The Negative Impact Of Social Media On The Human Race

It is no secret that social media is ranked amongst the most influential phenomena of the 21st century. As of today, approximately four billion people use social media. That is about half of the world’s population. The amount of people, however, is not the most striking figure. Even more shocking is the time a person gives to social media each day on average – two and a half hours. If we exclude eight hours of sleep and ten hours of work and commute, the time we spend on social media is almost half of our lives!

As a phenomenon becomes more influential, the amount of discussions taking place on it increases. While some discuss the negative effects of social media, others wonder about the negative impact social media is having on people. In the case that you are part of the latter group, consider yourself lucky to have landed on this post! We say this with so much surety as, in this piece, we will be detailing the different ways in which social media negatively impacts people. Notably, we are not trying to make you boycott social media and cut out all Xfinity Internet packages you have subscribed to; we are simply encouraging you not to get consumed by it. 

Dearth Of In-Person Interactions

In the case that we are spending half of our free time on our screens, we cannot possibly take out the time to get ready and go to a family member or friend’s place and spend time with them. One may argue that family and friends are the ones we are talking to on social media; however, as the previous generation would say, in-person interactions are the way to go. This claim is also backed by many scientific researchers who say that merely a hug for a few seconds can decrease the likelihood of falling into depression. So drop your phone, get ready, hit the road, and meet people!

Effect On Kids

Social media also has a huge effect on kids. After all, if all kids do is scroll through their Instagram Feeds, how are they ever going to find the time to play sports and learn various social skills necessary for personal and professional success in the future? Indeed, the excessive usage of social media has had a very bad effect on the physical health of kids. Alongside, because of the absence of the endorphin boost that they get when playing sports, kids of this generation often report being less happy compared to those of previous generations.

Sports also teach children to compete. The lack thereof means that they not only get demotivated to succeed in school but also, later, in their professional lives. After all, teenage years are formative ages. 

Hammers Our Confidence

On one hand, excessive usage of social media hurts us by lowering the healthy competition we experience while playing sports. On the other hand, however, it negatively affects us by increasing unhealthy competition. We can relate to feeling not good enough at some point in our lives after seeing an Instagram “friend” post a picture of themselves on the beach. You might be wondering why we put the term “friend” in inverted commas; here’s why: many people we feel we compete with for more likes aren’t even people we interact with regularly. 

Privacy

We do not just end up knowing too much about other people; we also tell the world more about us than we ever aim to do. Neither does your conservative cousin need to know how you were dressed at the beach nor does your high school classmate, who used to stalk you, need to know which bar you are presently clubbing in. In addition, if you have gotten holidays from work, your colleagues have no business spying on your Snapchat location to know whether your leave was “genuine” or not.

While all the examples of lack of privacy quoted above are all incidents where you unknowingly o knowingly gave consent for others to know more about you, there are also cases where information is leaked without your consent at all. In the Cambridge Analytica case, for example, very sensitive information about voter polling trends was leaked. This caused an international stir and a federal crisis bringing a lot of shame to the United States of America. Meta, then known as Facebook, was responsible for keeping the information secure but couldn’t. We are naming the company not to defame it but just to show that even one of the richest companies, with billions of dollars in revenue, can sometimes end up failing at keeping your information secure.

Conclusion

We hope this article has helped you discover what about social media is harmful to us. Make sure you or your loved ones don’t get too consumed by it!