Social Media and How It Affect Us

Social Media and How It Affects Us

Our society obsesses over social media daily in many different forms. Adults and teens use their phones, laptops, or tablets to gain access to other people life’s. It has become a major part of people’s social and personal lives, but has anyone ever wondered where all of this began? The first recognizable site for social media was called Six Degrees and was created in 1997. It allowed its users to make a profile and make new friends with other users. The first blogging site was created in 1999 which started the social media craze that is still going on today. Social Media affects our relationship in a way of how deep and close people can be connected together and in many other ways, such a loneliness.

A long term relationship that is full of love and trust with someone is only gained through talking and growing with another person, which social media is not fully allowing this type of true communication. Adults are spending more than three hours a day using different social media networks, and not forming genuine relationship with other adults (Marketing Charts, 2013). As human beings, we seek friendship or intimacy though our relationships with other people. With social media being on the rise and new site being made as we speak, this is permitting us to stay virtually connected and prevents in-depth connection. In TED talk, there is an article called “Connected but Alone,” Sherry Turkle states that adults are staying away from real, genuine conversations because it happens in real time, but though social media we can socialize perfectly, without having to worrying about facing embarrassing encounters (Turkle, 2012). In different times, people worried about meeting people for the first time and what type of impression they were leaving, but now it does not matter because our life’s are already on display for the world to see. Online interactions allow for a conversation to be edited without effort on the users behalf. That is why more than 1.1 billion users on Facebook are lured into using this site (The Associated Press, 2013). Facebook users can edit their profiles to show themselves as happier, more successful version of their themselves. Our everyday routine that involves technology is isolating us and is hurting us all in the long run. Our relationship are being hurt by almost making our relationships seem or really fake with other people.

The way social media has spread and became so popular has causes isolation in our life’s today. In “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, Stephen Marche says that social media is causing psychological state of loneliness which is not good for our health (The Atlantic, 2013). Today’s research supports a strong relationship between the mind and body and how they are closely  connected together. Research even suggests that loneliness “doubles a person’s chances of sickness or death” (Goleman, 2013). In a place where technology is continuing to change the world we live in, people are now experiencing new diseases that have never been heard of by our ancestors. The effects that social media has on adults are more dangerous than any of us would like to think about. We need to stop and think about the effects that the usage of these new technologies has not just on our relationships but even on our health.