An essay on the effects of social media on teenagers and workers.
Introduction
This article derives from an essay I wrote for my dream university. Beyond the academic purpose, this article is motivated by a deep interest in studying the dynamics of society and its most influential factors. You can check the references for each fact for further research, or to assess the validity of my statements, which reflect my vision on the topic.
The popularity of social media have steadily grown for the last 15 years: 2.71 billion people use a smartphone , which has become a standard means of communication for new generations. A survey shows that 95% of US teenagers aged 13â18 have access to it, 45% of them almost constantly. Social media are taking a significant part in our lives: they affect social relationships, political views, they are believed to influence behavior and thus they are used in marketing. This article will provide an overview of recent findings about the effects of social media on human society.
A common question in research is whether the time spent online is increasingly replacing face-to-face interactions (social displacement ). Yet not enough evidence supports this theory, since social relationships take place in mixed modalities that are difficult to analyze. A study from Twenge suggests that less time is now spent in in-person activities compared to thirty years ago. However, on an individual level more time on social media are associated with more face-to-face interaction; when the latter is missing, heightened sense of loneliness and anxiety may occur.
Mental Health
Do social media affect mental health? The main users for social media are teenagers , who present a heightened sensibility for social information; a higher risk for mental illness is present during adolescence: nearly 1 in 5 adolescents suffer from mental disorders. With younger teenagers being the most active users online, they find in social media an opportunity to explore their identity (self-disclosure) and gain social approval (peer evaluation) in quantifiable forms such as âlikesâ, âcommentsâ and âviewsâ. However, the vision of reality perceived on social media is overly-positive, since users choose what to show (false-self-presentation) to their peers; research suggests a link between social media use and low self esteem or anxiety for sensible subjects.
A common habit in using these platforms is cause for âdigital stressâ, which is explained by Jeffrey Hall in four elements: fear of missing out (FoMO), communication overload (too many notifications), constant availability-stress and approval anxiety (based on likes and comments). Moreover, frequent online activity, encouraged by notifications and messages, is found to negatively affect sleep schedule (crucial for development) and attention during critical activities (such as driving). Additional concerns are raised on the exposure of sensible subjects, such as teenagers, to religious-hate, sexist, homophobic and violent contents, with current research studying the links with behavioral tendencies.
Recent literature in psychology coined the terms âInternet Use Disorderâ (UID) and âSmartphone Use Disorderâ (SUD) . In their paper , Montag et al. defined mechanisms built in social media applications to drive the userâs behavior: âread receiptsâ in instant messaging apps trigger social pressure and the urge to provide a fast reply; endless scroll in newsfeeds and auto-play keep the user hooked with drastically decreased attention to external stimuli and distorted sense of time; screen time and online activity are tracked to infer the userâs interests and thus display ad-hoc advertisements. Ethical concerns have been raised on the use of such sensible data to maximise profit with targeted marketing. With the Cambridge Analytica scandal, new legislation aims to regulate the storing of personal information, their permanency and the rights to use them.
Self development
On the other hand, social media provide their users with a space that favors self-development: teenagers can freely explore and express their identity, they find more emotional and social support online from other peers or entire communities, eventually they can establish long-term relationships without the bound of distance. Moreover, social networking sites provide a tangible space for research and prevention: on a large scale, sophisticated machine learning algorithms are trained to detect signals of mental illness: depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidality; Facebook and Instagram have already implemented such algorithms to detect users exhibiting signs of emotional distress or suicide risk, further research is needed to assess their efficacy.
Political views
Beyond the effects on individual subjects, social media are studied when influencing political views. âEcho chambersâ originated online: subjects with affine ideals create closed groups by unfriending and blocking other users who present different political views. The effects of echo chambers are still actively discussed, but concerns raise on individuals in the fringes, who are more prone to polarize in extreme political positions. A consequent question is: would exposure to diverse information decrease the marginalization of such groups? According to OâHara and Sumpter, such users tend to confront contrasting ideas to reinforce their original beliefs (âopinion seekersâ, Dubois, 2020) and seem less likely to change their opinion: a 2016 Pew Survey showed that more than 79% of individuals have never changed their political views after reading about contrasting ideas. Such groups may represent a potential risk in a political setting, recent facts from the US State Capitol Riot foster questions on their influence on neutral voters via social media. Within this context, it is crucial to consider the effects of social media on information consumption. A recent article from the Reuters Institute in Oxford reports that online users consume more news than âofflineâ ones, even when they are not looking for it. This occurs when machine learning algorithms generate newsfeeds on social networks: they choose what contents best represent the userâs interests before they look for it (âpre-selected personalizationâ). âFilter bubblesâ define a unique universe of information tailored for every user to keep their engagement high online at the expense of information diversity and freedom of choice. Conversely, Fletcher reports that information sparsity online encourages the creation of more impartial, âpartisanâ content for marginalised groups. Further research is necessary to assess the implications of using such filtering algorithms, it is certain that these technologies are difficult to analyze given their rapid pace of change.
Benefits
It is noteworthy to mention several circumstances where social media provides a substantial benefit. In the work environment, the use of social media creates cohesion between coworkers, it boosts networking and it encourages knowledge sharing, which translates into work performance and competitive advantage. Moreover, an actively social behavior online is not linked to SUD: posting contents and engaging in active conversations reflects the human urge for social bonding, which translates as also outlined in the Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience Theory.
The impact of social media on human society is concrete and yet difficult to understand. At an early stage, current research shows its duality: while it provides a powerful tool for expanding communication globally, it can be exploited to enhance polarization, it leads to negative social comparison and it can be used for unethical marketing. Engineers canât fully hold responsibility for this: increasing awareness is leading to the intervention of political institutions to regulate social media, whose effects on society are beyond the expected.