EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SOCIETY 

I’m going to be using a story for this one so it’ll get more interesting as you read on. effects of social media in communication effects of social media in communication effects of social media in communication

With love and care, Prometheus molded humanity out of clay but humanity was weak and they suffered greatly,

To empower us in our struggle against nature,

Prometheus stole the divine technology from the gods and gifted it to us, fire. effects of social media in communication effects of social media in communication effects of social media in communication

Prometheus had defied the gods in service of humanity he defied the strong to serve the weak and the powerful don’t always submit without a fight,

Prometheus was bound to rot for eternity where an Eagle will come each day and eat his liver.

In generations after generations the spirit of Prometheus returned to us and brings us fire.

Fire has the capacity to keep us warm and cook our food but it also has the capacity to create weapons and destroy us, we continually have to learn how to master it and use it carefully or we risk Self-destruction. effects of social media on society

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In today’s article we explore the latest reincarnation of the story social media. effects of social media on society

Edward Liton said that the Pen is mightier than the sword. effects of social media on society

Ideas have a greater potential of changing the world in force it’s only in-defense of our ideas or beliefs that we choose to raise the swords in the first place,

for generations ideas were limited to transmission by books.

Books are limited in time and space, there’s a limit to how fast they can spread ideas but the Internet travels at the speed of light, the rate at which ideas can now spread is unprecedented,

If the pen is mightier than the sword, is the Internet more mightier than the bomb and if ideas truly are more powerful than force,

we should use them constructively and not destructively in so far as that’s possible.

While the entirety of the Internet is worth discussing, today were going to be looking at a more basic yet Universal aspect of it, social media.

A Report done by the Royal Society for public health states that social media usage is associated with increase Rate of anxiety, depression, poor sleep quality, body image issues and cyber bullying.

In fact rates of anxiety and depression in young people have increased by 70% in the last 25 years, body image issues are a problem for both genders but 9 out 10 teenage girls say that they’re unhappy with their body 7 out of 10 teens have experienced cyber bullying and 37% say they experience it very frequently, effects of social media on society

the report found that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat have an overall negative effect on the well-being of the younger generation and for this reason people are increasingly deciding to take a break from social media or walk away completely.

The benefits are often not worth the cost but social media also helps us express ourselves,

connect with others and get access to high-quality information. effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society 

YouTube for example was found to have a positive effect on well-being and even help those who feel anxious, depressed or lonely although it still has its fair share of downsides.

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Social media also plays an important role in activism such as in the 2011 Egyptian revolution, oppressive regimes often try to prevent and control the flow of information so they can control the people.

Social media can be leverage to bypass the sort of totalitarian control, whether you think that social media is good or bad you’re right it’s a flame and we’re still learning to contain and master but the current dialogue about social media is very low resolution, effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth

people shouldn’t have to leave these revolutionary technology behind but they also shouldn’t suffer negative impact to the well-being by using them.

Social media is often referred to as a tool and it is.

Tools are things that help us accomplish goals but this low resolution comparison is actually pretty misleading social media is a tool but it’s not a tool in the same way a hammer is it’s much more like a city,

think about how much land there is on the earth but we choose to live in relatively small areas of land called cities, the city is a high density container for social interactions it allows us to get anything we need or want easier than we would if we had to do it alone.

Cities are like living tools or organisms, they grow evolve and even die now think about how many web pages there are on the World Wide Web where we all choose to occupy a relatively small set of them called social media,

Social media sites are also a high density container for social interactions so if we want to understand social media we should start by understanding cities.

The city is made up of two worlds, World of ideas and world of technology, the world of ideas is the world of culture and culture contains stories,

myth or narratives that unite the people describe what they value and prescribe how to act.

Take the founding myth of Rome for example, most variations of the myth say that Romulus killed his own brother remiss in order to find Rome,one interpretation of the Myth is that it’s a reminder to the Romans that the glory of Rome is more important than even the love for your own brother. effects of social media on youth

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The world of ideas and values manifest itself in the technology of the city, the technology embodies the story and helps perpetuated, effects of social media on society

technology makes the story easier to live out, Growing up in Sparta would’ve been way different from growing up in Athens, in one, the highest ideal is the soldier, effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth

the entire city was designed to facilitate the achievement of this ideal in the other the highest ideal is something like Well educated citizen and the city was designed to facilitate the achievement of this ideal. effects of social media on society

Sparta might’ve had more Barracks and training grounds well Athens might’ve had more schools, of course it’s likely that the true culture and technology of each city is way more nuanced than I making it out to be but this is just to demonstrate a point.

Every city is built upon a story, citizens that are born or live in that city learn the story explicitly or implicitly so that they can grow and thrive. A good story is useful to us it helps us act in a way that is beneficial,

technology make certain actions easier and when certain actions become easier the story that they are a part of becomes more believable the person who controls the story Controls the people and with the right technology certain stories are easier to believe.

If social media is a city what story is it built on, this part is designed to produce soldiers and Athens to produce well educated citizens.

What is social media designed to produce, I think the answer is the consumer.

Social media tries to produce individuals who watch everything, read everything and click on everything that is the highest Ideal.

This story is probably best embodied in a technology you’re familiar with “the newsfeed” news feeds are designed to watch your interactions and maximize the amount of time you spend on them and they do this by adapting to you,

To evolve they continually have to give us novel stimuli and see how we react to it in other words they’re always presenting us with the unknown. effects of social media on society

Humans have an interesting relationship with unknown we’re drawn to it, The unknown always presents an opportunity for award and growth but it also presents an opportunity for punishment and death.

Humans have an innate negativity bias, negative things capture our attention More than positive things this is because negative things can end us while positive things can just make our lives better. effects of social media on society

Threatening things way heavier on our mind than the non-threatening, because news feeds are optimized for attention,

their default Experience over the long run is often a negative one when you’re continually presented with new information the negative and threatening stuff will always capture your attention more than the positive stuff.

What people find threatening varies From person to person and you might focus on whether people are better looking than you,

stronger than you, smarter than you, work harder or more talented or you may be drawn to fake news since we often spend more time analyzing and assessing threat We pay more attention to it and we get recommended similar things more and more on her newsfeed as a result our newsfeeds often become vicious cycles of negativity in comparison interspersed with occasional reward so how do we solve this problem?

Because are the only social medium shown to have a net positive effect on the youth, I think we should look to YouTube for some answers, the one thing that I think makes YouTube vastly different from every other platform is it search Capability. effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society

Before YouTube became the big social media that it is it was first and foremost a search engine, and in order to create a successful search engine you have to take massive amounts of unorganized information and organize it. effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth 

By doing this YouTube made a much more ordered experience for us the users, we could type in the thing we value or the topic that we were interested in and we could find a community based on that, effects of social media on society

I believe it’s the amount of control that YouTube gives us over our experience that makes it more positive, we can search for a topic that we are interested in and find a video that we like, effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth

we see that the channel that made it produces more content on the topic so we subscribe to the channel we start to build a subscription feed that is purely Based on our interests and values our newsfeeds monitor or searches, subscriptions and video history offer us more recommendations based on that. effects of social media on youth 

The YouTube experience largely revolves around her interests and values, it gives us a lot More control and directing our attention from the start, you can always search new things, subscribe and unsubscribe and restructure the whole experience around your new interests and values. effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth effects of social media on youth

The YouTube culture has always been about creating a community,

This is way different from every other social media because most of your connections on those platforms are based on location, school, work or other random variables. effects of social media on society

The default experience on most other platforms is being told what to look at and the culture is often dominated by status and image so how can we apply this lesson to other social media platforms?

social media sites are digital cities, their workers are like the governing bodies and as the citizens I think we should have the tools to make Digital homes,

a digital home is an ordered experience that you’ve made for yourself based on your interest and values, it should be the default experience, when the chaotic novelty News Feeds are the default experience without any tools to bring order to them I argue that will always have a negative experience in the long run. effects of social media on society

News feeds are designed to create consumers, a digital home on the other hand would be designed to further your development.

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Let me give you an example of creating a digital home, on Twitter I have everyone muted my newsfeed is blank and useless instead I have everyone organized into list based on why follow them, effects of social media on youth

Some people I follow for art, some for philosophy and some because they’re friends. The default experience when I log into Twitter isn’t to have a bunch of things recommended to me based on what Twitter thinks will capture my attention instead it’s my choice to pick Which list I want to read, effects of social media on society

the mute and List functions are incredibly powerful and bypassing the default newsfeed and constructing something like a digital home on Twitter I think it’s important to bypass the newsfeed as a default experience on every social media as much as possible and focus on creating a digital home based on your interest and values and I think it’s important that social media companies give us the tools to make this possible because without these tools we lose control And without control our attention no longer belongs to us. effects of social media on society

And if you want to learn stem subjects more effectively I highly recommend visiting brilliant.org,

brilliant.org is a math and science problem solving website with a well structured environment that encourages focus learning, effects of social media on society effects of social media on society effects of social media on society

they cover a wide range of topics such as mathematics, physics, astronomy and even computer science.

effects of social media on youth

They keep you engaged by throwing You to challenging problems that keep your interest high and progressively adding layers to your understanding by increasing the difficulty of problems.

Please leave your thoughts below in the comment section and do share this article to your love ones.

Cheers effects of social media on society effects of social media on society