Impact of Social Media on Society -

I've been thinking about this topic recently and figured I'd actually get around to posting it.
I'm interested in what everyone thinks about social media websites such as Facebook and twitter and their respective influence on the individual and society.

Personally I think that these websites have their benefits, especially for businesses and friends and families. There's a definite use in networking and staying in touch with friends across the globe but it seems like it also alienates the individual by making them think that they're communicating with others (while really being alone and communicating to an artificial audience).

Yeah i agree with you that people tend to have a false sense of connection with others on the sites.
But in my eyes these sites do tend to open a new window for cyber bullying or even videos of self harm just because a person is seeking attention from a crowed.


Sorry i don't have much of broad view on this my opinion is a bit mixed atm :/
I'll add more as i see other posts

positive:

- social media has become an important source of news
- It allows people to keep in touch in a more regularly, and sometimes, more intimately, than was ever before because of time and space constraints
- social media has enabled greater political awareness
- children who start using the platforms develop early communication skills, and generally become more literate
- the whole dynamics of marketing have been changed, companies understand the needs of the market better from the market itself

nagative:

- a false sense of connection
- more and easyer cyber-bullying
- decreased productivity
- less privacy

there are a few positive and negative points of social media, but it doesn’t mean that social media is good or a bad thing. i think It stands somewhere in between.

I am with piramatrix on this one and they have summed up my thoughts..personally i see good and bad points with social media. I feel to it all depends on how much a person exposes about themselves on these sites. I may add more to this post when i can think of something else to add..i am currently natural so my view is kind of limited.

Kid wrote:
But in my eyes these sites do tend to open a new window for cyber bullying or even videos of self harm just because a person is seeking attention from a crowed.

I personally dont realize how anyone could get cyber bullied, its as easy as pushing a button to turn off the computer. You also have to take into account that it really isnt a window, because if you post something on someones picture, everyone can see it, everyone can see that you are cyber bullying somebody.

fishingman71 wrote:because if you post something on someones picture, everyone can see it, everyone can see that you are cyber bullying somebody.

thats part of the problem, people can easilly join in on the bullying, even if they don't even know the victim. the chances are bigger that people join in on the bullying then to back up the victim. also its a lot easyer to bully someone online then it is in real life since you don't have to look your victim in the eye, this tends to lower the threshold for cyber bullying.

piramatrix wrote:

fishingman71 wrote:because if you post something on someones picture, everyone can see it, everyone can see that you are cyber bullying somebody.

thats part of the problem, people can easilly join in on the bullying, even if they don't even know the victim. the chances are bigger that people join in on the bullying then to back up the victim. also its a lot easyer to bully someone online then it is in real  life since you don't have to look your victim in the eye, this tends to lower the threshold for cyber bullying.

Isn't the cyber bullying issue more correlated to crowd psychology, just in a different medium?

Is it social media to blame for these issues, or the people that initiate these attacks? I feel that is the larger picture in this topic. Social Media itself isn't a primary catalyst to this type of bullying.

I can agree that bullying in general has a strong correlation to do with social conformity and an individual feeling accepted by the majority in order to fit in, after all this is nature to us we would rather follow the crowed crossing a road than do it alone.
Many reason for bullying especially cyber bullying has come with reasons such as "it was funny" or "we were just joking".

I also agree that social media isent a "primary" catalyst but it is one, this is just because its much easier to throw abuse to someone over the internet where u can't see them thus you have no sense of emotion towards what you are saying meaning you cannot restrain yourself as well as in a 1 v 1 situation.
A lot of people i know that have been cyber bullied and in 2 cases that have cyber bullied have used a similar explanation "we where only joking", i fell that both parties say that for the reason i stated above, we all want to be social accepted 1 way or another.

And for some reason i waffled here but my point is that naturally us as humans would go to extreme lengths to be accepted socially, so bullies in some cases may be doing it be accepted by a group, by using social media as a way to bully can make the extent of it high because of the point i stated above.

(this probably contradicts myself a lot so spare me i wrote this at 5am)

Kid wrote:I can agree that bullying in general has a strong correlation to do with social conformity and an individual feeling accepted by the majority in order to fit in, after all this is nature to us we would rather follow the crowed crossing a road than do it alone.
Many reason for bullying especially cyber bullying has come with reasons such as "it was funny" or "we were just joking".

Just like any type of bullying, what is said as far as " joking " isn't necessarily what goes on in their head. Insecurity is the main issue when it comes to bullying.

Kid wrote:
I also agree that social media isent a "primary" catalyst but it is one, this is just because its much easier to throw abuse to someone over the internet where u can't see them thus you have no sense of emotion towards what you are saying meaning you cannot restrain yourself as well as in a 1 v 1 situation.
A lot of people i know that have been cyber bullied and in 2 cases that have cyber bullied have used a similar explanation "we where only joking", i fell that both parties say that for the reason i stated above, we all want to be social accepted 1 way or another.

I think you are confusing medium for cause. Just as if someone were to make, say, a snuff film, you wouldn't blame the invention of recorded video for it. Social media is a tool, and just like any tool, it's " morality " is determined by the ones whom wield it.

Kid wrote:
And for some reason i waffled here but my point is that naturally us as humans would go to extreme lengths to be accepted socially, so bullies in some cases may be doing it be accepted by a group, by using social media as a way to bully can make the extent of it high because of the point i stated above.

(this probably contradicts myself a lot so spare me i wrote this at 5am)

Overall, I would say social media is more good than bad. Just as the invention of the printing press enabled humanity to accelerate the sharing of information/emotions like never before, social media is the printing press of our day and age. You have control over the content you view and produce.

DrLoud wrote:
Isn't the cyber bullying issue more correlated to crowd psychology, just in a different medium?

Is it social media to blame for these issues, or the people that initiate these attacks? I feel that is the larger picture in this topic. Social Media itself isn't a primary catalyst to this type of bullying.

i that its not the fault of social media that there is cyber bullying. however i'd say social media is most definitively a catalyst for cyber bullying.

lets look at the definition of a catalyst: a catalyst is something/someone that precipitates (or speed/slow down) a process or event, without being involved in or changed by the consequences.

multiple studies show an increase in cyber bullying since social media. i'm not saying that social media is the reason there is cyber bullying, but does make it a lot easyer. if you take social media out of the equation there would be a lot less cyber bullying