Social Media Addiction

Continuing my theme of the investigation of the impact of social media on young people, within this blog, I will be discussing obsessions with social media.

As mobile phones and online applications such as social media are now such a common tool throughout day-to-day activities, it can be recognised that many of us are obsessed with social media. The first thing which we hear at the start of the day, and the last thing we see in the evening, tends to be our phones. Therefore, it can be seen that large quantities of the population are addicted to their mobile phones, especially for checking their social media applications.

It can be found that people are so addicted to their phones that they will repeatedly check their phones, even if they have not created alert of notification, just in case they have missed something. As well as doing this, people are obsessed with knowing everything on social media that they will repeatedly sit for lengthy hours, checking and updating their apps. This can be seen as an unhealthy addiction which causes us to waste a lot of time within our days, which could be spent doing other, more important and valuable things. Some people waste so much time on their phones that they cannot bring themselves to switch off from it. Their addictions are far too out of control to know when to stop refreshing their apps.

Therefore, it could be considered that perhaps social media addiction, is just as bad as other addictions such as alcohol and nicotine. There are now actually help groups which assist people with their obsessions with mobile phones and social media. I feel that this highlights exactly how big some people’s problems are with being obsessed with their mobile phones.

It is shocking now that people will spend great amounts of time talking with their friends via social media applications, then when they meet up with their friends in person, they continue to sit and talk to other people via their mobile phone. Therefore, it can be seen that spending time with friends it not the same as what it used to be. It is a shame that when you get to a friend’s house, most people now ask for the wifi code, before they get to ask their friends how they’re doing.

People can also be seen to become frustrated when they are without wifi, or are experiencing poor wifi connection. This can tend to infuriate those who are addicted to their phones and cause them to feel as though they are missing a part of their life. Therefore, in these situations it is clear to see that addictions to mobile phones and social media are out of hand and could potentially be causing people to lack face-to-face communication and real life interactions.

Therefore, we can see that mobile phone and social media is a real addiction which could be causing young people to live their life much differently to generations who have never experienced social media.

Type again soon, Anna

The Impact of Social Media on; Grammar and Puncuation

Following on from my last blog, and continuing the theme of how social media applications impact the way which young people interact, I will be discussing the impacts upon grammar and punctuation, by social media.

It can be seen that using instant messaging everyday has caused us to develop lazy vocabularies. This is due to language which is used throughout text such as slang, abbreviations and informal talk, between friends. It can be seen that due to performing textual communication such as these on day-to-day basis’s, it has caused our language capabilities to deteriorate and weaken throughout their usage. This is due to talking in these ways being our most regular way of writing word-based pieces, therefore, it seems normal to talk informally, when we should maybe really be talking formally. This could cause us grief throughout publishing pieces of text or contacting people who we don’t know on an informal basis, such as employers.

By contacting people who we don’t know, incorrectly, it could result in us as individuals to get into trouble or miss out on opportunities, due to having a poor knowledge on how to communicate with different people, in different ways. It is important that we have the ability to know how to recognise how to talk to certain people who we do and do not know.

However, by using messenger services and social media sites on day-to-day basis’s, it could also mean that we are improving our abilities within grammar and punctuation. This could be due to the fact that every day we are consuming and out-putting large quantities of textual based information. Therefore, by consuming so much text as well as out-putting, from young ages, it is likely that we are going to pick up on the appropriate ways to spell and use grammar from a young age.

However, it can also be seen that using social media application messengers such as whatsapp and facebook chat, can weaken our grammar such as spelling. By relying on tools such as “auto-correct” to ensure we are spelling things appropriately, it could cause us to have a poor understanding of the English language, or, whatever language you speak. This could prove to be a problem throughout the future as it could potentially cause the ability of languages to deteriorate.

Therefore, we can see that the younger generations, are extremely under the influence of social media in concern with their grammar and punctuation. However, we can also see that there could be two arguments for this as social media could provide benefits for grammar.

Type again soon, Anna