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Seattle Kiser Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1103 March 27, 2014

Social Problems Imagine a girl who is growing up in todays world. She is constantly being influenced by the society around her. She has several social media accounts and finds herself not able to go without checking them every couple minutes. Its a virtual world where she can be entertained by information that she likes and can see what her friends are doing. She may see her friends having a wonderful time at a party or on vacation. She can also see how many likes they get. Her picture of herself may have only gotten 30 likes while her friend has 120 likes. She starts to think about this and starts to compare herself to her friend. Social media soon becomes stressful and competitive. She wants to have just as many likes as her friends and also wants to make her life look just as fun. So she spends hours taking photos, coming up with cool statuses, and choosing filters to make her pictures look perfect. Is this her real life? Is this who she really is?

Social media has become a very big part of peoples lives. Social media can connect you to people across the world, your country, or your own town. People can present themselves anyway they want to. They can become a better, funnier, and more fun person online by presenting themselves that way. Many people spend hours using social media anda. Many people

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cannot go large amount of times without checking it. Social media is still very young when considering its effects, especially medically, but according to Elizabeth Koikai, still a number of behaviors associated with excessive use of social media have lately become the subject of much discussion and research. (KoikaiKoikai) Social media has many positive and negative effects that are continuously being researched and discoveredcoming up more and more. Some people are very vulnerable to social medias effects and some are not, but it is important to be aware of these issues in order to avoid them. There are many social media websites out there and more keep growingbeing created. Facebook is one of the largest social media websites and is used by all ages. You can do many things on Facebook, which includes, sending messages, writing statuses, posting pictures, sharing links and blogs, and creating your own profile. Facebook has grown in the fact that it now has all ages using it. Kids in Middle school to senior citizens now have Facebook and are using it just as much as anyone. Twitter is also a major social media site. Even though it is more popular with younger aged people, it is growing more popular with an older crowd. Twitter is system of followers. People follow you and you have the choice to follow them or not follow them back. People like to have as many followers as possible because it looks good and shows you have good tweets. Twitter is a newsfeed where people post statuses called, tweets, and can also post videos and pictures. Instagram is newsfeed full of just pictures and videos. On Instagram people are continually posting videos and pictures to get likes or comments. Does looking at other peoples picture all day have an effect on how you view yourself? Social media seems to be having more negative effects on self-esteem then positive ones. Maeve Duggan and Aaron Smiths research has concluded that 73% of online users have some sort of

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account with social media. (Duggan, Smith) Social media is a display case where people can pick and choose what they want people to see. Some people out there wind up negatively comparing themselves to whats portrayed on Facebook by their friends. says clinical psychologist Craig Malkin. (Shea) Seeing and reading about peoples, perfect lives can have damaging effects on peoples self-esteem. Looking at peoples pictures today perfectly edited with filters or that are posed can cause people to compare themselves to others. Also, many people base their self-esteem by how many likes or comments they get on a picture. This discontentment with their own life can lead to depression or anxiety. Depression is caused by this because people start to base their worth on how many likes or when they continually see successful friends lives they have on social media. This causes them to feel like a failure and causes discontentment with their own self and life. Social media can be very detrimental to a persons self-esteem. When continually looking at how successful or fun your friends lives are, you begin to feel self-conscious about your own. Some people only post the best moments in their life and leave out the worst. Who would want to see the more hard and realistic part of your life? People want to be viewed as their best selves, they want people to be envious of their lives and in turn are always looking for ways to do that. Your life should not be measured on how many likes you get or how many friends/followers you have. Social media brings people back to the shallow representations and people searching for validity for themselves. Many people have become addicted to social media. They are constantly checking to look at the latest pictures or posts. The Wilhelm Hoffmann of Chicago University research team has come to the conclusion that Twitter is harder to resist than alcohol and cigarettes ( Meikle(Meikle) . ). People may spend hours looking through a newsfeed or viewing other peoples profiles. Arguments and fights break out over people voicing opinions and controversial

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comments. Elizabeth Koikai states that social media, It is fast changing from a platform where we communicate with others into a platform where we advertise oneself to others.(Koikai)
Formatted: Centered

(Social media is growing to a major form of communication) There are also many social effects that many researchers are concerned about. Koikai also states that, We are trading a great deal of physical interaction with a very superficial and sometimes shallow form of interaction. (Koikai) People are starting to have a hard telling their real friends from so called friends online. Yes, most of your friends and followers on social media are real friends but many are just acquaintances or people who like your posts. People are focusing too much attention on their online, virtual friends and are not focusing on the relationships that matter. Friends on the internet can type out comments and can continually communicate but that does not mean that they will be there for you in real life situations. It is also important for you to get to know your friends on a more personal level than just talking on a social media website. Also, even though communication on social media can be effective, but it

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is also very important to learn how to communicate in person. When communicating in -person, a person must come up with answers on the spot, such as job interview, and this skill can only be achieved through practice. Social media is also creating a controversial issue over privacy. Should people be posting various aspects of their life online? Social media has allowed people to enter other peoples lives that they have never met. People should be more aware of what they put out there because they do not know who may be watching. Even though people have a right to privacy, they should still understand that they are putting that information out into the public domain. Job interviewers have also started to look into applicants lives on social media websites to get a more personal look into their lives. Depending on how you present yourself online, the individual conducting the interview, a job interviewer could be pleased or displease with your lifestyle or opinions. When looking at effects and correlating factors due to social media, depression must be addressed. Depression is a clinical disorder with many symptoms. These symptoms according to WebMD, a health accredited website, are feelings of failure and emptiness, hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts. These are just some of the wide variety of symptoms that depression can cause. (web md) Researchers have started to do more research investigate on the correlation between depression and social media its correlation to social media. Researchers has coined a term called Facebook Depression. This term is used when a person develops depression due tobecause of spending large amounts of time on social media. This depression is more common among adolescents who are struggling to develop their own identity and acceptance. Many adolescents may feel they need to impress their peers or look better than them

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on Facebook in order to be accepted. The online world can be very intimidating and comes with many pressures to have the most likes or to make your life look the best. Young adults constantly feel pressure to promote a false life in order to look better in from of their peers. So constantly using social media and using Depression is a serious illness and must be noticed and treated before it dangerous thoughts and behaviors start.

Social media has many positives too. This online network causes people to be informed about various opinions around the world and has become a major source for all kinds of information. Sites like Facebook and twitter have become major sources of advertisement for all types of information such as political and national news. Many people are able to use social media as a place to express their opinions and beliefs on everyday issues that affect everyones lives. Groups such as school clubs and celebrities use their accounts to let the public know about events or posts updates for publicity. Social media has also become a major source for people to find and reconnect with old friends and family. Also, it has become a place where you can easily spread the word of kidnapped children in your area and. It has become a place where friends can get to know you better. You and you friends can find more common interests with each other and better share whats going on in each others lives. Job interviewers can get a better view into an applicants life and motives to find the best person for the job. Social media connects people to their family who live in different places around the world and allows them to be able to share parts of their lives with each other.

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Social media has not been around long enough to discuss various health negatives; , however, we are starting to see the effects surface. Many people learn how to control and manage their time on social media and others do not. Social media is not the place for people with discontent and a low self-esteem people. Social media is constantly showing us ideal images and lives which are not true. A picture and post can show many things, but we cannot truly evaluate or test the truth behind them just by glancing over their profile. Many people base their worth and lives on social media in order to feel accepted. Social media has become a competition of sorts. People continually post pictures and updates in order to get likes. Boys and girls, mainly girls, put up pictures of themselves to see how many likes they get and may get upset if they dont get as many likes as other peoples pictures. Social media is full of people of saying and showing their lives asre perfect and fun, but are they? Continually comparing and basing your life of your friends lives on social media can be detrimental to your self -esteem and contentment. Social media should be a place where people can show their true selves without feeling forced to createup a fake one in order to obtain acceptance. get a lot of likes.

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Works Cited Duggan, Maeve, and Aaron Smith. "Social Media Update 2013." Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS. Pew Research Center, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. <http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/12/30/social-media-update-2013/>. Koikai, Elizabeth. "The Negative Impact of Social Media on Our Lives." The Moose. The Moose, 8 May 2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. <http://themoose.no/2013/05/08/the-negativeimpact-of-social-media-on-our-lives/>. Meikle, James. "Twitter Is Harder to Resist than Cigarettes and Alcohol, Study Finds." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 04 Feb. 2012. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/03/twitter-resist-cigarettes-alcoholstudy>. Shea, Andrea. "Facebook Envy: How The Social Network Affects Our Self-Esteem." Facebook Envy How The Social Network Affects Our SelfEsteem RSS 20. Boston's NPR News

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Station, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. <http://www.wbur.org/2013/02/20/facebookperfection>. "Depression-Topic Overview." WebMD. WebMD, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.