With social media use on the rise, some are beginning to question and compare the benefits and drawbacks of investing our time in these online accounts and profiles. There is no doubt that social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and possibly even Instagram can have huge advantages that make everyday life easier, such as easy access to information, the ability to communicate with people faster, and even being able to keep up with individuals all over the world. On the other hand, however, social media brings concerns of privacy issues, false information, and several bigger, more serious problems such as identity development. With social media having an impact on personal characteristics and several other identity qualities, the correlation between these addictive sites and relationships between family and friends have come into question. Through analyzation and research, one can see that over use of social media accounts have a negative impact on the way people communicate in general, leading to poor communication skills, ultimately changing the way one views and maintains relationships. Social media negatively affects relationships with family and friends as a consequence of cyberbullying, lack of face to face communication, and lastly, obsessive parental control leading to an invasion of privacy, which, in turn, diminishes the quality and depth of personal connections. 

Cyberbullying, the act of bullying or threatening a person using technology such as social media, has recently become a growing problem that has various serious outcomes, poor communication and lack of social skills being two examples. Something as simple as a rude comment online, to full on embarrassment over Facebook by a peer can shift the way that an individual views both themselves and others. As a result of this new negative view, forming working, trustworthy relationships becomes increasingly difficult. Online harassment leads not only to harsh self assessment, but also overall lower self esteem, as discussed in the research article "Cyberbullying and Self Esteem", published by The American School Health Association. The study describes the correlation between victims of cyberbullying and their levels of self esteem, stating that, "cyberbullying victims and offenders both have significantly lower self esteem than those who have not been cyberbullying victims or offenders" (Hinduja, Patchin 5). Lower self esteem causes various other issues, such as problems confiding in people and even peer rejection, which can potentially lead to hardships maintaining healthy relationships with friends and family, a harmful, continuous cycle. As a result of peer rejection due to cyberbullying, studies have also found a correlation between rejection and aggressive behaviors. Overall, individuals that experience cyber bullying and peer rejection tend to be more angry, depressed, antisocial (Write, Li 2). Victims also, as stated in "Cyberbullying: Who Hurts, and Why", by Michelle Ramos and Diana Bennett, "have higher levels of phobic anxiety, paranoia, and suicidal ideation and attempts than non-victimized counterparts", which understandably complicates the social process (Ramos, Bennett 5). Michelle F. Wright and Yan Li also discusses these effects in their article, "The Association Between Cyber Victimization and Subsequent Cyber Aggression" saying that, "peer rejection may be a source of strain contributing to adolescents' engagement in aggressive behaviors" (Wright 2). Not only does rejection from peers lead to these troubling, relationship altering side effects, it also causes a lack of social skills, making it increasingly difficult for victims to create and preserve healthy connections with both friends and family (Wright 2). Those affected by cyberbullying tend to also pick up various antisocial behaviors. These behaviors, Write and Li reiterate, have several serious outcomes such as: "social anxiety, substance abuse, poor academic performance, low school engagement, and sexual risk behaviors", all actions that make retaining important personal relationships exceedingly difficult (Write, Li 2). Another direct result of peer rejection is the lack of protection from peers that they do not have. Cyber Bullying leads to peer rejection, which ultimately ends up changing one's social reputation. This, in return, creates difficulties making and keeping friends. If an individual does not have friends, he or she also has no one to confide in or protect them from damaging situations, such as cyberbullying. The two authors explains the vicious cycle of peer rejection, explicating that "Because these children are isolated within the peer groups, their peers are not able to protect them from victimization by either intervening or showing disapproval towards their attacker" (Wright, Li 3). With no one to talk to or build friendships with, victims often feel alone, friendless, and worthless, producing issues trusting and conserving relationships with family and acquaintances. These personal relationships are all negatively affected by social media sites through cyberbullying changing the way that individuals view themselves and others, the result of aggression and depression, the outcome of mental and physical health problems, and lastly, rejection from peers and classmates.

Likewise, communication is another key factor negatively pertaining to social media. With social media today, it is exceptionally simple to interact with people, be it through Facebook messages, emails, or even direct messages to an account. With the ease of communication online, individuals are missing out on important, relationship forming elements without even noticing. One huge downfall of communicating using social media is that it is simply impersonal and not nearly as involved as face to face conversations. Lori Ann Wagner, in her article "How Social Media Alters Human Relationships", states how, "face-to-face meetings have been replaced with interactions through various social media platforms" and because of this, individuals "don't tend to deepen our relationships- they tend to exist in the status quo" (Wagner 4). As a result of these objective relationships, people who use social media regularly tend to lack communication skills needed to form working relationships. If an individual does not possess the skills to communicate with another being, such as attentive listening and speaking, creating friendships and other relationships becomes increasingly difficult. In addition, communication through social media also tends to lack important social cues that face-to-face conversations rely on. Ramirez and Zhang, authors of "The Effects of Modality Switching on Relational Communication", explores the importance of social cues during face to face conversation, as well as the downfall of online communication, saying, "reductions in visual, aural, and contextual cues are predicted to produce less awareness of one's partner and colder, less personalized communication, both of which are detrimental to relationship formation" (Ramirez, Zhang 4). As a result of lack of face-to-face conversation, individuals miss out on the chance to verbalize personal information, ultimately making it harder to form relationships and gain knowledge about a person (Ramirez, Zhang 3). Another downfall of communicating through social media is that it may lead to miscommunications between individuals, making it seemingly easier to confuse and take information the wrong way. From this misapprehension, relationships can be build off of erroneous qualities and even lies, a foundation that decays and erodes personal relationships.  Social media, in addition, makes it apparently easier to pretend to be someone else. This can be done in several ways. For one, the construction of fake online profiles has become almost effortless. By falsely filling out a series of personal questions, an individual can simply create a imitation profile and profess to be someone they are not. On the other hand, lying over social media in general, whether it be through personal messages with someone or by using another person's photos, makes it exceptionally effortless to impersonate someone, which can affect relationships and destroy trust and faith in those being deceived. Igor Matic, author of "The Social Construction of Mediated Experience and Self Identity in Social Networking", compares face-to-face (FTF) conversation versus computer-mediated communication, saying, "online environment, such as discussion forums, gaming portals, social networking sites, and the constant updates of our personal experience allows the Internet users today to choose whether they will represent themselves to the Internet public under their real name or not (Matic 2). This, in turn, makes it easier for individuals to pretend and lie about who they are through social media. Karen Yust agrees with Matic in article, "Exploring the Effects of Social Media on Children's Spirituality", stating that, "it's easier to pretend you're someone amazing than to face the reality that you have issues. It's easier to make friends online who don't know you than to go out in the real world and let someone see who you really are" (Yust 4). With the ease of being able to hide behind a computer screen, social media creates a way for individuals to display an image of who they want to be, not who they actually are. As a result, these relationships, built off of lies, suffer due to trust issues, as well as instability. However directly lying to someone over social media is not the only way that relationships are negatively affected, withheld information can also give off a different image online than of that in reality. When communicating with someone online, an individual may construct a different view or idea of a person, sometimes making it harder for the two to connect and relate in real life. Madison Ganda of Portland State University visits this point in her article, "Social Media and Self: Influences on the Formation of Identity and Understanding of Self Through Social Networking Sites" stating that, "impression derived from subsequent face-to-face meetings rarely correspond with those formed initially online" (Ganda 10). That being said, the qualities and characteristics that a person gives off online may differ from actuality, affecting the level of compatibility between the individuals. As a result, relationships become harder to shape because of the differences in personality that were unknown as a repercussion of online communication. Social media creates a barrier between two individuals, which, as a result, leads to a lack of communication skills and social cues. Online communication also makes it easier for a person to pretend they are someone that they are not, giving them the ability to hide behind a screen. Because of the absence of these key social qualities, as well as a lack of face to face conversation, social media creates issues when constructing a truthful, familiar relationship.

Lastly, the recent uprise of parents and relatives using social networking sites to stay in the loop has also been proved to morph and alter relationships in several negative ways. Before the growing of the social media demographic, the majority of these online profiles belonged to the younger generation. Because of this change, adolescents begin to feel as if their parents are invading their privacy by partaking in social networking sites, which ultimately gives them the ability to view their child's every move online. Now that parents have this option, trust issues because of the content posted by teenagers have evolved. In Kristin van Ogtrop's article, "Facebook? Check. Twitter? Check. Instagram? Check. Snapchat? I give up", one mother explains how her trying to protect her son online ended up affecting their relationship and resulting in a disagreement, as well as trust issues. In the article, she states that she was "conducting a virtual oversight of a friend of my son's classmates" when she saw a picture of her child doing something "spectacularly stupid" (Ogtrop 1). She texted her son to get the photo removed, which resulted in a "text fight about boundaries, and how I don't respect them, and how he has no privacy, and that I ruin everything" (Ogtrop 1). A prime example of the result of parent social media use, this article examines the negative effects that social networking has on parent and child relationships, specifically parental trust issues pertaining to their child's online post's. As a result of feeling overwhelmed and invaded, teenagers, in efforts to gain some privacy back, tend to feel the need to lie and hide information from their parents, negatively affecting the trust aspect of the parent and child's relationship. Social networking also makes it ostensibly simpler for adults to restrict and control their child's online activity. The new knowledge of social networking to parents allows them to choose certain sites their child can access, who their children contact online, and even the time when their child is permitted to go online. Wonsun Shin and Nurazli Ismail analyze the effects of parental restrictions on relationships between parents and their children in their article, "Exploring the Role of Parents and Peers in Young Adolescent's Risk Taking on Social Networking Sites". The two explain that parental restrictions are not all bad, however, their study revealed that "adolescents who received higher levels of parental restrictive mediation were more inclined to engage in risk-taking behaviors in social networking sites" (Shin, Ismail 5). By parents attempting to watch out for and protect their children online by restricting certain accesses, instead of benefiting the child, these restrictions may spark interest in off limit content (Shin, Ismail 5).This deception can result in trust issues, lack of freedom and resent towards parents, which leads to issues maintaining a strong, healthy relationship between the two. In addition to this, relationships are also damaged by parent social media use due to the fact that children may constantly feel as if their parents are watching their every move. When revisiting Kristin van Ogtrop's article, readers are informed that teenagers having personal space, as well as privacy are "healthy behavior[s] when is comes to developing a sense of self and establishing an identity that is separate from that of the two people responsible for your DNA" (Ogtrop 1). When parents eliminate the chance for their child to grow on their own and "develop their sense of self", they may also be damaging important relationship building qualities. Social media use between parent and child negatively affects relationships by complicating the process, making it harder for children to build and sustain working relationships. As a result of trust issues that arise based on content posted online, children not being able to mature and flourish, and the lack of privacy because of parents, the use of social media generate negative outcomes that affect the building and preservation of personal relationships. 

Social media, without question, has various positive results such as the ease of accessing information, the ability to quickly communicate, and even the simplicity of learning something new. However, social media use for some has become not only addictive, but a necessity. With the amount of time spent on social networking sites drawn into question, the negative effects of online use have too been debated. The damaging side effects of social media can range from something as simple as misinformation, to problems as serious as disrupting the identity formation process. Because of this, social networking has been shown, through various ways, to be detrimental to the process of forming lasting personal relationships, as well as creating and conserving new ones. Social media negatively affects relationships with family and friends as a consequence of cyberbullying, lack of face to face communication, and lastly, obsessive parental control leading to an invasion of privacy, which, in turn, diminishes the quality and depth of personal connections. 

