Introduction

Technology and the use of social media through technology has altered how we

communicate daily. More specifically, it is hindering our in-person communication skills as well

as our cognitive dissonance. Needless to say, technology has completely changed the world as

we see it and with that, there are many positives but I want to focus on the downside of using

technology, precisely social media. Dr. Igor Pantic stated in his study on Online Social

Networking and Mental Health, “Although social networks enable an individual to interact with

a large number of people, these interactions are shallow and cannot adequately replace everyday

face-to-face communication” (Pantic, 2014).

People are starting to notice how empowered technology is when they take the time to

eliminate technology for a few hours or days. Author William Powers of WBUR in Boston

described how it feels not to use technology in his household on weekends, “It almost had an

existential feeling of, ‘I don’t know who I am with the Internet gone.' But after a few months it

hardened into a habit and we all began to realize we were gaining a lot from it” (Powers, 2013).

This is an almost ritual that Powers and his family performed every weekend, Friday evening to

Sunday evening. He claims that this improved the communication and relationship between his

family members and his two sons became even closer without the use of technology.

The research and studies used within this literature review are focused on showing the

negative side of social media technology use that we all have become accustomed to ignoring

and turning a blind eye towards. Additionally, technology has been a massive improvement for

today's society by creating new ways of communicating that wouldn't be plausible beforehand.
There still needs to be a realization of what implications lie beneath the soil of social media

technology in regards to communication.

Literature Review

Thirteen articles were used to obtain the research information provided while

concentrating on three main topics; the effect of social media technology on people, the negative

effects of social media technology on various age groups, and the negative decline of in-person

communication moreover cognitive dissonance due to cyberbullying and online harassment.

The Effect of Social Media: Level of Awareness for Children & Adolescences.

More people are using social media now than ever before, and with more people being

able to communicate comes with a price. Mehdizadeh et. al. found after a study specifically

geared towards Facebook use, “One of the possible explanations regarding the negative

relationship between Facebook and self-esteem is that all social networking platforms where

self-presentation is the principal user activity cause or at least promote narcissistic behavior”

(Mehdizadeh, 2010). The social networking platforms where self-presentation is the primary

activity are considered to be applications like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, or

TikTok.

I have seen how controlling these apps are by just observing my college and high school

peers. This proves from personal experience that social media is everywhere and it does not

relatively matter where a person is from, social class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc. there is a very

high chance that individual is a current social media user. et. al. Pew Research Center (2019) has

been conducting a continual study of the percentage of U.S. adults who use at least one social

media site. They recorded in March of 2005 that 5% of U.S. adults use at least one social media
site; the most recent recording was in February of 2019 which was recorded at 72% of adults in

the U.S. use at least one social media site (Pew 2019). PEW also has recorded that Facebook has

been one of the most popular apps by users over the past decade.

Effect of Social Media: Decline of Face-to-Face Communication for Children &

Adolescences.

From a personal standpoint, I have noticed a decline of communication amongst people

of all ages do to technology; listening to music through earbuds, whole families simultaneously

texting other people while sitting at a table in a public restaurant, or even the common mental

breakdown most people have if they lose their ‘Snapchat Streak’ with their best friend. Author

Emily Drago of Strategic Communications at Elon University “found that 78 of 134 students

observed alone (58%) were either texting or holding their phones, 21 (16%) were talking on the

phone or wearing earbuds, and only 35 students (26%) were not using any technology” in a

sample size of 200 Elon college students in a lecture hall (Drago,2014). This study by Drago

coincides with my earlier observation of seeing a substantial increase in technology use amongst

my college peers.

Additionally, a survey was conducted by the PEW Research Center in 2018 on Teens,

Social Media & Technology. They found in this survey that a quarter of teen respondents

mentioned that social media has led to more bullying and the overall spread of rumors. This

creates a tension and anxiety-filled environment for those targeted students which in return can

lessen that student’s confidence in expressing themselves, create less opportunity for peers to be

accepting of the target because of negative association, or results in the target isolating

themselves from others. Furthermore, the PEW Research Center conducted another survey along

the same lines in April of 2018; the survey showed that 59% of U.S. teens have been bullied or
harassed online (PEW 2018). This new form of bullying does not negate face-to-face

communication between teens, yet it shows that in-person bullying is more aggressive, harmful,

and damaging for the target individual.

Negative Effects from Social Media on Cognitive Dissonance for Children & Adolescences.

Teenagers are not only emotionally developing but also result in being more impulsive,

aggressive, and emotionally charged. et. al. Pantic, in a recent study of a high school population,

“found a statistically significant positive correlation between depressive symptoms and time

spent on SNS” (Pantic, 2014). These statistics could be attributed to cyberbullying, feeling of

being left out, under high scrutiny and judgment from their fellow peers. These symptoms would

be present if the technology was not in the picture but technology increases these symptoms

significantly. Kross et al. published a study on the relationship between Facebook use and

subjective well-being in young adults. “The results indicated that users' subjective perception of

well-being and life satisfaction may be undermined. It goes without saying that any decline of

this sort may increase depressive signs and symptoms” (Kross, 2013). Developing symptoms of

depression at this young of an age can be dangerous because of the impulsivity of teenagers at

that time which can sometimes result in teenagers having violent episodes towards or around

their peers. Moreover, development at this age is essential for a human in regards to how they act

later in life based upon their experiences before adulthood; showing or possessing depressive

signs or symptoms is detrimental for the development of the child.

Conclusion

Technology today has changed how humans operate and communicate forever and until

now there have been doors that nobody has ever opened before that we need to cross as a human
race. Communication among humans has skyrocketed in thanks to the use of technology and this

has been one of the most evolving ages in human history. With these new ways of

communicating, we need to focus and understand as much on the negative side of social media

and develop a viable understanding of the negative implications and repercussions of social

media technology.
 References

Adler, I. (2013, January 17). How Our Digital Devices Are Affecting Our Personal

Relationships. Retrieved from https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/01/17/digital-lives-i

Anderson, M. (2019, December 31). A Majority of Teens Have Experienced Some Form of

Cyberbullying. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/09/27/a-

majority-of-teens-have-experienced-some-form-of-cyberbullying/

Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A Theory of Objective Self-awareness.

Herring, S. C., & Kapidzic, S. (2015). Teens, Gender, and Self-Presentation in Social

Media. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 1(2), 146–152.

doi: 10.1016/b978-0-08-097086-8.64108-9

Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., ... & Ybarra, O. (2013).

Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS one, 8(8),

e69841.

Lau, W. W. F. (2016, November 30). Effects of social media usage and social media

multitasking on the academic performance of university students.

Mehdizadeh, S. (2010). Self-presentation 2.0: Narcissism and self-esteem on

Facebook. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 13(4), 357-364.

Pantic, I., Damjanovic, A., Todorovic, J., Topalovic, D., Bojovic-Jovic, D., Ristic, S., & Pantic,

S. (2012). Association between online social networking and depression in high school

students: behavioral physiology viewpoint. Psychiatria Danubina, 24(1.), 90-93.

Pantic I. (2014). Online social networking and mental health. Cyberpsychology, behavior and

social networking, 17(10), 652–657. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2014.0070

Pew Research Center. Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United States.

(2019, June 12). Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-

media/

Sebastián Valenzuela, Martina Piña, Josefina Ramírez, Behavioral Effects of Framing on Social

Media Users: How Conflict, Economic, Human Interest, and Morality Frames Drive

News Sharing, Journal of Communication, Volume 67, Issue 5, October 2017, Pages

803–826, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12325

Shelley Boulianne (2019) Revolution in the making? Social media effects across the

globe, Information, Communication & Society, 22:1, 39

54, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2017.1353641

Zhao Pan, Yaobin Lu, Bin Wang & Patrick Y.K. Chau (2017) Who Do You Think You Are?

Common and Differential Effects of Social Self-Identity on Social Media Usage, Journal

of Management Information Systems, 34:1, 71

101, DOI: 10.1080/07421222.2017.1296747