Behind the Screen: The Dark Side of Social Media
This post was written by a student. It has not been fact checked or edited.
Is the impact of social media on the amount of power people have a good thing or a bad thing?
Social media is a powerful technology which enables abuse of power in many ways. 63.9% of the global population uses social media. This is incredible as a few decades ago, social media did not even exist. I won't be surprised if the whole world uses it and is controlled by it eventually.
I would say that Social Media can enable abuse of power in a lot of ways. Firstly, it can very badly affect our health. It is one of the most addictive things on the entire planet at the moment. No matter how bad you want to stop using it, you can’t. It’s very hard to do so. 73.6% of Romania’s total internet user base, no matter the age, used at least one Social Media platform in January 2024. Also let’s say that someone starts posting. They post content with the latest trends, and you watch their videos everyday. You also tell other people about them. That content creator receives money for every like and view that they get. This way that person can become extremely famous. You don’t actually realize how much power they can hold. They will start giving you information or even advice. They start to build your trust. Afterwards, you won’t feel the need to search it up every time. Slowly, without you noticing, they could spread misinformation. It can get to a point where the creators love their power so much, that they can tell you to give them your personal information. There are almost unlimited ways for them to manipulate you.
Or how about cyberbullying? For this type of online abuse, you are the one posting. You enjoy what you do, but other people don’t. You start noticing many people writing rude comments to you. Trying to ignore them won’t work. This will make you want to stop posting, leaving with shame, anxiety and even conceit. You gain fear and embarrassment. You will feel the need to fit in, and do what other people like. You then become something called a “people pleaser”. You try to focus on posting, and even doing only things that your friends and audience wants. You start to forget what actually makes you happy. You live with actual fear of doing what you enjoy, thinking that others might bully you.
In conclusion, Social Media can abuse power in thousands of ways. I would personally say that this abuse of power is extremely negative for all of us. Social Media could have been used for helping other people, and for making them feel good about themselves, but it’s ended up as quite the opposite.
Comments (5)
Yes social media has a lot of disadvantages, but it doesn't mean that social media is all bad, I mean just look at the platform you are writing on, this is social media. This is is an open ground for discussion, where we can share opinions and learn skills. Yes, I agree with you on every word you said, but Social Media doesnt just exist for negative reasons it can be used for good things too.
Yes i agree with you because social media has a lot of disadvantage such as cyber bullying, negative impact on mental health, spread of misinformation, potential for addiction, and the promotion of superficial connection
Social media is good and bad but people tend to focus more on the bad because of all the negative comments. Internet trolls and stalkers even more everybody has a hand in it social media is a place where power is abused just because everyone wants to be popular it is highly addictive and time consuming.
Yes I agree with you because social media also has both it's disadvantages and advantages. But, I think people's focus is more on the good side of social media than the bad side because no one would want to show their bad sides or negative attitudes to people instead they want to be popular on the social media.
I agree with your opinion. Social media is a very influential tool that has touched a lot of people in doing things either in the positive way or negative way. At the same time it is doing bad, it has lots of great impacts like in communication and connection; social media enables lots of people to talk to family members and friends from long distances, fostering and maintaining the relationship.
It provides an avenue for education, allowing sharing of creativity, online courses and experts opinions on topics.
It also serves as a privilege for the voice of the people to be heard during political campaigns.
It helps in marketing business, advertising to people for a greater business.
It helps in sharing of information across different people worldwide too etc.
For the bad aspects , social media can cause mental health challenges such as bringing about depression because for some people, they can see lots of people on social media posting their happiness, their happy times and they begin to think why their own case is different which can also lead to commiting suicide.
It can lead to the spread of misinformation which can really affect the society. This can also bring about loss of jobs for journalist and other news professionals which can really be devastating. It could also lead to envy that can cause further problems.
Cyber bullying and bad activities done that should not be for children. When they see it, it leads to addiction for some and thereby causing destruction of their lives.
By controlling posts on social media, driving towards a safe platform can be done.
I agree social media can have a negative and positive side. The positive side of social media is that it allows people share and express their feelings, reach out to their family members around the world and even learning new things that will help in their education, while the negative side of social media is that people hurt other people's feelings through social media by cyberbullying and children will think that it is a good way to be hurting people online because no one is seeing them. Children may open pages and websites that can corrupt them and their thoughts. Social media influence can be very essential in a lot of ways, but when we misuse it, it may end up showing it's negative side.
I'm not sure about this because...
The social media has its effects; if we use it well it will benefit and help us. The media can help us spread news and information, it can also help say the truth or expose people. For example, when someone who commits fraud, without the media such a person will not be easily exposed by others.
Also when the social media is limited, people are not allowed to say certain comments and this also allows people to report cyber bullying which in turn helps cyberbullying rates to drop. Social media also helps us communicate easily and efficiently with our family members, most especially for low income earners who cant travel easily to where their loved ones are located.
The social media has many disadvantages as it also has its advantages, so in conclusion if we manage to stop or reduce the disadvantages, it will help reduce anxiety that alot of people have about social media.
Social media is a communicative and interactive groups of people but people use it for bad things such as cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is one of the worst part of social media and it also one of it's main drawback. But people are suppose to use it for something good such as helping people.