Social media refers to online communication channels and avenues that enable the exchange of information and content among the people connected on the various social media platforms. There are different social media platforms including Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Linked in as well as Pinterest. Through social media, people across the globe have been able to interact and exchange ideas, information as well as content, making the world a 'small village.' As a result, human interaction has been made easier, which has resulted in both positive and negative impacts of social media. Various studies have indicated instances of corruption that has been brought about by social media use. This paper aims to show the corruption of social media, thus making it known the negative implications of social media.
The first negative implication of social media is exposure of young and underage children to explicit content. Social media provides a platform in which all sorts of information can be shared, which increases the likelihood of explicit information reaching underage children. Some explicit content such as pornography is shared among young children, which decays their morals and results in further negative implications. Due to exposure to explicit content underage children such as teenagers, begin practicing what they see and read on social media, which results in early pregnancies, dropping out of school as well as transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (Bocij, 2006). Therefore, social media corrupts the minds of innocent children who would otherwise be spending their time concentrating on schoolwork and extra-curricular activities to improve on their talents. Similarly, children are exposed at an early stage to violence that is spread through the social media platforms, which results in children with no morals or respect for other human beings. Children can grasp easily, concepts and ideas that they see on social media. Thus explicit content results in emulation of bad behavior among such children.
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Another negative implication of social media is that it causes increased lack of productivity as well as creativity. People spend some much time that they cannot be productive in other sectors of their lives (Goldsmith, 2016). Statistics have indicated that people spend at least two hours on social media every day and it is two hours that could have been spent doing productive work or activities. Also, people have become less creative since social media offers a platform where vast information and content can be shared, making people avoid thinking actively by themselves. Social media has resulted in a lazy culture among various youths, who are always on social media chatting or exchanging content with people they know as well as with strangers. Sharing information carelessly on social media has also had a negative implication, thus the corruption of the social media.
Social media creates an instance where people can post information that might as well be private. As a result, the privacy of an individual is taken away, which has made many people miss opportunities such as employment. Employers usually look up a person on social media to establish whether or not the person is fit to join an organization or entity. Social media has corrupted people into displaying all sorts of information online without considering who sees the information under the pretext of anonymity. As a result, people carelessly miss out on opportunities that would have otherwise made better their lives. Similarly, social media has cultivated a culture of cyberbullying among people, which is also another negative implication of social media. Due to the advantage of anonymity, social media has turned some people into stalkers who eventually become cyber bullies because of the corruption of social media. This results in emotional distress among victims of cyber-bullying, and sometimes it even causes the victims to commit suicide, thus a negative implication of social media (Bocij, 2006).
Social media has also been a means through which people develop and rely on false connections. Most of the people who connect on social media do not even know each other, or they do but live miles away from each other. As a result, such people develop a sense of connection that may be false especially in cases where the connected people have never met face-to-face. People may pretend to be something different online due to the advantage of anonymity, which may create completely new characters among such people (Bocij, 2006). Therefore, relying on a connection or relationship formed online might be dangerous because one may not be aware of the other person’s character leading to disappointment or even emotional distress. Social media has corrupted people into believing that there are actual connections between strangers that are true. However, most of the connections formed online through the facilitation of social media are false and unreliable, thus another one of the corruption of social media.
Other negative implication, thus corruption of social media include security threats to people information, hacking, spreading of viruses as well as harmful software. All these negative implications are because of exposure to or being on social media. This is because it is a platform with large amounts of information and content, which is accessible to anyone with internet connection and a device that supports the various social media handles. Therefore, it is important for parents, as well older people to ensure young underage children are not exposed to the adversities of social media as some of them have long-term negative effects on children. Similarly, to protect privacy, people should be more careful with what they share or say on social media. However, people should also maximize on the positive implications of social media such as affordable advertising of businesses, which counters wasting time on social media and instead of doing something productive (Goldsmith, 2016).
References
Bocij, P. (2006). The dark side of the Internet: Protecting yourself and your family from online criminals . Westport, Conn: Praeger.
Goldsmith, K. (2016). Wasting Time on the Internet . Harper Perennial.
