Loose Change Nation
Informative Ideas of Today
Social or Anti-Social?
With new developments in technology, the era of social media has finally sunk in with a majority of the population here in America and around the world, but is this a revolution or a means of desocialization? Social media site’s such as Facebook and Twitter claim to unify the public and interconnect us with one another but we need to delve deeper into these ideas of online interconnectivity to really get an understanding of this new online socialization. With a new viewpoint of social media we must ask, how will this new form of socialization negatively effect our younger generations? In these recent years, studies performed by the Pew Research Center and Dr. Larry Rosen both indicate several disturbing findings within this new desire of online socialization, the first being an increased need for instant gratification from social media users. The second, and possibly most disturbing finding, from Dr. Rosen is a link between social media and not only social disorders but also mental disorders. These findings, along with studies showing decreased concentration among youth associated with lower grades, are a major indication that social media is not just the positive interconnected web that we assumed but also a means of regression within the social and mental aspect of our lives. Although there are benefits associated with social media, the negative repercussions of using these sites without proper education could mean a potential downfall of our younger generations.
Today our youth is ever changing and growing with this digital era and over ninety percent of the youth has access to these media outlets according the Pew Research Center. With such a high volume of our younger generations using social media comes a need for higher discrepancy and education to avoid negative repercussions. Dr. Rosen admits that in a survey conducted, all aspects of health were worse within children who use social media and technology compared to those who scarcely use social media. The results were astounding and showed that mental, emotional, and even physical health suffers the more the child used these newer technologies and social media sites. Not only did these studies from Dr. Rosen show health deficiencies but also increased distraction. The typical person tends to show an average attention span of three minutes up to fifteen minutes while these newer generations tend to show a higher rate of distraction only being able to concentrate from three minutes to ten minutes. A major reason for these distractions is a device that a majority of the youth has, a smart phone. With the invention of the smart phone came the ability to constantly check these sites, causing further distraction and less attention span among individuals, especially our youth.
With this decreased concentration has also come a link to lower grades. Students who use social media are more distracted daily, and suffer from lower grades than those who do not or scarcely use social media. With this finding comes even more cause for concern among the younger generations. The fact that social media can directly influence the education of our youth is devastatingly alarming and as Dr. Rosen points out, this problem is in not only the parenting but also the time consumption and instant gratification caused by social media sites that influence our younger generations by “likes”. The Pew Research Center also shows an alarming statistic, that teens use social media or relative Internet nearly an hour and a half per day, or roughly six percent of our day. The correlation between social media and lower grade point averages among the youth seem to say one thing, that social media has turned from networking and connectivity to a distraction and longing for attention. This new desire for attention among our younger population is cause for concern with these studies showing increased episodes of narcissism and other social or mental disorders. Between the mental, physical, and emotional health deficiencies and the loss of concentration, the biggest and most important idea within social media is awareness of these extreme issues.
Works Cited
Wyrwoll, Claudia. Social Media: Fundamentals, Models, and Ranking of User- generated Content. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2014. Print.
"Social Media and the Cost of Caring." <i>Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS</i>. 15 Jan. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. <http:/ www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/15/social-media-and-stress/>.
Rosen, Larry. "Larry Rosen 'How Social Networking Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids' at Young Minds 2012." YouTube. YouTube, 23 Aug. 2012. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.