Social Networking Sites: Bad For Our Society?

Facebook: the not so pretty side of it Everyday people’s grades fall, are cyberbullied, or are exposed to inappropriate content, or even put themselves in danger because of Facebook. 38 percent of victims from frequent cyberbullying thought or committed suicide in 2013. ().Because of distraction, Facebook caused many kid’s grades to lower because they spend less time studying and more time scrolling on their computers and clicking “like” on a friend’s pictures. Studies have shown that Facebook users spend 11 hours studying and working on academic work while non-users spend 15 hours. Many children are exposed to inappropriate content, like, advice on eating disorders, Facebook can be a good cite, but for only people who can use it properly.

Teenagers spend too much time on social networking websites and this trend can eventually make matters worse. Spending so much time on these w... ... middle of paper ... ... is a question that many students ask themselves before studying for an exam, writing a paper, or simply doing homework. Hours and hours pass before some students begin their assignments and they will wait until last minute to get anything done. Internet addiction is becoming more and more common among Americans. Although Goldwasser includes positive points about the Internet she fails to search deeper into the problem that American teens have with it today.

Social media can largely cause student grades to plummet, since school is not top priority for most students. Many children spend hours a day scavenging through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for new posts and new messages. This causes students to forget to do their homework and don’t take school seriously, instead they are more worried about how many friends or followers they have online. This greatly increases high school dropout rates and lowers SAT/ACT scores. “The study found freshman students were spending nearly 12 hours a day, using internet for social media networking and checking for new messages and posts, while they study for less than 2 hours.

As most of customers communicate in social media, it became absolutely necessary for companies to keep up with this trend and follow their customers to new channels. In social media bad news spread very quickly. What started with innocent complaint about company’s product or service can escalate in wild discussions just overnight. For example, although HSBC was criticised on several Facebook groups for introduction of new student banking charges, HSBC did not respond until it had been in the national media [3]. This poses a huge threat to company’s PR so if an organisation does not monitor information flow on Facebook, Twitter and other virtual communities, it can easily find itself in troubles without even knowing about it.

There is a joke that goes, “Did it really happen if you did not Instagram it?” The sad thing is, it is almost not a really a joke anymore. Between what some would call addiction, to bullying, to narcissism all beginning at a young age, social media is having a negative effect on the youth of our generation. There has been a lot of talk lately about how teens have become addicted to social media. Parents struggle with getting their children to not touch their phones at the dinner table, teachers with taking phones away from students due to texting, even on dates when the other person is checking their Instagram. It is as if teens today cannot go a whole hour without touching their cell phones.

In the later years, the web browsers are distributed using Bulletin Board Usenet which allowed users to post news articles. Geocities was the first social networking site introduced in 1994 which helped users to create their own websites. After this, Friendster was the social networking site which acquired three million users in first three months, and it served as a launching point for MySpace. This is followed by Classmate.com, LinkedIn, Tribe.net and Facebook.com. Since its launch, facebook has become the most popular social networking site among all the sites available (Walker, 2011).

This number is too big when you think about the potential students have but the constant bullying by their peers on social media effects that. For some, dropping out or taking the bad grades feels like their only option. Some teenagers that get cyberbullied on social media can’t take the constant criticism, which can lead to suicide. An example is Hannah Smith, a 14-year old student from England. Smith had been on ask.fm, a social networking site that allows people to ask questions anonymously.

"9 suspected criminals who got themselves caught via social media [Updated]." The Week. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

Why Instagram is the worst social media for mental health. Time Health. Retrieved from: http://time.com/4793331/instagram-social-media-mental-health/ Marche, S. (2012, May 12). Is Facebook making us lonely? The Atlantic.

N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2013. "The Great Chicago Fire: Chicago Is Burning!" Http://chicagohistory.org/mychicago/pdf/lesson3.pdf.