The Dark Side of Social Media
Whether people want it or not, social media has become an important part everyday life of almost every human species. It, undoubtedly, presents many opportunities for people of any socioeconomic status and age. However, social media also has a dark side worth to take into consideration. Social media is a harmful phenomenon in people’s life as it negatively affects academic performance, facilitates cyber bullying, and promotes suicide-related behavior.
Intensive use of social media leads to a poorer academic performance among students. Active exploitation of the Internet and social media promotes the development of the skill to jump from one activity to another and back (Kirschner and Karpinski 1238). However, this ability does not facilitate the learning process. Experiments have shown that switching between tasks takes longer to complete them and leads to lower grades than doing the same tasks serially, one by one (Kirschner and Karpinski 1238). Moreover, one of the researches revealed that students who actively use Facebook have the average GPA of 3.06, while students who do not visit Facebook have the average GPA of 3.82 (Kirschner and Karpinski 1242). The reason for such results may lie in the time students spend on social media instead of dedicating it to studying.
Cyber bullying flourishes due to social media. Such engines as Facebook and Twitter present a perfect platform for bullying people as news are transferred quickly there and posts are sometimes are difficult to delete by a bullied person. Moreover, due to the worldwide use of these websites, offences become public and available to a large auditorium. A large percentage of online harassment is present among students of various ages. According to a study, 49.5% of students reported having been cyberbullied at least once (Mishna et al. 362). The same study revealed that 33.7% of students admitted having bullied others online. What could make bullying via social media so popular is the feeling of partial anonymity. Moreover, it is always easier to offend someone in front of a computer or smartphone screen and not facing the opponent.
Social media has been found able to promote suicide-related behavior. One of the main reasons for that is cyber bullying. A study conducted on 2000 middle school children has shown that those of them who suffered from cyber bullying were about two times more likely to conduct suicide than those who have never been cyber bullied (Luxton, June, Fairall 196). This may be explained by the fact that cyber bullying deepens the feelings of isolation, loneliness, and hopelessness in victims with the preexisting stressors. Social media also facilitates the formation of so-called suicide pacts. These suicide pacts are basically the agreements between two or more people to die by suicide performed at the same time and in the same way (Luxton, June, Fairall 196). Such sybersuicide pacts have become the leading reason for suicides in South Korea (Luxton, June, Fairall 196). Social media present perfect platforms for creating these pacts.
Despite being helpful, social media is a …
