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Some of us hate it. Some of us love it, some even idolise it. All of us know it’s bad and yet we are still lured in, like Alice in Wonderland, tumbling down the rabbit hole into another world. It’s a world where perfection is the ultimate goal and popularity is confused with self-worth. The world of social media: where we love to boast of our existences and chew on the fat of others. Hours spent scrolling through our phones; post after post, photo after photo, page after page. Justification comes in the form of the needs of a friend or even ourselves, a few minutes peaceful escape from the craze of the world into the raging fire of social media. But those minutes so easily become hours, hours a habit, and habit an addiction. All of us know …show more content…
Jealousy has eaten away at us for so long that when we see other’s photos, and lives that appear so good, we feel the need to have what they have and be as good as them. Feeling like maybe when we find the motivation to work out and have a body like theirs, or buy better clothes and learn to do better makeup, we will be able to fill the hole that jealousy has left us. But just as we work ever harder, the hole grows ever bigger. Social media has caught us up in a vicious cycle of jealousy, which has been scientifically proven to be linked to depression. Because what we don’t realise is that what we see on social media isn’t reality. All those perfect photos of celebrities and social media ‘influencers’ are taken from the best angles and in the best lighting, and usually photo shopped after that too. They spend hours trying to take the perfect photo, and hire teams of people to help them. Hours that most of us don’t have and people the average person can’t afford to hire. Yet perfection is still aimed for, because the raging fire of social media doesn’t burn on anything less, and the octopus-like grip has a strong hold on us - each time we break free of one tentacle and break down one barrier, one idea of perfection it is ready and waiting to blind us with addiction and snatch us up in another tentacle of perfection. Stuck in the false appearances we all feel obligated to keep
In the article “What Your Selfies Say About You” by Peggy Drexler, she talks about self-portraits also known as the “selfie”, and how it has taken over social media and added a manifestation to society’s obsession with looks. Taking a self-portrait can be positive in the sense that you are proud of your image and are not scared to share it with others helping boost up your self-esteem. Although this may help others by persuading them to not be ashamed to share their true image, Drexler believes this can also affect other individuals whose focus is only on looks making them feel self-conscious about their looks. A recent study out of the UK found that the selfie phenomenon may be damaging to real world relationships, concluding that both excessive
Today, modern technology has changed our way of life in many different ways. We spend most of our time staring into our phones and do not realize our surroundings. According to Jean Twenge, the author of “ Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation”, ninety-two percent of teens report going online at least once a day, and fifty-six percent admit they go online several times a day. This may sound unrealistic but why do we spend so much time on social media? In “ Our Minds Can Be Hijacked”, an article by Paul Lewis, Lewis interviews Google, Twitter, and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive and demonstrates how we can prevent ourselves from being harmed by it. I believe companies are partially responsible for creating addiction
Topic: Addiction to social media General Purpose: To persuade Specific purpose: To persuade my audience that social media is hurting us mentally and our social lives. Thesis: Social media can cause serious problems to you and your health, so we need to put addiction to social media to rest. I. Introduction A. Attention-getter: The ages of 55 and 64 year olds who use social media fell “worried or uncomfortable” when they can’t access any type of social media accounts (Wright, 2015).
In conclusion, both producers and consumers of media deserve some responsibility in how social media and magazines have impacted people and the way they perceive themselves. The changes that these two types of media bring upon people can be both beneficial as well as detrimental. In order to live happy and fulfilling lives, people must know that creators of social media and magazines intents were for them to be good and helpful and that not everything that is shared and shown in the media is real. Therefore, the blame of negativity doesn’t solely lie on the producers of the media; it is also in the hands of the people, the consumers. As magazines and social networks become more prevalent in today’s society, images and information are constantly being shared while people will continue to evolve.
Although Television and Magazines are often blamed for causing people to question themselves regarding their physical looks, social media plays an influential role on the stereotype of “the perfect lifestyle” as well. Through the sharing of images on social media websites, many begin to question their aspects of their own lives, especially their social lives. By being informed on the momentous events taking place in the lives of others, many begin to feel as if their lives must be approved by the society around them. For this reason, we capture our own life events through social media, and observe the lives of others. This makes it evident that the social media industry is driven by none other than competition of having “the perfect
Social media is so popular that according to a recent article published by forbes.com, “72% of American adults are currently using social media sites; that figure has gone up 800% in just 8 years”(Olenski). Social networking was originally created to simply reconnect people with old high school pals, but in recent years it has evolved into a completely different operation. When social media first originated it was also intended for adult usage, which has in recent years expanded into the usage of all ages. Social media can create a negative affect on lives because it has been proven to be a dangerous addiction, for it takes away interpersonal relationships that are essential in life, and it has been proven to prevent people from being productive in life.
These things have become so common that not having them almost makes it seem like there is something missing. Because of features such as these, it is incredibly easy to share every aspect of what we are reading, doing, eating and listening to with everyone in our social networks. While this has meant incredible advances in the way we interact with our world, it has also fundamentally changed the way our social relationships are created and sustained. Social medial led users to have false impression of others and changed our feelings. Because social media users tend to only show the most positive aspects of their lives, social media users have a false sense of reality when it comes to how they seem themselves, how others see them and how they see other people. “It is not difficult to say that social media effect our perception of others” (Goshgarian213).
“I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time –Betty White (“Betty White Quotes,” 2014, para. 1).” This quote can be interpreted to fit with several of the social media avenues that many people spend their time on. Day in and day out people post, tweet, share, and pin countless times throughout the world. These different forms of communication were first created for an easier way for people to connect with others. Yet now, so much time is spent on these social sites that it has warped the interactive part and is causing more damage than good. Many are growing a desire and are living for the amount of “likes” they can receive on a post or how many re-tweets they can generate. Instead of going to these outlets to participate in a partial portion of their social lives, people are filling that time with the technological aspect of communication. As White said, this can become an inordinate amount of wasted time and can ultimately grow into further damaging circumstances. These different social media channels can cause emotional harm through disparaging the relationship between friends, conjuring of a narcissistic personality, and the retrogradation of ones self-esteem.
Between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn, social media is undoubtedly an outlet that engages most online users. However, according to mental health consultants nationally, social media has become an anxiety-provoking factor (Materna 2013). One of the things contributing to social media anxiety is when teens compare themselves to the doctored pictures of friends. Not only are their friends flawless in the photos, but they may be on an exotic vacation. And it seems to make their lazy weekend at home in their bedroom pale in
People get addicted for being famous on social media when their life have lack of excitement and to fulfill their inner self they want to get involve on social media and would care how many followers and likes they get. People have been getting their peers approval but in today’s world social media made it quantify (Donnelly, 2016). “In 2016, being popular means the most Instagram followers, Facebook friends and likes” (Donnelly, 2016). Zoe a 16 years-old living in LA said, “The popularity contest — it’s never been a good thing — and now we have the actual numbers, we’ve become greedy. We want more attention ” (Donnelly, 2016).
The human mind is programmed to feel envy in order to analyze their surroundings and evaluate our positions and our natural resources. This helps us strive for better resources in order to survive. However, abnormal jealousy, whether it is self or peer-related, does not evaluate our positions to improve ourselves. Rather, it worsens our ability as a social animal and isolates us. In AHS, teen jealousy can be seen in scenarios where others might feel jealous if, for example, a group of friends meet together and do not invite the other person.
Social media has become an extremely powerful and useful tool that enables people in a modern society to effortlessly interact and socialize with each other via the internet; however, there is an extremely dark and little known side of social media: addiction. Social media has the potential to become extremely addictive to its users. The addictive nature of social media may intensely interfere with users daily obligations in the real world, which may make a recovery process necessary in order to quell the powerful addiction.
Social Media has evolved magnificently since the first email sent in 1971. Social media is any form of website or application which enables us to share content with one another with a simple sharing tool. Social media has become an addiction for most, if you were to ask the average student if they were connected to a social networking site, about 73 percent would reply with a yes. In addition, about 63 percent of people log on to a social media site daily and on average 40 percent log on multiple times a day. Everyone has their own reasons for the use of social media, which could include shopping, research, or other personal reasons like venting and status updates.
Social media although a great tool can become an addiction ultimately affecting our lives and state of mind. That is why we need to limit the amount of time and information we share on social networks. Although the internet is a tool full of good and bad available to everyone, teenagers and young adults are more prone to falling into the traps of the internet. People also abuse social media and overuse it every day because they are concerned with what is happening every hour. Social media is a tool not a necessity and should never be abused or used as a diary because it could result in unwanted consequences that can hurt us in the future.
Our society today has become dependent on social media to entertain, excite, and inform each other on the newest and latest hot topics of today’s world. Some people cannot go as long as an hour without checking their social media websites whether it is on the phone, computer, Ipad, or any other electronic devise with internet. The creators of social media have made it easier to recognize and draw the user in with notifying pop-ups every time something new happens in the cyber world. The easier it gets, the more addicting it makes it to check every second. Also, it’s not only the youth and teenagers using these social media cites; it also claims adults as well. One of the main reasons people make social media accounts is because people are nosey about other people’s lives. They get a social media page such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to monitor people and see what they are missing out of in the world. People post pictures to their “page” for everyone to see how good they look or how funny they are. Since everyone has a social media account, others feel obligated to make one, two, or even three accounts. What used to be rare is now typical for a normal person to have at l...