The Dark Side of Social Media

1200 Words3 Pages

Tweeting and friending used to conjure up images of birds and human contact.

Tumbling meant rolling down a sloped hill and “Myspace” referred to the personal area one

called his own. Today, all these words revert back to one image: humans spending unlimited

amounts of time in front of a computer screen, “socializing.” The generations that precede the

current are always looking for an outside force to blame for the corruption of youth, and today

social media takes the cake. This corruption has been the increasing cause of clinical illnesses,

behavioral changes, and suicide.

The invention of the internet brought many exciting avenues to investigate. World

Wide Web users quickly realized that they could easily make contact with people outside their

immediate area without ever leaving their homes or picking up a phone. Connecting with

family overseas or making cyberfriends hailing from exotic hometowns quickly grew to be the

norm and letters and phone calls quickly became obsolete. The first major social networking

site, Myspace, was geared towards teenagers and emerging musical artists. The site took off

running, with over 100 million users in three years. Myspace encouraged users to share

photos, feelings, thoughts, and build an arsenal of friends. Although Myspace use has since

declined, it has sparked similar versions such as Facebook and Twitter. According to the

Facebook website, the site is 800 million people, and growing fast. It is the number one site

used to connect with friends, musicians, companies. Facebook is also used to connect with

people that a user may not normally connect with. Being able to find people with similar

interests across the globe is now easily foreseeable. Ano...

... middle of paper ...

...ords bother them is the only

true way to keep children pure and alive.

Drugs, alcohol, media, and peer pressure can all lead children down dark paths. In all

truthfulness, almost anything can. In today’s age, however, the corruption seems to have taken

on a more innocent form. Corruption within youth today is controlled by the written, unedited

word. The problem is, the effects can be everlasting.

Works Cited

Gordon, Serena. "Social Media has Good and Bad Effects on Kids: Experts." U.S. News: Health. 28 March 2011: 1-2. Print.

"Social Media and Kids; the Good and the Bad." Kvue. ABC, 19 Aug 2011. Web. 28 Feb 2012.

"Social Networking's Good and Bad Impacts on Kids." American Psychological Association. (2011): 1. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.

Welsh, Jennifer. "Is Constant 'Facebooking' Bad for Teens?."LiveScience. (2011): 1. Print.

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