Social Media has become a social norm in today’s society. There’s unlimited apps and websites for people to spend countless hours on. A few of these include Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. These online communication sites have begun to deprive our society of personal connections and have had an overall negative impact on our wellbeing as a population. All that people receive from these sites are online communications that isolate the user and remove them from actual relationships. Personal connections are incredibly important to people and social media is depriving people of these relationships. Along with social media ruining personal connections, it brings many other harmful features that have begun to paralyze our society. For our communities to prosper and improve, social media must be removed from the norm and personal relationships must be brought back to the forefront of our society. 

Technology has been something that has evolved since the beginning of time. Our society has created things that have changed the way we see the world and function as a population. Forms of this technology are medicine, automobiles, and sustainable buildings, all of which are incredibly important, positive inventions. A very ground breaking, powerful form of technology was created when the Internet was invented. In 1969, J.C.R. Licklider and a team of inventers created the ARPANET, or as we know it today, the Internet (Herring, 2015, Chapter 1). The Internet has many positive and negative qualities that have allowed it to keep growing. One of these many qualities is social media. Once social media was created it captivated audiences worldwide and sadly has become one of the most utilized tools in the world. 

While social media is negative in many ways, it does have some positive aspects that have made it a very popular tool. Social media allows people who are far away in location communicate, it allows the user to share media with other users, and is a way for people to express themselves. All these positive things come with negative side effects, whereas many things do. People communicate with others long distance using social media. When this happens people miss the closeness and genuine connection being in person has. Also they miss the encouragements of physical connections such as a pat on the back or a hug. Livestrong, a well know lifestyle magazine, did an article on how physical connections benefit people. They traced a study from The University of Miami Touch Research Institute. The study shows that physical contact can lower blood pressure, increase immune health, increase attentiveness, and overall impact your health in a positive way (Bauer 2014). This shows how important it is to actually be with someone rather than virtually messaging them. Many people are not granted the luxury of being in person though such as deployed soldiers, but many people just choose to communicate online. This arises the question of would people still communicate if they lived in the same town, or are they just communicating because they know that no new relationship will come from it. It shows that virtual connections are not always as strong and that they don’t provide the understanding in person relationships do. 

Social media allows the user to share media with others and be creative in their posts. Many people love the idea of sharing their lives on the Internet, and allowing others see what their seemingly perfect lives are like. People tend to post only the good things going on in their life, like their most recent vacation, or their workout regimen. By only showing the positive aspects of one’s life, it presents a perfect front of that person and makes others discouraged about their own life, forcing them to try and lead a more “impeccable” life. Comparison is a huge problem among all people, no matter what stage of life they are in. A few examples of this are that girls compare their body size, men compare the amount of cars they have, or anyone compares their lack of something to someone who has more. This comparison can bring someone depression, anxiety, and can even be the thing that pushes them over the edge to commit suicide (“Are Social Networking Sites Good”, 2016)

The problem of suicide caused by social media is worse among the teenage population. Since 2010, the suicide rate among teens has increased by 13 percent (Ablow 2016). The teenagers today have grown up in a world where the internet and social media is a common tool to use. The majority of these teenagers have used social media from a fairly young age, creating it a way of life for them. These kids have substituted social media and virtual reality with real meaningful connections. By doing this they have weakened their self-esteem and have made it harder for them to take negative feedback and discipline. When children’s self-esteem is bashed, and when they only value their life as the number of likes they receive, they don’t see much worth in living. This causes numerous suicides and is something that society can try and stop. If people begin to realize the number of teenagers that are affected by the negativity of social media, or realize it is possible for their child to be affected, then they will step up and try to make a difference. Teenage suicide because of social media problems is a very prominent issue that has become prevalent in the last decade because of social media and the immaturity of the user. 

The constant use of social media has not always been the way of life for many people. Social media got fairly popular in 2006 after Myspace was created in 2003 being more used than its predecessors like SixDegrees.com and Friendster (Walters 2017). It was an exciting new way of communication for many people and because of its popularity, other sites were created, such as Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006). Social media though, was not peoples primary source of communication like it is for some today. Before social media, people valued the time they got to spend in person with each other and they realized that being with people is important for their health and happiness. Even in 2007 it was reported that Americans only spent about ten percent of their time on social networks. As more social media sites became available for users, this number continued to grow resulting in people spending roughly two hours browsing these networks. Nearly 13 years after Myspace was created the amount of social media users has grown to almost nearly the majority of the population and is continuing to grow daily. “Every day, Facebook manages 4.5 billion "Likes," 4.75 billion content shares, and over 300 million photo uploads. As of Sep. 2014, 51% of US adults use YouTube, 28% use Pinterest, 28% use LinkedIn, 26% use Instagram, and 23% use Twitter. Twitter has 288 million monthly active users and over 500 million tweets are sent daily. Among online adults, use of more than one social networking site increased from 42% in 2013 to 52% in 2014.” (“Are Social Networking Sites Good” 2016) These are a few statistical values that show that social media has continued growing from its creation and that a significant number out of the population do use these sites. It has been proven that social media is an always present trap ready and willing to keep its user for hours at a time, reducing their time for others or other important everyday tasks.  

On average, a person will spend about two hours on social media sites every day. (Asano 2017) Comparing this usage to other everyday activities such as eating, drinking, and socializing, social media accounts for the most time. With these facts stated, a person will spend an average of five years and four months of their lifetime on social media. This is an overwhelming number of years when compared to eating and drinking which only consumes three years and five months of a person’s life. People are literally spending more time online than they are eating and drinking. This shows that people have begun to put social media above other incredibly important things. This shows the urgency of the situation because if people are more willing to sit on their phone than eat, actually connecting with people will not even be a concern for them. People’s social media use is much more prevalent now than it has ever been and it is affecting the way we interact with others and form relationships. 

Many people would argue that social media allows them to improve their relationships and even create new ones. What people don’t understand, or care to see is that the majority of those relationships are strictly virtual. There is no face to face contact or shared time in those relationships. Being in person with someone and spending time with them is what makes a relationship strong and healthy. There have been studies to prove that social media sites and virtual relationships lead to stress and offline relationship issues. The University of Edinburgh conducted a study that correlated the number of Facebook friends you have with the amount of stress you have (“Are Social Networking Sites Good” 2016). The more friends, they found, the more stress. By having so many Facebook friends or friends on any site you are adding more people to please with every post. This causes a lot of added stress to people because they want their social media accounts to portray the best version of themselves so they will try harder to make this happen, causing more stress. Also, social media sites have been known to hinder relationships. According to a study done on February 9, 2012, fifteen percent of adults that use social media have had a negative experience online that made a friendship end, twelve percent reported that a face to face argument arose from using social media, and even three percent of adults reported a physical confrontation. 

Many people post very political or hurtful things online that cause arguments or can even lead to physical confrontations. It is valid to voice your opinion in the United States, and it is a right everyone cherishes, but when you voice an opinion on social media you are opening your views for the whole world to respond. By posting these types of things, or commenting on them people put themselves in a very vulnerable position where they can get angry and frustrated. Many people just flippantly post these things and then cannot verify what they are saying through in person conversation therefore people get mad, or their post is misunderstood. If people, instead of posting opinions on social media, sat down and had a discussion with someone else their views would be protected from the world and they could justify what they are saying rather than just be bombarded with comments. Social Media has made it too easy for people to be argumentative because the people communicating are not in person so they can’t see the other person’s reaction, or fully portray what they are trying to say to one another. Social media not only creates unauthentic virtual relationships, but it also is detrimental to the relationships that people have aside from social media or within it. 

Social Media is not only limited to casual conversation sites such as Instagram and Facebook, but it includes dating apps like Tinder, or Zoosk. Dating sites have been around for about twenty years but they were never very popular until around 2007 when the iPhone came out and you could download them onto your phone through an app. Dating apps have been so popular that the terminology for this phenomenon is social dating (Spira 2014). Dating apps have been widely successful in gaining users and many people have used them to find dates or even their spouse. Meaningful relationships have been made through dating apps but the majority end up in failure. A lot of people on these sites are not looking for a long term, serious relationship based on love and respect. These sites do connect people that may not have met, but the majority of these relationships end in nothing happening. Also, the messages can be very misunderstood due to the fact you can’t voice a tone or show facial cues, but this fact goes for all online messaging, not just dating apps. 

There was a recent case called the Anthony Weiner Scandal. This man was an online serial dater who used his ability to message women to boost his ego. He would communicate online with seven different women at a time spending up to five hours a day sending messages to woo them all. While he was doing this he had a girlfriend who he tried to proposed to but she found out about his crippling dependence on social dating sites. Anthony was addicted to technology preventing him from having a meaningful and rewarding relationship (Spira 2014). Although this is a very extreme case, things like this do happen. Dating sites allow people to communicate with whoever or however many people they want. This opens the door for a lot of pain and hurt to happen to someone. Although social dating is a thing of today there is still another option that people are still seeking. Meeting people in person. When you meet someone in person you get to know them for who they are and how they interact with you and the world around them. Instead of meeting up with a random person, people are given the option to introduce themselves somewhere and then get to know them rather than vice versa. Being in person allows the relationship to grow stronger and hopefully prosper into something that is sustainable and lasts. Overall, social dating does work for some people but in the long run they don’t create as many or as sustainable relationships like in person conversations do. 

There is a very powerful video uploaded by Gary Turk that explores the relationship of actually living and living within technology. The author, Turk, is adamant that technology has brought many people together with a virtual connection, but has made people stop searching for real personal connections outside of technology. His speech is very elaborate and he presents ideas like the fact were enslaved to the technology in which we’ve mastered. This is incredibly powerful because it is saying that people are literally prisoners to apps. This statement shows the urgency of the situation because people are spending their lives stuck on a phone when they could be experiencing the wonders of life around them. The main scene from the video presented a scenario where a man asked a woman for directions, they talked and began dating, and then one day they got married and lived their lives together. He presented this emotional story then presented another where the same man was on his phone and he missed the girl. It showed the reader just how much you can miss if you aren’t engaged in the un-virtual world around you. Overall, his message was to “look up” from your phone and make the most of your life because you don’t understand how much you are going to miss until you do. Turk presents a valid argument because people are not focusing on trying to meet new people or build new relationships but they are trying to get as many followers as possible (Turk 2014). People want these followers because even though they are “friends” online the people just stand for another like and friend to their never ending tally. 

Social Media does not only hinder people’s personal relationships, it also has a very strong possibility in hindering people’s professional relationships. There are multiple ways this can happen. First, people might not even get a job due to their social media profiles. Due to the uprising of social media, places like colleges and employers look at their applicant’s social media profiles to see if they are someone they want either attending their school or working for them. For example, if a university sees someone partying on spring break and then they apply to their school the applicant’s credibility and desires may be questioned, resulting in them not gaining acceptance. This is something that has become a recent problem for many people because they try to show either ‘how cool they are”, or how much beer they drank last weekend and employers don’t like to see that from someone who could potentially work for them. Another way social media can harm professional relationships is if an employee is hindering their work abilities by using social media instead of working. Once someone is notified of something, for instance they get a notification from Twitter, it takes the average person 20 to 25 minutes to return to the original task, in this case working (Robinson 2014). This shows that if someone only gets two notifications while at work they will still be spending about an hour of their time at work on social media. This decreases the productivity and unlimitedly is detrimental to their job because their boss sees they are not being as productive as usual. 

Overall, social media does have some positive aspects but in the long run the majority of those end up being negative. Social Media has ruined personal relationships, it has caused suicide rates to increase, it hinders peoples work capabilities, their health, and also their safety. There are too many negatives to way out the good when it comes to social media. In order for our society to progress in a successful direction society must show that they care more about living life than living within a phone. By doing this, the social norm will be changed, personal relationships will become important again, and all the negatives will be erased from social media because it won’t be something at the forefront of everyone’s lives. 
