Social Media Affecting the World

     Social media affects people’s lives every day without them even realizing it. It causes many problems in a healthy relationship, can interfere with getting a decent job, create distractions for the younger generation (teenagers), and also causes a lot of controversies in the world. The main social media applications people use are Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The statistics on the popularity of the social media has greatly increased in the last years. The statistics from a year ago (September 2014) has increased 71% for Facebook, 23% for Twitter, and 26% for Instagram.

            Relationships can come to an end due to the things that others put on the social media. People sometimes begin to over-exaggerate about the stuff being said over the internet which causes many arguments within a relationship. For example, if someone had an old picture up there from a while back with their ex-girlfriend/ex-boyfriend and someone went to be funny about and liked that picture, which it pops up on the news feed for everyone else to see. When someone is in denial about something the other person goes to the social media to look at posts and comments to see if the information being said is true or false. Another problem relationships seem to encounter is broadcasting their every argument or problem all over the social media, so others could be all in their business. Some people get upset about that, but it’s their own fault for posting anything rather than talking it out in person.

            Posting negative things about other people or businesses over the social media causes a lot of people to get denied or fired from a job. The employees can be posting negative things online about their job, not even realizing that their manager may have a secret account and is watching everything they’re saying. This can give them a good reason to fire them. Some jobs may even use the social media to do background checks on the employees making sure they’re not posting anything crazy over the internet or making sure they don’t have any type of harassment or stalking charges. The managers may not even see the posts themselves, another employee may screenshot the post on their phone and decide to show the manager at work during a private meeting. Some employers even request access to people’s Facebook page before hiring them.

            Social media effects people of all age groups, but it impacts the teenagers group the most. The teenagers find things on the social media to laugh and joke about, not realizing that it may be offensive to others. Teenagers sometimes pay more attention to what’s going on over the internet than they do their education. Education comes before anything else. Also the rate of teenager suicides has increased tremendously over the last decade due to the cyberbullying from peer friends or classmates. Social media should be limited to teenagers, until they find out the real meaning of using it.

            Controversies that happen over social media has many factors such as polarizing, manipulating, and many more. Many controversies don’t end as bad as the others, like people fighting or maybe even someone going to jail behind their actions. Social media can be manipulative when other users post embarrassing stories or pictures of others, which can make them want to stay off of the internet or maybe even deactivate their pages. Social media isn’t that much vulnerable, but some of the people who use it are. Social media can be polarizing when there is being things posted that someone dislikes, so the only way they could handle it in a good way is by disabling their accounts. When they do that they seem to feel much better and a lot calmer.

            People’s lives have been majorly affected by social media and they don’t seem to realize it. The main reason for the social media is to reconnect or talk to friends and family who are a long distance from each other. Peoples of social media can vary, due to what it means to them. Without social media the world would entirely be different and also perhaps be a better place for people to live.