Danny Hughes

Sarah Hughes

English 225

9 November 2020

Open Letter to Social Media Users

Dear social media users,

I implore you to listen to the facts regarding social media usage and the damage it can

do to your health. Too many people today use social media to stay in touch with each other.

When the smart phone was invented, many different forms of social media started to be

created and social media platforms became readily accessible and used more often. With the

increase in social media usage, came an increase in screen time on people’s phones. It seems

like wherever you go you will always see people glued to their mobile devices. The rise of social

media has come with many benefits, but it also has a dark side to it. Sure, apps like Instagram,

Twitter, and Snapchat allow for people to be connected twenty-four hours a day but those apps

also cause depression, spreading of false information, addiction, and much more issues. In

total, social media’s bad outcomes outweigh their good.

Like previously mentioned, not all effects of social media are bad. Because of the spread

of social media, news is released faster to people around the world. Many people in 2020 rely

on social media platforms like Twitter to get their news. Before, people would have to watch

the news on television, or read the newspaper daily to receive the news for the day. Now, news
is breaking to the public just as it happens. If something big happens in the world, Twitter and

other social media apps are the first to know. In “It’s Not All Bad: The Social Good of Social

Media,” written on Forbes.com by AJ Agrawal, he writes, “When more people are aware of a

situation, those working to secure locations and ensure the safety of the general public can

perform their job duties more efficiently” (Agrawal 1). Agrawal is saying that when the news

reaches people faster, the public will be knowledgeable about situations that can prevent

accidents from happening and keep more people out of harm’s way. Social media apps also give

you the option if you would like to receive notifications. This is a way where news will hit you

immediately and alert you. The news reaches people faster through social media so this is a

benefit of being on apps like Twitter or Reddit.

Although social media apps alert you when news is breaking, people do not want to

receive a bunch of notifications about pointless news they do not care about. In order for users

to receive important news fast, they must turn on notifications. Sure, getting serious news

updates that people need to receive as fast as possible is a great benefit to social media; but

how many of the notifications people are receiving are important news that is urgent to know?

Notifications also are known to keep users occupied on their mobile devices. Steve Glaveski, an

author for the Harvard Business Review stated, “after a notification has forced us to switch

between tasks, it can take us about 23 minutes to get back to the task at hand, according to a

study from University of California, Irvine” (Glaveski). This shows that notifications take

precious time away from users. People get distracted when they see a notification pop up on

their phone and can easily forget what they are doing and open the app linked to the notice.

This is a problem that many people do not even realize is occurring to them. Amy Blaschka for
Forbes puts it best by writing, “The bottom line is this: Turning off social media notifications lets

your phone work as a tool for you rather than letting it control you” (Blaschka). Electronic

devices can easily take control of what is truly important in life. It is hard to resist the urge of

social media through notifications and that is exactly what social media platforms want you to

do… give in.

This is a topic that is dear to me. My personal experience with social media has not been

a good one and I would like to change that for others by learning from me. If the research does

not scare you of the dangerous of social media, then hopefully my personal experience can

shine light on the dangerous of social media. I had a flip phone up until seventh-grade. In

seventh grade I got the new iPhone 5C, which I thought was the coolest thing. The iPhone could

do so much more than my flip phone that I was used to. Before, I only had access to phone calls

and text messages on my phone, now I had access to games and all sorts of apps. I downloaded

Instagram my seventh-grade year, just a few months after getting my new phone. I knew about

Instagram but could never really participate in it because I would have had to use the family

iPad and I would have liked my privacy with my social media account. When I created my

account, I started to follow all my friends. We always were posting memes and other funny

pictures for our friends to see. One time, me and my close friend Jack got into a meme battle on

Instagram. He would send pictures of memes that were praising the University of Iowa, who he

rooted for, or roasting the University of Michigan, because I was a big wolverine fan. I

remember this meme battle going on for at least two to three hours. I was scrolling through

countless memes on the internet to post on Instagram to get back at Jack’s memes he was

posting. I was scrolling the internet and looking up memes for so long that I lost track of time. I
had been on my phone for so long that it died on me. I realized I had done nothing productive

for the last few hours because I was so engaged in this meme battle with Jack. I realized the

dangers of social media very early on because I realized that it was getting addictive to stay on

all the time. I did not want this new Instagram addiction to get any worse, so I tried to tone

down my usage of the app with some success. I realized that social media could get to the point

where it is best to only check the apps once a day or you can get sucked into scrolling for hours

on end.

The time lost while people are glued to their phone is not nearly the worst harm that

social media can do to a person. There is great evidence to back up the claim that social media

usage can drive teens toward a state of depression. Social media apps have unknowingly

glorified suicide. In the article “Rise in teen suicide rates coincides with increase in social media

use, analysis finds social media & teen suicide” written by staff and news service reports at

Yakima Herald-Republic, Jeremy Garcia states, “If a child decides to kill themselves, then a lot of

people are posting 'rest in peace,' or sharing stories about how much they cared about that

person. You see them get a lot of attention and so it can glorify suicide and make children think,

'If I kill myself, I might get that same kind of attention'” (Garcia). This proves social media apps

are providing platforms for teens to engage in this suicidal behavior and go through with the

act. Teenagers are going through puberty and an unusual time of their life and that can be hard

on them. The incentive of gaining attention on social media through suicide can be enough for

teenagers to go through the act.

The connection to suicide from the use of social media is not one I have personally

experienced, but I know someone who has. A boy in my hometown named Corey unfortunately
took his life because of hate he was getting on Twitter. I met Corey a couple of times and he

was a very nice kid. Corey’s problem started on Snapchat. There was an inappropriate picture

being sent around of him behind his back. Corey found out about this when the picture was

posted on Twitter. Because of the embarrassment he felt, he decided to take his own life. This

is a very sad story to tell. Every time I think about Corey, I think that so much could have been

done in order to prevent this from happening. I try to raise awareness for the dangers of social

media in order to stop terrible things like this from happening in the future. Social media has

caused many people to take their lives. These all could have been prevented if people think

before they post, but sadly, that does not always happen.