Social Networking: Digital Regression

Becka Brown
English 111 CRN 78363
Professor Anderson
11/28/14

Since the beginning of time, mankind has developed and expanded technology. We’ve come a long way from turning stones into wheels, and using a telegram to contact our loved ones. Our society is now able to be in constant communication, at literally the touch of a button. These leaps in technology may seem to be to our advantage, but are actually causing various types of negative aspects. These disadvantages include: psychological and behavior changes, false information distribution, and personal information safety. In this essay, I will prove why social networking is bad for our society and the problems it is causing. Social media are websites in which people can interact freely, sharing personal information about each other and current life events. With access to a personal profile you join an online community with sharing capabilities such as, friend requests, personal messages, pictures, videos, and public statuses. Social networking websites empower members to share common interests in hopes of finding online friendship. On top of new relationships, social media also provides updates on world news, popular articles, and trending topics around the globe. In 1997 the first social networking site, Six Degrees, was created. The website allowed people to create their own space and connect with friends online. From 2002-2012 social networking sites took off with Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. Currently, Facebook is the most popular social networking site, with one in seven people using it on the planet. Facebook reports that its users upload over 2 billion photos per month and 14 million videos per week (Self Worth p 41). As of 2014, 85 percent of the 7.1 billion people in the world have access to the internet. Around the world, there are 1.28 billion Facebook users, with 540 million on YouTube, 187 million on LinkedIn, and 255 million on Twitter (Multidimmensional). These daunting statistics are only growing, and worsening We have to take a step back and think, how are we being protected on the internet? What exactly are we being exposed to, and how is it affecting us? Everyday use of social networking sites are hardly controlled and become an involuntary habit (Multidimmension p.1). In order to protect our evolving society, we need boundaries. This can be somewhat accomplished by sustaining a balance between virtual and real life, and monitoring what we have access to. There are many dangers associated with social networking, just like in real life we need to proceed with caution. Being aware of your online friendships, who you’re talking to, and using common sense. While there may seem to be an advantage in having constant communication, real face to face interaction becomes uncommon. Society spending majority of their time in virtual space, don’t use it for the improvement of real communication skills and learning activities. multidimensional model. Our dependency for human contact becomes quickly confused with our technology devices. Instead of playing soccer with friends, we are now able to play virtual soccer with virtual friends from across the world. Not only does this take away physical activity and endorphins which are apart of our natural cycle. It also takes away human interaction, and social activities which are also apart of what our body needs to survive. Yes, the rise in social networking has encouraged us to interact with each other around the clock but it has also built barriers and threats which, in reality, force us to disconnect. There is certainly positive aspects to technology some being, useful for communication, leisure time, finding friends, acquiring knowledge, and getting updated on the newest information from around the world. Yet, it is important that a balance is found on social networking and technology devices. Instead of living virtually