In the last decade, Social media has become the most important part of our lives. It is helping us in every aspect of life. Social media opens a new dimension for people where they can communicate, make friends, exchange their ideas, and grow their businesses. Like any other thing, social media also has its dark side. Some people use social media for manipulation of information, cyberbullying, Trolls, and impacting the mental health issue of people. The impact of social media kept on increasing on us because of the habit of using it frequently.
Social media was invented with the idea of connecting people from different parts of the world. So that people know about others and grow more. Social media successfully achieved its mission but there is a quote in Hindi “Latt her chij ki buri hoti hai” which means an overdose of anything is hazardous. Also, everything comes with a responsibility and some people forget that and misuse social media for their personal pleasure.
Statistics of Social media
Currently, a person in the world spends 2.5 hours daily on social media. Some of the popular social media platforms are youtube, Facebook also known as meta, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, and many more.
Facebook has 2.92 Billion users
Youtube 2.30 Billion
WhatsApp 2.10 Billion
Instagram 2 Billion
TikTok 1.5 Billion
Snapchat 560 Million
Social media sees an immense amount of growth in its users every year. It is estimated that 85 children of age 11-13 are using social media out of 100. They are exposed to some things that are not for them and that is a matter of concern. Let us, deep dive, into all the sides of social media.
Positives Impact of Social media
- Social media connects people and eliminates location boundation. It is now very convenient to interact with the people who live far from you.
- Businesses make their identity through social media and that helps them reach their potential customers.
- Social media provides information and news from all parts of the world in no time. Youth relies on social media so much for trending news and facts.
- It is used as a marketing platform by most companies to reach the maximum number of people to create awareness about their brand and products.
- People can find people of the same interest and hobbies.
- It is also a means of entertainment for some people and helps them in joy.
- Social media provides a platform for users where they can share their thoughts, pictures, and ideas.
Negative Aspect of Social Media
- Cyberbullying has become normal these days. Inappropriate comments on girls’ pics and messaging them dirty messages. Trolling people for their choices, sharing inappropriate pictures, and blackmailing others are increasing daily and some people have taken the wrong step after they fail to handle this.
- Social media is addictive and that is a major concern. People can’t imagine their lives without social media. Unnecessary use of these platforms causes irritations from the real world, difficulty in facing reality, cut off from real-world relations, and stress.
- Attention span time is reduced by social media now people need something interesting every minute. If they fail to find that they feel disappointed and that leads to depression.
- Privacy is a major problem on social media. The data that we share on social media is not secured. The information we share on social media can be circulated to anyone without our permission.
- Allegations on social media of employees using it due to addiction and they become unproductive.
- Social media helps people to come closer to know each other and build a relationship but people use it for casual relationships. That causes a lot of divorce and suicide because of cheating in relationships.
Conclusion
Social media is something that has great potential to help people in their lives and business. It opens a new dimension of the world to us. The only concern is that youth needs to understand the importance of how to use social media in a productive way. They must not waste their valuable time on social media, instead, they need to use it to achieve their goal.
All the dark sides of social media can be whitewashed if we use social media ideally. Youth can use it for sharing important information, their work, their ideas, and visuals. So it’s on the people how they want to use social media. They can use it as a tool for changing the world by thinking it can be positive or negative. So the consequence of social media depends on how people use it.