Effects of Social Media

In Social Media: How Does It Really Affect Our Mental Health and Well-Being?, it talks about Facebook addiction and how researchers have developed a new scale to measure this type of addiction called the Berge Facebook Addiction Scale. I personally have never heard of this before reading the article so I thought that was very interesting that people are so consumed by social media that we have developed new diagnoses. I also found it interesting to find that more people who are anxious are more likely to use social media. It also said that those who were socially insecure use it more often, which makes sense to me because the more 'likes' and 'comments' on your post can reassure someone who feels insecure. This article also made me realize how much it can have an effect on someone's self-esteem, and not just through cyber-bullying. While so many people do talk themselves up on social media, some people feel inferior to others just because some may have more accomplishments than they do. This can really have a detrimental affect on one's self-esteem and self-worth. But through all of the negative that social media brings, a study is now developing on how to "spread happiness" through social media. Researchers believe that the more positive things you post on your own pages, the more positive things your friends will post. 

In How Social Media Affects Us: Your Brain on Facebook, Twitter, and More, you learn how certain uses of technology, including texting, status updates, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, affect your brain. People today are like Pavlov's dogs when texting. You hear a notification sound and expect to hear new information. Texting also lights up the same areas of the brain as heroine or cocaine. The release of dopamine when receiving a text allows the act to become more addicting. Texting can also negatively impact an individual's linguistic ability to interpret or accept words. People can now remember more of where they found information rather than the information itself, all thanks to your search engines. Researchers also say Facebook is now a way for people to monitor their reputation instead of communicate. 

In my opinion, we need to change the ways we use social media back to what they were originally meant for: communication. Social media has such a negative connotation now, but we have all allowed it to become an extra evil we have to deal with. We don't need to let it consume our lives. Instead of messaging that person on Facebook about what happened in class, why don't you ask them in person? We are becoming a society that is lacking social interaction. I know I am guilty of it myself. I think we all just need to take a step back and look at what we are using social media for and how we can change it for the better.