Social media has a number of impacts like connectivity, building relationships, education, impact on politics through social media, and job hiring. All of these impacts can be both positive and negative. Some of the positive impacts may be increasing connectivity, awareness, and business opportunities. On the other hand, some negative impacts might include privacy concerns, cyberbullying, and addiction.
Some positive impacts of social media are connectivity, awareness, and business. Connectivity increases support with social media by allowing people to communicate and stay in touch with their friends, families, and communities all across the world. Social media helps overcome obstacles of time and distance. It helps people maintain and strengthen relationships all around the world, even reuniting old ones. Spreading awareness on social media is also another positive impact. Social media can provide platforms for people to promote different causes and share awareness with others who aren’t informed, such as domestic abuse, healthy relationships, and community resources. Awareness is increased by promoting content by sharing it on social platforms, encouraging social sharing, and so much more.
Social media can be a massive boost for more business opportunities. Referral Rock says “It’s simply the extent to which someone can recall or recognize a brand. Brands with good brand awareness are ones that frequently get brought up in conversation and are big players in the decision-making process.”
However, the negative impacts of social media can be privacy concerns, cyberbullying, and addiction. Privacy concerns are increased on social media because social media platforms are interested in knowing everything about you, and they are also designed to study your behaviors. Cyberbullying is another of the main negative impacts of social media and it increases more with social media. University of Georgia states “Social media can cause cyberbullying by increasing the online exposure and addiction of adolescents, and by providing a platform for anonymous and widespread harassment.” Cyberbullying can also be linked to the addiction adolescents have and how they have more courage to be bold online. University of Georgia also says “Oftentimes, they are more aggressive or critical on social media because of the anonymity they have online and their ability to avoid retaliation. Additionally, cyberbullies may feel less remorse or empathy when engaging in these behaviors because they can’t see the direct impact of their actions.”
After all that’s been stated, we can definitely see that social media has a lot of advantages as well as it has many disadvantages. That being said, it’s important to pay attention to how we spend our time online.