Adverse Effects of Social Media
As much as the technological innovation that has taken over the world in the 21st century has positive effects, the adverse impact that technology has caused is detrimental to the health of those who overuse it. In most circumstances, the people who are vulnerable to health issues tend to be teenagers, who spend their free time browsing through the internet. The fact is that social media is part of most people’s lives, and therefore, it has an adverse repercussion as long as people misuse it. Some of the harmful effects that social media brings to people include addiction, emotional impact, and fatigue that comes up because of a lack of exercise.
Social media addiction has affected many people negatively, and it is a phenomenon that is likely to stay with people for as long as they use the internet. Direnzo explains that “As more people carry around smartphones and other devices wherever they go, it becomes harder to escape the internet” (Direnzo, paragraph 6). Thus, it is not easy to refrain from using the internet during free time. People also spend more time on sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Such people are bound to be addicted to social media sites, causing harm to their health (Direnzo, paragraph 7). Addiction is often harmful to health because it saps energy away from productive activities like work.
The emotional impact is also an adverse impact of social media, as it may cause negative emotions like stress. For instance, cyberbullying gives the best example as social media is an outlet for cyberbullies. Such people hide behind the keyboard to taunt others without any real interaction (Shaw, paragraph 2). The people on the receiving end feel the same impact that they would have felt in real life, and in adverse cases, they may fall ill because of too much stress. Besides, some people are often attached to either arguing or trolling about everything on social media, and they can exchange bitter words that may hurt the feelings of the recipient (Direnzo, paragraph 7). It is not suitable for the health of anyone who goes through stress because of social media.
Fatigue affects people who sit for long hours, and most people who are addicted to social media are affected by the same. It is easy to spend long hours on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites, and as such, people do not have the time to exercise (Direnzo, paragraph 13). Social media cuts off the time that someone would have used to exercise.
The negative impacts of social media outweigh the positive ones because of the damage that it can do to one’s health. As much as the internet has helped keep the communication among people easy through social media, others exploit the social media sites as they overuse them, and this causes adverse effects, that could have otherwise been avoided. Addiction, negative emotional impact, and fatigue are detrimental to people’s health, and this denotes that social media does more harm than good.