and rumors and is responsible for increasing cybercrimes among young people, like blackmailing and sexual harassment with their unknown friends through chatting. (Singh, Amiri, and Sabbarwal, 2017).
An evaluation of several studies done by various scientists shows that social isolation can cause several effects. Wrongly socializing on social media sites can complicate a young person's social life by exposing them to online predators who can entice them into sexual acts such as lesbianism and other general sexual misconduct. It also exposes these teens to pornographic content being spread in some social groups online. This in turn leads to early pregnancies among young girls, causing them to drop out of school. It can also result in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, which can lead to the premature death of our youth. The morals of these teens are also tampered with as they now have access to immoral literature and videos. Spending long hours chatting on social media sites also decreases productivity among the youth. This in turn causes the youths to not be self-sufficient and instead depend on their parents and families for upkeep. The long hours wasted online on social media can be channeled to productive activities that can enable one to earn a living or even acquire an education, for instance through online tutorials and making good use of online research materials.
Social media has different merits, yet it also has a few faults that influence individuals in contrary ways. False data can lead the training framework to disappointment; in organizations, the wrong promotion will influence productivity; online networking can manhandle the general public by attacking individuals' security; and some pointless sites can impact youth that can end up savage and can take on a few wrong activities. Last but not least, all citizens are advised to adopt the positive aspects of social media and avoid its negative effects so that we can reap the benefits of these latest and emerging technologies.
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