Threats and Pressures; of Social Media

Continuing my theme of the changes in interaction caused by social media and online applications, I will be discussing the threats and pressures which are found to be caused, by online medias.

Social media can be found to be the route cause for many of the younger generations pressures in life. This is due to the new endless opportunities to contact someone, and new ways to create further contact with classmates, beyond a classroom. Therefore, bullies now have countless opportunities to attack their fellow class mates with cruel messages. However, it can also be argued that these new social media opportunities of interaction benefit us, by allowing people to have an ease of communication, and create stronger bonds with people than what would exist without further communication.

Social media can be cruel when used for the wrong purposes. This is due to children, and even adults, using social media to send nasty messages, and also publicly post embarrassing images or horrible comments about individuals. These posts may sometimes be unintentional to hurt someone, or could be direct abuse to bully someone. Social media applications are available to us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, they how the power to consistently attack someone, compared to school bullying many years ago which may have only existed in playgrounds, allowing people to escape bullying when they go home. Therefore, it perhaps could be considered that social media may require stricter age restrictions, or have more people looking over social media, watching what people are posting and having more boundaries.

However, it could also be seen that social media is an extremely useful, and now essential to stay connected with people. It is now possible to send instant messages and video chat with people, all over the world. This benefits us as it allows us to communicate with friends, family, colleagues, and meet new people. This makes communication much easier, as we now do not have to send a letter and wait days/ weeks for a reply, or have to spend long journeys travelling to meet up with people. Therefore, it can be seen that although social media can cause disruption such as bullying in peoples lives, it can also provide great benefits for us.

Therefore, it is clear to see that social media provides many advantages, as well as disadvantages for us, in concern with communication.

Type again soon, Anna

Lack of Face-to-Face Communication

Continuing from my last blog, "Stanger Danger", I am now moving onto the issue of lack of  face-to-face communication between individuals.

Social media is a massive influence in relation to impacting the way which people interact. This can be seen to reduce the amount of face-to-face communication which people have.

One of the reasons which I feel a lack of physical interaction occurs, is due to the ease of speaking to friends from the comfort of our own homes, via social media. I feel that people have been gradually slipping into a social media coma which they can sit, aimlessly on their phone for hours on end, without even noticing the time go by. This time on our phones is often spent without direction or real interest, it is just something which we humans have developed out of bad habit. To sit and refresh apps on our phones.

This time on our phones is spent talking with friends and generally updating our application profiles, to make ourselves and our lives appear to be more appealing than what they are. Therefore, people are finding this a much easier and simple way to live, by staying inside, on their own, not having to get ready and leave the house and make an effort with someone. So much time is dedicated towards this, whereas it could be spent much better off with quality, face-to-face, communication with people we actually care about. This time would also most likely bring much more enjoyment to us, and avoid these social media comas which many people find themselves slipping into every day. Therefore, social media is influencing us by consuming large portions of our time, and by drawing us away from other people, due to its ease of time consumption.

Another reason which social media affects the amount of face-to-face communication which people have, is that it reduces the requirement for people to have to see each other. Many people do not bother with making plans with their friends, as they do not have to. People nowadays feel that there is no point in going out to the park, to get a real social life, as they can simply instantly message their friends from the comfort of their own home, via sites such as twitter and Facebook. Perhaps logging online to chat rooms, twitter, and Facebook, is like a new form of playground for us? Is this really a suitable way for us to socialise with one another?

We must also consider how this lack of physical communication can affect our confidence in meeting new people and making friends. Many people now lack the understanding, and find it inappropriate to walk up to someone and start a conversation or even ask for help with directions, and resort to relying on technology for assistance instead.

Therefore, as we can see, social media is altering the way we interact with each other, by altering our desire to spend physical time with other people.

Type again soon, Anna

Social Media: Stranger Dangers

It can be seen that the further time goes on, the more technology is taking over our lives. Social media is a huge influence on our day to day lives, and can be identified to be impacting the way in which we interact with each other, more than just making communication instant.

The role of the internet initially was to increase the speed of tasks, such as researching, taking notes and communicating. However, it is now obvious, that people, especially the younger generation from ages 13-25 are now spending great lengths of time online. It can be seen that as much as 5 hours a day can be spent online per day by those within this age category.

Therefore, it can be seen that the take-over of this issue, has influenced us on a number and variety of factors within the majority of the populations lives. This new take-over has impacted aspects of our lives such as our safety. Nowadays people are “following” and talking to those online who we know nothing about. Therefore, by advertising our lives over social media applications, we may be putting ourselves in more danger than ever before. Within seconds of heard a person’s name, it is possible to go online and find out what they look like, their details, and who their friends are. Therefore, it can be seen that we should consider what information we are making available to others.

From young ages, we have always been told not to talk to people who we don't know, and have been enforced the "stranger danger" rule from adults. However, we can see now that this rule seems to be irrelevant behind the screens of a computer. Many people feel that when we are behind a keyboard, we are able to protect ourselves from the cruel realities of talking to people we don't know. However, it can be seen that the masks which our screens and keyboards produce, cant always keep us safe.

This is an important issue which I feel should be taken into more of a consideration due to the harms which we could potentially be getting ourselves into. By not respecting these harms, as much as we should. In order to ensure we protect ourselves and our friends, I feel that we should restrict ourselves from the information which we are submitting to the world.

I'll be continuing my thoughts on these issues next week, type soon, Anna