Social Media Research Paper
Of that definition, social networking is defined as, “The use of dedicated websites and applications to interact with other users, or to find people with similar interests to oneself. ” All these social media websites, including Backbone, Twitter, Mainstream, Linked, etc. Are classified as social media/networking, and as stated previously, are continual causing more and more problems for our younger generations as they grow up and conform to the new ways and paths of society. One of the problems that social media has caused is how our children are doing in school. Studies have shown that over 96% of college students use
Backbone regularly. Studies also show that 25% of Backbone users (remember none of these stats involves any other social media websites besides Backbone! ) check there Backbone a minimal of five times per day, and the average time spent on Backbone when anybody visits it is 20 minutes. That’s over an hour and a half spent on Backbone everyday, which doesn’t mix well when studies show that students who check their Backbone, other social media websites, instant messaging, or have any of these running in the background during their study sessions, there grades averaged 20% lower than all students who are solely focused on their studies.
The humorous part about the above fact is the fact that 79% of college students do not believe that Backbone is a contributing factor to their lower grades. In simple and easy areas Of life, the majority Of students are continually showing a place Of social media and their connections with others above their schoolwork most of the time. If our students cannot handle the responsibilities given whilst in college, how can we expect them to run our country?
Will they not naturally follow the same path they have been following? Social media and technology is taking over the lives of our younger generations, is reaching out to the elder as well, and is showing problems in more areas than just schoolwork. It is true though that supposedly classes that twitter in class see the grade points of students, on average, rise by half. Although this is quite an accomplishment, and is great that they are raising grades, what does this actually promote?
All they are doing is allowing more of the social media and school to mix, which, if we go back to the facts that students a 20% grade loss due to social media, then this would not be the general direction we would want to head, but rather the complete opposite direction. That is, of course, if our goal is to pass the class and gain as much knowledge as possible from the classes that you are paying for, so you can go out and have a successful job life and not struggle to get by. It is obvious and easy for people to distract other people, even without trying most of the time.
Everybody has this problem, which would be why social media easily distracts our attention. People want to feel connected with others, they want to be, ‘fin the know,” and be a part of some sort of group. Studies even showed that students who participated in social media felt about 50% more popular on average. No wonder some are so addicted to it. Nevertheless, in order to advance in society, we need to set aside our desires and focus; otherwise, we reap the consequences in the future. Another major problem that social media has dropped on us and created is bullying.
Cyber-bullying is increasingly happening more and more as it becomes more popular, and there is no reason it should not. Most students, 81 % of them, agree that cyber-bullying would be and is much easier to get away with than any other form of bullying. They also believe that their parents would never find out, as they can easily conceal and parents do not monitor them very strictly in the area of technology. That statement alone goes to show how easily and probable this is, especially when people do not think it is that big of a problem when in reality it is always happening.
You start to realize how big of a problem cyber-bullying is when you look at the fact that over 1 million children reported being cyber-bullied in the year of 2012. Experts conservatively believe only 1 in ID incidents get reported, if not a smaller ration, which says that at least 10 million kids were cyber-bullied in the year of 2012. Almost 14th of teens say they witness cyber-bullying frequently. Bullying is causing problems upon problems for our youth these days. Bullying also causes the most suicides every year, being the leading cause for suicide.
Moreover, when suicide is the third leading cause for death among adolescents and teens, many kids are experiencing traumatizing problems from bullying. When kids fall into depression and commit suicide, it also affects more than just the kid committing suicide. According to a study done by Princeton university, the average American says they have, not including relatives, a little over eight close friends (8. 6 to be exact). The average family consists of 3. 16 people, as of 2013 in the U. S. This would mean that the average suicide affects 1 1. People, which would mean that, according to New York Times statistics stating that there were 38,364 deaths in 201 0, over 450 thousand would have been affected by suicide, and that just consists of the successful suicide attempts. It is incredible to see the devastating effects that people are causing to others; so much that they want to kill themselves, simply because of online bullying. A study at Yale shows that bullied teens are up to nine times more likely to commit suicide. Let us look at a few examples of the affects of cyber-bullying.
A young male from Ireland named Joshua Ellsworth hanged himself after request cyber bullying on a social network that he actively used. People teased him about his father being a farmer and peers made fun of his dating habits. The continual bullying that his peers had placed on him put him into such a depression that he had committed suicide. Most recently, in October 201 1 Amber Cole, a 14-year Old girl from Baltimore, MO, was filmed (without her consent) performing sexual acts with her ex-boyfriend.
People then discovered this video, and instead of ignoring and minimizing this, shared and spread the video across social media sites and she became a worldwide target for cyber bullies. She said that the lease of this tape has ruined her life and her reputation. Although you may not think that things like these happen very often, they are happening every day. Social media and the acts that can happen on social media are causing so many people problems and drama that they would definitely rather go without, and if social media was not possible, then these problems would have never been brought up.
Even the government and States have recognized the problems that have people come across using social media, and have recognized it as a large enough problem, and admitted to recognizing that problem by trying to form laws and rules to strict the possibility of these acts happening again. Despite the governments good intentions, they have not succeeded except maybe in the smallest ounce, as social media is difficult to monitor and involve way more time management then the government is willing and able to put into these problems.
Cyber-bullying is becoming a huge deal, and nobody has any way to maintain all the privileges of social media and yet prevent all cyber- bullying. The negative activities that people are performing are causing serious depression and the loss of thousands of lives. There are also many other ways that social media has negatively impacted our society as well, such as how social media has promoted laziness and has increased the lack of self-motivation in people, which is one Of the reasons why so many people out there don’t have jobs and are living in their parents basement.
They are not motivated to go get a job, and are comfortable where they are in their current condition. This also could be a reason why obesity is such a huge problem too. Studies have shown that if you naturally hang out with people who are bigger than you are and have a higher IBM; your IBM will naturally rise to, mainly because you spend less time performing physical activities with your peers than you would if your peers had a lower IBM. To conclude, there are so many ways, just like almost everything else out there, that social media websites can benefit our society.
Instead, though, people are taking advantages of the possibilities gained when accessed into social media, and therefore the central point for several major problems, which are becoming more and more popular, are the use of and possibilities of social media. This will not just fade away either. These problems are not just showing up and look like they are going to be a, “phase,” you might say. People love social media, and want to use it daily. Some people are so addicted to social media that they will keep their smart phone over everyday necessities.
