Opinion

WATTERS: Social media in society

Cyra Watters is a sophomore mass communication major from Chicago, Ill.   

In today’s society, social media can have both positive and negative effects, but we glaze over the possibilities of things going wrong. Social media is not as glamorous as people make it seem: there are flaws, and those flaws have a negative effect on society. It has made me look at the world and people around me differently. In addition, it has created a society where I feel, I have no privacy. 

We all do not realize it, but social media allows us to open ourselves up to the world. We post pictures of ourselves, family members and friends,and  share our information with each other. Things like where we stay, what school we attend, our phone number, making us too accessible to anyone with a social media account.

Social media has even updated their apps to show the location of where you are. When this information is shared with others it can be a safety issue. 

Furthermore, accounts can be hacked so it then becomes easy for someone to pretend to be you. This has made it easier for people to find out where you live, which can result in robberies, kidnappings and even death. 

When we use social media, we make friends and sometimes it is hard to keep those friendships because of miscommunication. We allow ourselves to open up on social media, which lets us share and hear the opinions of others. This creates problems because people do not always agree with your opinion, and those opinions can often be taken personally, which in turn leads to verbal and/or physical altercations.

The things we put on social media can make it difficult to acquire for a job. We might not realize it, but one little tweet can ruin your chances of getting your dream job. There has also been many cases where people may lose their jobs because of a post or tweet. Society has allowed us to do things we normally do not find ourselves doing, and sometimes we may not realize were doing anything wrong, as social media has normalized everything.

In my opinion, social media has had a huge impact on society in a negative way. I feel that, people do not think about the negative effects of social media because society has brainwashed people into believing that it is ok for us to share our lives with others. 

Everything is not meant to be shared with the world, but we allow ourselves to do so because it is now the norm. Social media’s negative effect on society can link us to crimes, make it difficult to find jobs, promote delusion, and make us unsafe.