Negative effects of social media on behavior and social life of Youth
Social media has had a toll on the behavior as well as the social lives of many Youth.This has been facilitated by the presence of social media gadgets that almost every child in this modern world has. Unfortunately, the social life of most teens has been destroyed by social media, with most teens concentrating on their internet gadgets, which has been able to replace the bigger part of their lives, which should be played by friends, family, and the society at large. Social media has been able to keep the Youth indoors, which has incited the lack of the will to interact with other people, normally, the way it should be. With such, modern teenagers have not been able to create friends or relate with other people in society in the name of being introverts.
With the lack of interaction, different detrimental effects can be seen on the Youth, with most affecting them both socially, emotionally, and other times physically. Interaction brings about the confidence of talking to each other. This will even go to the extent of getting to know each other through dates or certain social activities e.g., field trips. Unluckily, there hasn’t been much interaction among the Youth due to social media. The busy life on gadgets has not been able to give much time for interactions. To know other people, most teens have resulted in what has been referred to as stalking. Be it through online or physical stalking; it is happening. The lack of confidence to approach someone has resulted in stalking. Sometimes, the stalking has gone to extents to online and physical abuse, with the perpetrators hiding behind the curtains of social media.
The effect of social comparison has been able to cause much damage to most Youth. When posting a photo on social media, someone will find the best photo. These photos will have the individual wearing expensive and lavish designer clothes or showing how healthy they have been bragging off the so-called ‘model’ bodies. Most Youths have been able to see such photos on social media. For those who cannot afford such lifestyles, they see themselves as the less fortunate in society.
In contrast, others get motivated to go and commit burglary to be able to afford the lifestyles. For most ladies, they consider themselves ugly for not possessing such body forms. This lowers their self-esteem and goes the extent to evaluating themselves as worthless.it is after such depressions that cases of mental disorders have been experienced widely all over the world, with suicide being the resultant action from the above.
Advanced use of social media for teenagers who cannot express their anger issues has resulted in cyberbullying. Most Youths have used this platform to abuse their counterparts using most undisciplinable words. This behavior has been spreading like wildfire in all platforms on social media, with people being bullied from their body sizes, their careers, and races to the extremes of their gender. Cyberbullying has resulted in the defect of some of the victims committing suicides while others suffering from unrecoverable mental health problems.cyberbulllying has resulted from loneliness, the need to get social satisfaction, and the need to shame competitors in a manner that does not point the direction of the person committing the crime.
One of the effects of social media on the social life of a common teenager is social isolation. The teen will feel that because they have not been invited by other teenagers for either a party or boys’ or girls’ night out, they do not need them anyways.they can always find the satisfaction of having friends in the online friends they have on social media. This keeps driving them away from meeting actual friends while concentrating more on the online and invisible friends for comfort. It is through these online friendships that most of the teens are conned while others are initiated into demonic cults, which sometimes lead to loss of lives.
It is no doubt that social media is full of violent information as seen in the social media languages, works of art, photos as well as videos. Most of the Youth always want to practice what they are seeing. The vulgar language that is being used by people becomes and influence in causing young people to know how to abuse each other and even their elders using those words. Videos of violent demos and people fighting in action movies have inspired acts of violence among Youth all over the world. They want to put in action what they saw in the television program on wrestling to beat their opponents. These violent actions in schools and even in the streets have led to deaths while others succumb to major injuries. It is no doubt that the cases of violence in the world among the Youth are increasing each day.
Due to social media, most Youth cannot be able to concentrate well. Simple tasks that will require someone to concentrate keenly e.g., solving mathematical problems or listening to a literature teacher has become a problem for most teenagers. This behavior has resulted from the addiction caused by social media. Instead of concentrating on the task given for several hours of study, and sometimes minutes, the Youth will get easily distracted by social media notifications while others will need to check their phones every other minute to get an update of what is new or what is going on in the world of social media.
It is a common behavior that most of our Youth today are becoming lazy.no one wants to do any house chores or even struggle to finish that homework/assignment the teacher gave to be completed in time and send through Email. They want to seat on the couch and scroll all Instagram notification, Facebook, telegram, and YouTube videos all day all night. This is the behavior most homes are getting from Youth nowadays. As a result, obesity and muscle-related illnesses have resulted from this behavior.