Social media

Ashley Williams

ENC1102

19 February 2013

Social media

Waiting in a long line at a theme park Instagraming funny pictures, up-dating facebook statues, tweeting complaints about the long lines. Not really enjoying the moments with family and friends. Social media has changed today’s society into walking talking robots with technology glued to our fingertips.

Teens today are having a lot of communication problems due to our social media today. A lot of our younger generations are so obsessed with the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that they are losing their sense of interaction skills in society, certain interaction skills that will be needed further down the road in life. I do feel that teens are hindering themselves by engaging so much into social networks that they are not able to comprehend certain situations when they occur because of their lack of face-to-face human interaction. For instance have you ever sent a text message to someone and the person take it the wrong way? Like texting a friend, “Hey girl!” and get a response back like “Girl, What you want?” and take it offensively, but in reality it was a joking statement. Social media has taken away the face-to-face interaction with actually knowing the persons’ emotional intent.  A whole conversation is misconstruting because of not knowing the emotion behind what was being said. “Research center found that teens are actually relying on texting more than social interactions 54% and face-to-face 33%. That also shows that half of them send at the least 50 texts a day and a third more than 100 a day”(Welch.)

Communicating through Social Media has become very detrimental to society as a whole. “A study done by UCLA states that 93% of communication effectiveness is determined by non-verbal clues”(Collmeyer). This means that communicating via through e-mail, texting, and dating websites are taking over and hindering us a society.  Situation can be different face-to-face because you can see the others facial expression and hear the tone of voice rather than words on screen. According to licensed professional counselor jared pizzitola, ”very important social sills develop form difficult face to face conversation. And it is a very important to understand behavior. (Brocdie) I do feel that face-to-face situations can be a build a bond faster than an online chat.

Social media does have it’s own benefits when used at the appropriate times. People today use social networks to reunite with their families, long distance to stay in touch in more ways than one with applications like Facebook and Skype, letting them talk and see loved ones from a far. Businesses also use social media to network business throughout the world, updating news on upcoming events or promotions, adding more revenue to the business. Social networks can hinder all types of relationships, by using non-confrontational tactics through cell phones and computers because it is easier for some people to express their emotions through a text message or e-mail, then face-to-face confrontation. It is easier to express ones feelings via text or e-mail with no disruptions from the other person, which I feel can still cripple a persons human interaction with society.

However we do not really realize how much our society today is really involved with social media because it has become an everyday part of life. Most people cannot even leave their homes without their cell phones or else they feel completely lost. While social media was invented to help make things easier for us, we have lost sight of how it also is crippling our future and us.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Welch. "WELCH: Social Media Destroys Real Interaction." Daily Nebraskan. Daily Nebraskan, 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. <http://www.dailynebraskan.com/opinion/article_bf0e08d8-6a8a-11e2-a811-0019bb30f31a.html>.

Brodie, Sakinah. "Is Social Media Destroying Teens' Interpersonal Skills?" Is Social Media Destroying Teens' Interpersonal Skills? Nvate, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

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Collmeyer, Brad. "Social Media vs Face to Face Marketing." Social Media vs Face to Face Marketing. Evrey Circle, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013. <http://www.everycircle.com/ec/articles/socialmediafacetofacemktg.html>.