Wasted Time and Happiness on Social Media

for my position essay,

I chose to write over wasted time and happiness on social media.

I wrote about the three main negatives.

My survey questions the minimal amount of benefits and

my conclusion social media has absorbed society and influences

us in ways that are not positive.

Social media and online usage may be beneficial in

some stances but has a momentous number of negatives.

The first negative I will be talking about is depression and suicide.

Depression and suicide are issues facing people's lives on a daily,

but we tend to not notice most of them.

Depression is one of the leading causes in suicide

and one article believes opposite in my views.

For my opposing database article,

links between screen use and depressive symptoms in adolescents over 16 years.

It states screens and social media use are unlikely

to bear major responsibility for uses head trends.

I feel like this is unrealistic and that

because I have witnessed people with depression.

I also found two articles stating my view

And they are from the Jed Foundation which states

25.5% of adults ages 18-24 have considered suicide.

In 18.8% of high school students have considered suicide in the past year.

This article shows that young adults are those

of the highest majority and the likelihood that is

because we have grown up with technology all

around us and know nothing different from it.

For the second article time spent using smartphones,

68.6% of those surveys believe that screen time affects mental health negatively.

These two articles stay exactly my point and that overall the

opposing which I stayed in the beginning,

age groups of suicide tied directly into the percentage of screen

time due to the constant need of interaction with the world

because it is all we have known

screens are a reason for rising depression and suicide rates and I

firmly believe that society is the only way to change it.

Depression and suicide to fall face first when we run into the

influence of those online and around us causing behaviors and mental issues.

My second point

is the influence of others.

Influence come from all around us and negative comments are very

harmful and can impact people in more ways than one.

We see people every day in which we look like them,

but then we realize that we are who we are,

confidence begins to rise when we become more comfortable with who we are.

I support this claim with

information from the online article,

the impacts of social media on social comparison and envy and teenagers.

This stated that exposing teenagers to favorable

life events that friends may have posted to

create impressions in social media can easily

make teenagers engage more in social comparison,

thereby causing them to feel envious of what they view from their friends posts.

This is basically saying that we see what other people post and it makes us want

to have what they have or not appreciate what we have as much

and just want to really conform so we all look the same.

And this made me realize that

some people do realize that we are influenced.

My main example is from this that is not based off of social media.

Is that one major area that we don't notice is

that there are influences at home or within the community.

Think about walking down the street and seeing a family for through them walking

together in a line talking while one of them is a few steps behind.

According to the article, The impact of social media on social comparison envy

states that target of comparison by parents can

increase social comparison behavior and teens as it

makes teenagers overly aware of what others have compared to what they do not have.

This shows how

the ones closest to us can really actually hurt

and leave us out the most compared to everybody.

My third point is the time that we spend on social media.

Time is priceless and we as a society are throwing it

away on social media according to time spent using smartphones,

an average person spends three hours and 15 minutes on the phone a day.

The amount of time society spends distracting

themselves with unneeded things is crazy.

Social media is also not being used in a beneficial way

no matter if it is Snapchat tiktok instagram or facebook,

Social media can be beneficial,

but in reality it really isn't 51.8 of

people use social media apps because they're bored.

That's more than half of our population.

We wake up and check our phone, we go to bed but we have to check our phone first.

This shows how broken society truly is and then it needs

to be addressed society completely and utterly absorbs itself with things that

were never involved in the first place.

We worry about everything going on around us when we

should be focusing on things right in front of us.

So through my three main points,

I incorporated six survey questions that I asked

the class before I started this essay,

my first question was, do you spend more than five hours on your phone?

When I asked this question in the beginning I

thought that the over ruling answer would be yes.

But I was actually surprised saying that it was

equal six saying yes and six saying no.

This made me realize that maybe our generation isn't as um

prone to being on our phones as people think we are.

My second point was, do you check your phone?

First thing when you wake up in last, before you bet.

I figured the outcome before I even asked this question as I

always check my phone when I wake up and I always check

my phone before I go to bed and I got the exact

results I was looking for which all of us said yes,

that is exactly what we do.

My third question

was are kids becoming more depressed and socially awkward

just seeing that depression and suicides are rising every day.

It's not,

it is seen in all ages of people even though

teens and young adults are like most prone to it now

I found that six of us think yes that we are being

for saying no and to undecided,

I thought that undecided was odd because I figured

this question would be more of a yes,

No.

My fourth question,

do you spend

when do you spend the most time on social media?

We use social media everywhere.

But I pose this question to see if most people use it in school at work or personally

Um 11 people said personally, which I figured school, one person and work,

there was none which I can see work being done and personal being

most because we usually are not typically on social media when

you're in school and work considering we're doing other things.

My fifth question was are we influenced by the things that we see online?

I thought yes,

personally because I know that people are influenced by the ads and commercials

that we see every day just on different browsers or on TV or

any social media that we get into 10 people said yes we are

influenced into said no and I think those even if you said no,

I guarantee that you know somebody close to

you who has been influenced by something online.

And my final question was what social media platform do you use the most?

I asked this question because we are mostly all in the same age

category and the today's most used platforms

are Snapchat instagram tiktok and facebook,

which facebook, I know it's older but some people still use it.

I wanted to see which one we use the most

to compare features to see why that those were the most

Snapchat had six. Tiktok had for instagram had two and facebook had none.

I found that Snapchat and Tiktok were the most used because they allow for

us to see other events and people from all around the world and what's

going on because we tend to know what tend to want to know what's

going on farther away from us than what is right next to us.

I then incorporated a the benefits I could find though there's only five,

these five benefits, we're building relationships, sharing of expertise,

visibility, increased self education in connection any time.

These are all advantages that are helping us move forward in society,

interaction with others,

engaging with society and conforming to the new normal of the world will not

be able to be done if we're not for social media and online resources.

The use of online resources in social media play a role in everyday life.

For example,

I would not be able to make this presentation if

I didn't have the resources and capability to do so

these roles are beneficial but still not outweigh the negatives of social media.

In conclusion,

social media and online usage is negatively affecting those of all ages.

Depression ng and suicides continue to rise due to the

influence of society and the unneeded time spent online.

Truthfully, there are no benefits of social media as they all tie back to a negative

society needs to start recognizing and acknowledging the things right in

front of them instead of what is going on somewhere else.

Social media and online sources are pulling us away from the things

in life that we should keep near and dear to us.

Wasted Time and Happiness on Social Media

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