Negative Aspects of Social Networking Sites - Report Example

Negative Aspects of Social Networking Sites Introduction Social networking sites like Twitter, Face book, My Space etc. Times have changed the way people have interacted with each other. Social networking sites meet ones social needs of an individual. It makes it possible for individuals to keep in contact with their friends who live in faraway places. In today’s globalised world it is hard to find a teenager who doesn’t have a Gmail, Twitter, Facebook or a Yahoo! Account. Today’s youth use video- and photo-sharing, email, instant messaging sites which help them to communicate and socialize with each other. People join social networking sites to express their views and have a feel of independency and self esteem. Important information can be conveyed through social media. This has made social networking sites have become more popular over a period of years. More number of people is joining social networking sites every day. According to Nielson Company in 2009, youths in U.S. are now spending more time on blog and social networking. Total minutes are increasing with 210% annually increase every year and average time per person has increased by 143% annually. But there are many harmful effects of social networking sites on today’s youth. This kind of site is making people less social. Being social and connected has made people more dangerous for both mind and body since people are less likely to meet people face to face. This deprives people of learning knowledge which can be gathered on a day to day basis. This report discuss about the harmful effect of social networking sites on youth. Discussion Personal Privacy Social networking sites have a narrow gap between public and private life. Once an individual puts personal data on a web site, he has no control over its distribution. Though an individual set the information as private, still it is being share with the web administrator. This can land the personal information in the hand of teacher, spouse, parents, marketing, criminal or a marketing company. According to a study conducted by Pew Internet and American Life Project in 2007, it was seen that 66 % of the youth restrict their online information as private. Generally girls don’t post information which is sensitive while the boys are just the opposite. But nowadays many employers look at Face book profiles before recruiting, since they don’t want to see one side of their personality. There were many instances where a company rejected a candidate since they found descriptions of shooting people, marijuana and obsessive sex. Another research conducted by Acquisti and Gross conducted a research on 4000 Facebook profiles of Mellon University students. It was found that only 1.2 % of the users in the university changed their default privacy. Hence important information can be easily found by anybody who is registered at Facebook. Using the above information it is easy to estimate the social security number of any person who is registered on Face book (Das and Sahoo, 2011). Communication Skills Social networking sites enable youths to communicate with their loved ones. They can easily chat with them free of cost. This deprives the youth in learning good effects of face to face interaction. Even Phone calls have been replaced by Facebook and Twitter to get in touch with somebody. But communication development is crucial for youths and social network is detrimental to them. According to a research conducted by pewinternet, around 37% of the youths is said to message their friends everyday through social networking sites. This causes social anxiety and social awkwardness when such teenagers are confronted with new people. Source: Pewinternet.org The study indicates that sending text messages or instant messages through social networking sites has remained stable. More than half of the youths use social networking to contact their friends. As social networking sites are quicker and easier ways to talk with a person, face to face communication are lessened. But face to face communication skills are needed to rise up in ones’ carrier. A candidate has to appear for face to face interaction for a job interview. Job Interview can’t be conducted over Facebook chat and the candidate has to go in and engage in actual communication with the employers. Thus social networking won’t develop the communication skills needed for similar kind of situation (Sweeny and Curtis, 2012). Cyber Bullying Bullying in any form creates memories which last for a lifetime. When people think of bullying them basically think of an image of a big thug who terrorized kids. But Cyber bullying is different from simple bullying. It is also known as electronic bullying or online social cruelty. It refers to the process of bullying though instant messaging, e-mail, on a Web site, in a chat room, or through digital messages, an online gaming site or any image sent through cell phone. Cyber bullying has been receiving increasing attention in both academic circles and popular press. According to National Crime Prevention Council, it was seen that 43 % of the teenagers have been victims of cyber bullying in the last year. Cyber bullying is an extremely serious subject in today’s world. It is easy for a bully to be in constant touch with the victim through internet. Cyber bullying is increasing in scope and frequency. A serious concern of cyber bullying is that it makes electronic bullies virtually anonymous. Many of the youths go to extreme levels to escape cyber bullying like resorting to suicide. Thus Parents of children and teenagers need to be aware of cyber bullying. According to Katie Greer of staysafeonline parents need to be look out for their children. They should try to find out mood shifts of their children after being online. Any sudden mood shift is a good indicator that their child is being cyber bullied. Thus parents need to keep an open dialogue and check child’s social networking behavior (Neelamalarand Chitra, 2009). According to research conducted by Daily Mail, social networking crimes have increased by 7000 %. These include cases like rape, murder, bullying, pedophilia, burglary and assault. Pedophiles uses social networking sites which can easily help lure the victim. This trend is seen among Teens, since they easily believe in Love and fall for the person with individual they met online. But actually they are falling into a trap sexual predator. Children Research Centre has stated that teenagers belonging to ages 14- or 15- year old girls are mainly targeted by the adults on Internet. The actual problem in such cases is that there is no way to identify the actual criminals on cyberspace who takes advantage of the situation. The feeling of being anonymous encourages the criminal who would never have committed in real world. Impact of Stranger Friends Whenever any youth accept a friend request, it puts the other person at severe risk. It is quite common for the person on other side to start exchanging cordial words and thus gains trust of the youth. After a few days they start playing mind games and thus start gathering sensitive information. For example if they get to know email address of the youth, they could go to email account and thus click on forget password. Thus unknowingly they have shared personal information to them by accessing email account. According to a study conducted by Internet security firm Web root, it was seen that 2 out of 10 people use basic information like pet’s name, birth date as password which are easily visible on social networking sites (BBC, 2010). Affecting Work Productivity Youths spend hours browsing profiles and chatting with their friends on social networking sites. They have developed a habit of visiting their profit many times in a day to check their friend’s changing status, updates, comments on photos and videos. This diverts their attention from office work. According to a study conducted by Nucleus Research which included 237 corporate employees. This showed that around 75 % of the employees do Facebook during work hours. This drops employee productivity by 1.5% for organizations which makes Facebook accessible to employees. According to another study by Robert Half Technology, it was seen that 54% of the organizations have banned their employees from using social networking sites. This was supported by a survey of 3000 organization in UK. The survey showed that 233 million hours are lost per month because the employees are doing Facebook and other social networking sites. Thus all firms should try to block access to sites like Facebook so that man-hours don’t get wasted (Thompson, 2013). Destroying Relationships Initially social networking sites were thought of helping people unite each other and thus helping in the process of making new relationships. But there is other side of side of social networking site. It can also damage relationship and thus make life miserable. According to a survey conducted by American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, it was revealed that Facebook was one out of five reasons for divorces in US. The report mentioned that majority of the divorce lawyers use social networking sites to gather evidence in such cases. Personal information, Photographs, Flirty messages can be used as proof of infidelity. Facebook reunites old lovers and thus acts as a secret platform for dating. Again amount of time spent on Facebook can make one’s partner feel jealous, which starts the beginning of break up (Ruddock, 2013). Cyber stalking Cyber stalking refers to use of e-mail, Internet or other electronic devices to pursue another person. In real world stalking refers to watching, following an individual persistently so as to harass a victim. Computer adds another dimension to this form of stalking. This increases the potential of obsessive stalking. The stalker can use e-mail to bombard the victim with material at workplace and even at home. Cyber stalking arises when an individual repeatedly tries to contact someone through Internet. The main distinction between cyber stalking and harassment is that cyber stalking is characterized by fear and pursuit. Biological Impact of Social Networking Youths who are addicted to social networking face severe health risk since they reduce face-to-face contact. For such individuals instant gratification of their needs becomes their objectives. Studies have shown that lack of face to face contact can alter the way genes work. It can have other effects like change hormonal levels alter immune response, influence the mental performance, upset function of arteries, along with range of other health issues like dementia, heart disease, cancers, and strokes (Kirsh, 2010). Reducing effect of Social Media on Youth The effect of social media has increased to such an extent that youth now prefer to do Facebook over studies. They even do status updates from their bathrooms, or even give threats to President on Twitter. Though the main reason for social media was to socialize, excess time spending on internet can result in aggravating the symptoms of depression. There is a problem which is growing ever since and it is very unlikely that it will disappear quickly. But there are some precautions which can be taken to avoid it. Parenting control Parenting control is important for avoiding teenagers going into depression and against cyber criminals. Parents should look at mood shifts of their children after they use Facebook or MySpace. Any sudden mood shifts needs to be noticed and sit and discuss with them. This will help the teenagers in opening up to their parents. Eventually the teenagers will make parents a part of their friends circle and discuss critical issues at early stage of problem. Thus they will be able to protect their children from harmful effects of social networking sites. Focus Youths should reduce the number of social networking site they use and concentrate on the most relevant one which affect both their personal and work life. This will help to have more time to concentrate on personal work in real life. Face-to-Face Interaction Face-to-face interaction helps youths to gain much more knowledge and see the real world. By interacting face-to-face, the teenagers will understand what it looks like to talk and share knowledge and experience with actual persons in real life. The people in the real world are much different in real life. They will get to see that in real world intentions of people are different than they appear in real life. Teenagers should be encouraged engage themselves in physical activity more than doing social media. This will help them to grow friends which they can interact in real life. Both teachers and families should play a constructive role. For example teachers may create academic communities within social networking sites which aim to do academic projects like laboratory works. Teachers should try to promote academic usage of Social networking sites by giving and submitting assignments through it. The students should be made to develop efficient time-management skills so that they can learn how to achieve balance between work life or regular life and social networking media. Conclusion Growth of Internet has resulted in significant rise in users of social networking sites. This results in significant change in personal and social behavior among the youth. Social Networking sites have become an important medium of entertainment and communication among the young adults. This has affected the daily activities of teenagers and the popularity of Social Networking Sites is not going to fall in near future. It must be understood that everything in this world can be used for good or bad purpose. It depends on human beings to use it wisely to get the benefit of developing social relationships across geographical borders. The nefarious activities of cyber criminals must be kept in check by following stringent measures by both government and users. References BBC. (2010). Social networking damaging school work say teachers. Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11797511. Das, B. and Sahoo, J.S. (2011). “Social Networking Sites – A Critical Analysis of Its Impact on Personal and Social Life”. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(14), 223-228. Kirsh, S.J. (2010). Media and Youth: A Developmental Perspective. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Neelamalar, M. and Chitra, P. (2009). New media and society: A Study on the impact of social networking sites on indian youth. Retrieved from: http://www.ec.ubi.pt/ec/06/pdf/neelamalar-new-media.pdf. Ruddock, A. (2013). Youth and Media. New York: Sage. Sweeny, J. and Curtis, C. (2012). Is Social Networking Dangerous for Teenagers?. Retrieved from: http://www.learningdiversity.org/2012/11/is-social-networking-dangerous-for-teenagers/. Thompson, C. (2013). Teenagers and social networking – it might actually be good for them. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/teens-social-networking-good-for-them. Read More