Around seven out of ten Americans (72%) use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, up from 26% in 2008. [26] [189]. On social media sites, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more.
Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly. Here is some pros and cons that why we is social media is not good for our society in this generation
Pro 1. Social media promotes community that can translate into or supplement offline relationships.
Using social media, people can have friends with similar interests in multiple cities, states, and countries. Closer to home, social media can help people find each other in a busy world, from mom groups and soccer leagues to book clubs and historical reenactment groups.
Pro 2. Social media encourages civic and political responsibility.
“Many of today’s youth take to digital spaces to develop their civic identities and express political stances in creative ways, claiming agency that may not be afforded to them in traditional civic spaces. The key difference between civic engagement by youth today and older, more traditional forms of action is the availability of digital technology, which provides a low-barrier-to-entry canvas for young people to create content that is potentially vastly scalable.
Con 1. Social media promotes cyberbullying that spills into offline life.
Cyberbullying is “the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person (such as a student) often done anonymously.” Specific types of cyberbullying include but are not limited to: flaming (online arguments with personal attacks), outing (revealing someone’s sexual orientation without permission), trolling (being antagonistic to start arguments), and doxing (revealing private information without permission). [313] [314]
66% of teens believe social media companies are not doing enough to curb cyberbullying. And 33% of kids have deleted a social media account to avoid cyberbullying.
Con 2. Social media encourages the spread of misinformation.
Social media users frequently collect in echo chambers, which are generally figurative but sometimes literal places where similarities among people greatly outnumber differences. Users may share biases, political affiliations, gender, race, sexual orientation, income, employment status, or any number of other demographic identifiers Echo chambers allow misinformation to flourish because users are less likely to fact-check a post by someone with whom they identify and want to agree. Outside of an echo chamber, someone is more likely to fact-check and stem the misinformation before it goes viral. Further, within an echo chamber, extreme misinformation is more likely to go viral to encourage engagement on the social media platform among the echo chamber’s participants.
