Effects of Social Media.

Effects of Social Media. 

 Social media are applications, websites and computer-based technologies that allow for the sharing of information, networking for careers, ideas. It involves the use of internet-based applications, user generated content such as videos, digital photos, post and comments, social networks and virtual communities. But how it affects people and the society. 

   Some of the positive effects of social media include the opening up of communication barriers seeing as people all over the world can interact over these platforms without having to incur the heavy charges of telephone calls like before. Families get to communicate and people get to make new friends and learn about different cultures. Students can use the platforms for research and discussion on curriculum topics. Social media has changed the way business takes place in recent times with traditional methods of marketing. Relationships are built by using social media both business wise and on individual levels while communication is speeded up. 

   Social media also has its share of negative effects that affect the society and individuals differently. There is the evidence of cyberbullying that takes place where people are bullied by their online friends and terrorized in front of others. These kinds of attacks can leave mental scars and sometimes lowers the self-esteem of those bullied sometimes even driving them to suicide. The anonymity that is offered by social media serves to inhabit dark impulses of people who enjoy bullying others while hiding their true identity. 

   Social media used in businesses as a means of communicating with customers and marketing services and products can also lead to low productivity of employees. The social media sites provide a great distraction to employees who find themselves interacting with friends instead of carrying out the tasks required of them. Researches done show that companies sometimes lose millions when productivity reduces due to these social sites. 

     Actions that can be taken to prevent these negative effects include the use of new technology that blocks the use of social media during work hours to increase the productivity of employees. Parents should be urged to make routine checks of their children’s use of social media to avoid any cases of them being targets of cyber bullying. 

    People need to be aware of the positive and negative effects of social media and encouraged not to spend too much time on it to avoid the occurrence of these negative effects. Instead, they should be encouraged to concentrate on their physical surroundings instead of technology since it poses harm to the human mind, relationships between people and even behavior of individuals.