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Mapumaikona’aloha Vidal

Mr. Pintande

ELA 3

29 November, 2022

Is Social Media Harming Our Society and Emotional Well-being?

The most draining part of social media is being yourself on the social platform. Social

media is a source where you can communicate with others and find more detailed information to

help expand your knowledge. Many viewers have social media for pure entertainment as it

includes follow ups on celebrities, influencers, and lots of other well-known people. Even though

it expresses gossip between famous people, trends, and pop culture, social media still does more

harm than good.

First and foremost, people get too addicted to their phones, which is why social media is

harmful. According to “Smartphone Addiction,” it states, “Excessive smartphone use can disrupt

your sleep, which can have a serious impact on your overall mental health. It can impact your

memory, affect your ability to think clearly, and reduce your cognitive and learning skills”

(Robbison). In other words, everyone’s memory and ability to think clearly, and their cognitive

and learning skills would change because they are losing their sleep by the usage of smartphones.

Following that, being too addicted to their phone will cause their lack of sleep and will only

impact their mental health for the worse. Losing their sleep means that they are slowing down

their body to function properly. Everyone would become slower in memory, thinking, and

reasoning in learning, which is something people want to avoid in order to help themselves out in

life. Being on their phone is wasting everyone’s time in the long run. In summary, the usage of

social media would only continue the obsession of phones causing social media to be damaging.
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Secondly, one of the harms that social media brings is creating and influencing unrealistic

standards to the audience. Based on research, the article, “Social Media Effects on Teens: The

Positives and Negatives.” states, “Social media exposes teens and teens to unrealistic standards

from not only ads and other accounts, but from their friends as well. With beauty filters that can

make your eyes bigger and your skin clearer, along with the right angles, any teen can be a

supermodel. But this is not real life” (Freitas). To put it differently, social media creates a very

high standard on beauty with ads and other accounts. It affects groups of people in society, and

one of those groups could be friends. The standard expects others to have clear skin, bigger eyes,

and the right angles for them to be considered pretty or handsome. These types of situations

cause everyone, especially teens, to have higher expectations on their appearance and this can

lead to low self-esteem. Low confidence can give them unhealthy body images, causing them to

unhealthily change themselves. The “identity” that they form themselves to be compared to their

real self can result in anxiety and depression, which damages people’s well being. People would

be too caught up in being the standard that they would lose themselves, their real selves. Hence,

an unreasonable standard and expectation can come from social media, which is why it is

harmful rather than good.

Thirdly, the harming of social media is the fact that it gives exposure to cyberbullying.

For instance, the article, “The dangers of Cyberbullying” says, “Cyberbullying can be intense

and long lasting. The sense of anonymity provided in online environments can lead people to say

things that are harsher than what they would say in person. Teens and children who experience

cyberbullying are at risk of emotional, behavioral and mental health issues. Cyberbullying has

even led to teen suicide. Teens who are bullied are at a higher risk for suicide. Some studies have

shown that children who experience cyberbullying can be up to two times as likely to attempt
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suicide” (Rymanowicz). To repharse, cyberbullying is a very serious situation that can affect the

health of the victims and can possibly lead to suicide. Being in the media can give people the risk

of getting cyberbullying. The results of being exposed to cyberbullying can affect not only one's

life, but everyone that is around that person. The victims have a higher chance of killing

themselves because the feeling was too much to handle. That person can change their way of

thinking. Just one death could create a domino effect of sadness because of the grief and how

their close ones feel guilty for not knowing or doing anything about it. Social media “opens” the

idea of risking the results of cyberbullying. Briefly, having access to cyberbullying is led by

social media, which is why it is bad.

Participartly, others believe that social media does good things because it helps build

relationships and educates others about controversial topics. With that being said, “How Does

Social Media Affect Relationships?” states, “It can be useful for couples in a long-distance

relationship. If they have to be long distance for a period of time, social media can help them feel

more connected. They have easy access to one another’s everyday lives and moments”

(Panganiban). Therefore, the usage of social media helps create a communication bridge to long

distance relationships. Social media assists couples to be able to connect despite the distance

they have between each other, which can help them get to know each other better. It keeps a

relationship stabilized as they find a way to conversate and be happy together. Adding onto this,

social media gives free access to educate the audience with information. People could use this

source to learn and know new things about what is going on in society. With the free access of

this sort, generations can see what is right from wrong and help avoid problems to save

themselves and others. In spite of that fact, social media creates these portraits of how

relationships should be going. These ideals cause long distance relationships to overthink their
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romance, as if their love is not enough for one another… like they are either doing too much or

too little. Jealousy and enviousness on content happy relationships on social media can run

through their connection and potentially ruin their relationships due to social media. In addition,

having access to information that can educate people on society can still have a big impact.

People use these controls to do bad things with them. For example, a person could know right

from wrong and still choose to do the wrong, as in a crime, out of their overwhelming emotions.

Following along with that, they could use the information as a way to mock people and make

unnecessary jokes about serious topics. To conclude, although there are benefits of being

informed on controversial topics and being able to assemble relationships, there are still those

who take advantage of these and set an illogical image of what relationships are supposed to look

like and take the information on social media to use it against others in a horrible way.

In conclusion, the harming of social media is the way that it affects an individuals’ well-

being as the person gets way too occupied with that. And even though social media gives access

to information and assistance in structuring a relationship and controversial topics, it still has

many negative impacts by the huge roles it has played in an indivduals’ health and the influence

it has that has taken over that person because it brings unhealthily vision that they feel pressured

to follow. Social media may have displayed its entertainment and fun on their platform, but there

is always ugliness behind pretty things…

Works Cited

Freitas, Aubrey. “Social Media Effects on Teens: The Positives and Negatives.” Love to

Know, 20 May 2022, https://teens.lovetoknow.com/teen-health-wellness/how-does-

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social-media-affect-teens.

Pangangiban, Kimberly. “How Does Social Media Affect Relationships?” Choosing

Therapy, 23 September 2022, https://www.choosingtherapy.com/social-media-

relationships.

Robinson, Lawrence. “Smartphone Addiction.” HelpGuide, 15 November 2022,

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/addictions/smartphone-

addiction.htm#:~:text=Excessive%20smartphone%20use%20can%20disrupt,your

%20cognitive%20and%20learning%20skills.

Rymanowicz, Kylie. “The Dangers of Cyberbullying.” Early Childhood Development, 19

October 2016,

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/cyberbullying_and_the_dangers_associated_with_it.