Essay on Social Media and Technology Impacts in Our Lives

Technology came with a lot of surprisingly interesting positive impacts to our lives. It made life easy for us as it was easy to connect with people. It also introduced advanced devices like smartphones, minute gadgets but have nearly all features to help ease our lives to comfort. Through technology, social media came to light with the ability to shrink the globe to a small village. It is now easy to communicate with people all over the world from a social networking site like Facebook. However, despite the positives, social media and technology have negative effects in our lives today. Social media and technology affect and disrupt the development in children today (Del Boca et al p. 139). Children today have no life outside the house but spend most of their time using the internet. Most of the better time of the day they spend sitting and this habit disrupts their physical development. Children need to play outside as a form of exercise in strengthening their bones in the growth process. Playing with other children outside also helps with their creative skills something that technology denies the children from this age of technology.

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Social media has led to people losing empathy with other people in the world. It is clear that technology has no restrictions on what is available online. It also has no age restrictions meaning anything that is uploaded can be viewed by anybody anytime. When going through the videos on sites like YouTube, Facebook, and TV one can hardly miss violent videos. Computer games and movies are not left out either they contain scenes with violent scenes. This kind of tradition makes it look like it is okay to promote violence. This is because when violent videos are uploaded they are shredded widely promoting viewership. As a result, people become desensitized to issues like violence and injustices leading to a society that does not care for other people (Holt, Bossler p. 589). Today in the streets when people fight most of the onlookers will be busy taking videos instead of trying to help in stopping the fight. People will openly participate in violent acts since it is acceptable in the society (Sugarman, Teena p.78). Even the information service providers find no need to sanction against uploading of violent videos giving the sign that it is a social norm today.

Health problems and constraints arise from the continuous use of technology and social media. Obesity is on the rise as people spend more time sitting instead of exercising (Chen, Shin-Yi Chou, Thornton). While people are engrossed in their favorite TV episodes they overindulge in unhealthy eating habits. Depression is on the common rise since it is easy to isolate oneself from the society. Poor sleeping habits are a cause of technology and social media overuse. Individuals will spend most of their days and nights online thus sleeping late or getting no sleep at all. Poor sleeping habits lead to unproductiveness and tired individuals in the society. Tendonitis is a condition that causes strain and pain in thumbs. It occurs due to the constant use of the thumbs in pressing buttons and switching between pages on devices. Over indulgence in the playing of video games also leads to this condition also known as the blackberry or iPhone thumb. People spend most of the time looking down on their devices leading to neck and head pains.

Technology and social media make people lose their attention span. Today people are used to short clips that run for seconds and messages that comprise of 140 characters. This affects and resets the brain to become accustomed to short and precise information. This makes it hard for people to concentrate in lectures and meetings that last for hours. This culture of the ability to retain information for short periods has made people become forgetful. Technology has led to an increased number of people suffering from mental and emotional disorders (Jensen p 30). These disorders lead to phobias, delusions, and anxiety leading to neurosis in individuals. Computers and electronic devices come with high resolutions screens that are harmful to people eye sights. Earbuds and earphones are used to listen to music, videos, and receiving calls. However, constant use of this devices causes a strain in the ear and can sometimes make people lose their hearing ability (Becker, Reem, Christopher p 134). Earphones and ear buds also make individuals get so encompassed in music and cannot hear what is happening around them. There are cases of accidents caused since individuals with earphones could not hear warning shouts from people around them.

Social media and technology have successfully made people withdraw from the real world to a virtual world they create for themselves. Individuals today do not value social activities or meetings instead we spend the better time of it listening to music or engrossed in our devices (Becker, Reem, Christopher p 133). People are isolated from each other even when they live together nobody knows what is going on in their partner's life. Isolation and withdrawal have resulted in people losing their social skills (Perse, Lambe p 56). It is hard to engage or maintain a conversation when people meet face to face. Since people are able to withdraw from the real world and create a virtual world for themselves, it is easy to neglect responsibilities. People also want to live in this virtual world as it makes them who they want to be. It gets worse when individuals shun the real world but still want to live as the heroes they are in their virtual world. This form of distorted reality leads to the negligence of responsibilities and the world around us.

With technology, privacy has become just a word in a dictionary. The social media, for example, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram provide the ability for people to share almost every single minute of their life. In addition, Facebook has the profile segment that requires people to fill their details like name, place of residence, telephone number and workplaces. However, this information can be accessed with anyone else from any other part of the world. People readily share their information and even current location with people online. This makes it easy for people to prey on one's privacy (Anderson, Ashley A., et al). Hackers and people with ill motives find a perfect ground to source for information and use it against individuals. Cyberbullies also thrive on this as they are able to humiliate and bully other people online (Heirman, Walrave p 26). Ready accessibility of information is a promising ground for terrorism attacks. Lack of privacy has also led to deceit and identity theft. Since information is available no one can be stopped to use the same information and pose as the original individual. There are numerous cases of catfishing online especially for individuals who like online dating and sometimes these activities lead to murder or even kidnapping cases. Ages ago sexuality was a private thing and no one talked about it openly but today it is gaining wide acceptance. People pose naked and share the same photos with other people. For girls to gain more likes and online fame one has to take compromising photos. Pornography is also a main concern in the society as it is easily accessible anytime any moment. Children become exposed to these vices at a very tender age thus corrupting their morals.

Technology and social media are necessary evil in the society today. The negative effects need to be addressed to help in the eradication of moral decadence in the society. Information service providers need to devise and find ways to censor and regulate information that is available online perhaps it will help in limiting the rate of crime today.

Works Cited

Anderson, Ashley A., et al. "The nasty effect: Online incivility and risk perceptions of emerging technologies." Journal of ComputerMediated Communication 19.3 (2014): 373-387.

Becker, Mark W., Reem Alzahabi, and Christopher J. Hopwood. "Media multitasking is associated with symptoms of depression and social anxiety." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 16.2 (2013): 132-135.

Chen, Cheng, Shin-Yi Chou, and Robert J. Thornton. "The effect of household technology on obesity and weight gain among Chinese female adults: Evidence from Chinas home appliances going to the countryside policy." (2013).

Del Boca, Daniela, Christopher Flinn, and Matthew Wiswall. "Household choices and child development." The Review of Economic Studies 81.1 (2014): 137-185.

Heirman, Wannes, and Michel Walrave. "Assessing concerns and issues about the mediation of technology in cyberbullying." Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 2.2 (2015).

Holt, Thomas J., and Adam M. Bossler. "Technology and violence." The Wiley Handbook on the Psychology of Violence (2014): 588-603.

Jensen, Theodore T. "Influence of Personality on Emotional Contagion through Social Media." (2016).

Perse, Elizabeth M., and Jennifer Lambe. Media effects and society. Routledge, 2016.

Radesky, Jenny S., et al. "Overstimulated consumers or next-generation learners? Parent tensions about child mobile technology use." The Annals of Family Medicine 14.6 (2016): 503-508.

Sugarman, David B., and Teena Willoughby. "Technology and violence: Conceptual issues raised by the rapidly changing social environment." Psychology of violence 3.1 (2013): 1.