What Are The Negative Effects Of Social Media Essay

The rapid evolution of the internet in recent years has brought about many exciting changes and features, but many negative side effects have evolved as well. Nearly all young people with internet access will use some type of social media to some extent, but how does this impact them? Social media can be an incredibly powerful tool, but the negative aspects can pose risks in many situations. The use of social media should be encouraged, especially among college students, but since there are negative side effects to social media, better education of how to make use of the benefits and avoid the negative aspects should be in place. In order to fully understand how social media impacts society, one must know exactly what qualifies as social media.

One of the major downsides of social media involves children and teens. In an academic journal Doug Fodeman stated: “To students using Facebook, there is a false sense of privacy.” Since social media users aren’t interacting face-to-face, they feel anonymous, therefore causing a lack of social responsibility in their mind. This can lead to some very negative repercussions, such as stolen bank accounts. Many children do not fully understand that nearly anything posted on the internet can be found in some way, causing a security risk. Where the security risk begins, is when a user adds a hacker as a friend. Informal studies show that teens accept 44% to 87% of friend requests from strangers. If a hacker becomes friends with someone over social media, they can then see nearly everything posted by the victim unless manually set to not show certain information. If the user is not careful with what information they share online, hackers can collect enough information over time to guess passwords for accounts to do all kinds of damage such as stealing bank accounts, installing viruses, or even identity theft (Fodeman). This major downside of social media is made worse for people who do not know what type of information is safe to share on the internet. Not only is there a security risk, but social media can be harmful for people’s social lives as