Social Media And Its Effect On All Of Us

Social media is one of the most important phenomena of this century. We say this with so much confidence knowing that as many as four billion people invest their time in social platforms. And by time, we do not mean a few seconds; rather, we mean hours and hours in a single day!

Considering it plays such a huge role in our lives, it must be having a huge impact on us and we should be aware of it. In this article, we will be talking about both the positive and negative effects of social platforms.

Table of Contents

Keeping In Touch

Social media keeps us all connected no matter how distant we are from one another. Even if we do not have the time to have a conversation with all the people we have known in our lives, we can easily view the social media 24-hour stories of our friends to know what they have been up to lately.

There were times when we used to say goodbye to our college friends with the impression that we would never be able to see them again. Nowadays, we know that we will be able to get updates about them each and every day!

We bet you consider this a big change in a positive direction! To take full advantage of the long-distance communication enabled by social media, make sure you have great internet of the likes of Xfinity internet. This way, you will be able to video chat with people over long distances seamlessly.

Revolting Against Oppressive Regimes

Another positive effect of social media is that it can be used as a medium to spread information against oppressive regimes. Traditionally, oppressive regimes ban any criticism of them on national media. If a channel does feature any criticism of the government, it is taken off the air.

Fortunately for those organizing against the government, information on social media is much harder to censor for the local government. Just think about what is happening in Russia.

Local Russians who do not use social media do not even know what is happening in Ukraine as what is being shown to them on national television is far from the truth.

The fact that social media exists allows locals to know what is happening outside Russia and engage in dialogue with the rest of the world.

Furthermore, it also allows people inside Ukraine to let the world know what atrocities are being committed inside their country by Putin and his army.

Education

People can gain a lot of knowledge through social media. Examples of these would be the resourceful infographics and enlightening quotes you keep on seeing on the feed of your Instagram.

If we consider YouTube’s social media, then that means that all the educational documentaries posted on that platform are also examples of education on social platforms.

Loss of In-person interactions

Yes, we stay in touch with people far away from us because of social media. But the sad part is that we do waste a lot of time just scrolling through feeds on social media as well.

This wastage of time takes out time from our social commitments where we get to interact with others in person.

In-person interactions are extremely important for being mentally healthy. Just think about it. A single hug from someone makes you feel good about yourself, doesn’t it?

Dearth Of Sleep

Here is what is said by a lot of people: the more you use social media, the less you sleep. Although we would so like to deny it, we all have to accept that that is true.

So many of us delay sleeping because we are busy scrolling through feeds. We all know that that is not at all ideal. This is why it is important to stop social media notifications before you go to sleep.

Privacy Issues

There are a lot of privacy issues regarding social media. People say that sensitive information of theirs gets leaked. A very sound example of that would be Cambridge Analytica. Sensitive information relating to voter data was leaked. And it was not leaked by any small social media company.

Rather, it was leaked by the owner of three of the largest social platforms – Meta (parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram).

We did not name the company just to point fingers. Rather, we named the company to point out that, if a company this big can not secure data, a smaller company will probably have issues with data security as well.