Please fix my paper

Reem Boushahri

Miranda Rowe

ENG 2100

March 18, 2015

Addicted to Social Media

The Internet has a strong capability to connect, mobilize and influence people all over the world. Rapid technological progress has already become a commonplace. Due to the impetuous development of technology, the relationship between people had undergone significant changes, in particular, the tools, by which people communicate with each other. The paper will be focused on social media, in particular, on the human dependency on social media.

Social media has identified the trends in the development of the Internet in the direction of integration, by combining features into single multi-user web-based platforms (Deen, 28). These platforms allow users to chat with friends, read news, watch movies, listen to music, share the information with other users, take part in discussions, create community, and all these opportunities are concentrated on one site. Social Media first appeared with the American portal Classmates.com, in 1995. The project has been very successful, which led to the emergence of more than dozen of similar services in the next few years (The History of Social Networking). Nevertheless, the official start of the boom of social media, in particular, social networks, is considered to be the period of 2003-2004, when there were launched Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn (The History of Social Networking). It is important to note that LinkedIn was created in order to establish/maintain business contacts, while MySpace and Facebook were based primarily on meeting human need for self-expression. After all, according to Maslow's pyramid, self-expression is the highest human need, even ahead of recognition and communication (McLeod). Social networking has become a kind of "online shelter", where everyone can find technical and social base to create his or her virtual identity. In addition, each user has the opportunity not only to communicate and create, but also to share their creativity with an audience of millions in a particular social network.

Undoubtedly, social media is a great technological achievement, which promises many opportunities, however, along with all these opportunities, social media has a negative side. In recent years, the issue of dependency on social media has become quite relevant (Deen, 41). It is still the same Internet addiction, which was officially recognized as a psychological disorder, but in more concrete form. Recent researches have shown that social media have already covered more than half of all Internet users (Dijck, 12).

Social media have great addictive potential, which means a significant risk of dependence. There are several reasons of such dependence. The first reason is that spending time on social media annoys the pleasure centers in the human brain (Griffiths). People experience positive emotions by spending their time in social media. Listening to music, reading the news, read friendly comments under the photo, receives a "Like", or when someone leaves a positive feedback, all this improves the mood and makes the life more interesting. The desire to re-obtain all these positive emotions forces people to spend more and more time in social media.

The second reason lies in the peculiarities of assimilation of information during the visiting of multi-user web-based platforms (Griffiths). For example, a person, who sits on Facebook, gets a lot of diverse information in small portions over a small period of time. A person reads a short comment, replied, read some news, listen the music, and thus there is a range of almost simultaneous actions. The human brain quickly gets used to such types of operations (Griffiths). The case is not just in the pleasure and features of assimilation of information, but in the convenience and accessibility of social media. Eventually, it is so easy to get pleasure from the other person's opinion of your photos, and only with one click you can see how many people "Like" your photo on the beach. It would be enough just to open Facebook or Twitter and start reading the news, everything is quickly and conveniently. Quickness, as well as accessibility, is important prerequisites for the formation of any dependence (Griffiths). People are instinctively looking for the easiest ways to achieve pleasure, even if these paths are inefficient and lead to harmful consequences.

The dependence on spending time on social media leads to a number of problems of a different nature. One of the main problems is a reduction in duration of concentration of attention (Scheepers & Stockdale). The human brain gets used to such rapid handling of information and gradually loses the ability to hold the attention on something for a long time. Over time, excessive dependence on social media can lead to the development of attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity (Scheepers & Stockdale). This is a side effect, which is generated by the idea of integration of information: when working with a single web interface starts to combine a variety of functions such as communication, listening to music, as well as discussion of meetings. The user starts to operate with all these processes almost simultaneously, performing multiple processes in parallel. It has a negative effect on the abilities of the human mind; it becomes difficult to hold the attention for a long time, for example to read a book. This problem is especially acute in the context of the rising generation. Children's thinking is much more "plastic" than adults and therefore may be easier to adopt standards of harmful thinking that is formed, in particular, by social networks (Deen, 82).

Social media may turn into a kind of "cud" for the brain. People get used to constantly getting new information, and if this does not happen, they begin to feel the great lack of information. Living in continuous mode of flow of information, the brain gets tired and the body is under greater stress (Scheepers & Stockdale). When a person spends much time on social networks, the human brain is engaged in meaningless and purposeless activity, which is not a full-fledged intellectual work. The user does not have enough time to thoroughly realize and consider this information, as it arrives quickly and continuously. A person cannot even say what he/she liked the most, as he/she was in a hurry to "swallow" everything as quickly as possible, and there were no time to form any estimate, and some emotional response. Such feelings as compassion, empathy, commitment and enthusiasm disappear, not having time to really take shape in the human psyche, as information replaces abruptly (Scheepers & Stockdale).

In conclusion, it can be stated that social media is a computer technology that have received considerable spread in the Internet world today. Social media have both, positive and negative aspects. The formation of human psychological dependence on social media is one of the negative consequences of its proliferation. Overdependence on social networks has especially negative impact on kids and teens by forming improper and harmful standards of thinking. Despite all the negative aspects about depending on the social media, these Internet resources are not something entirely negative; people just have to use them wisely. Social media have a number of useful features that make it easier to live and work.

You do not have any counter arguments in your paper.

Works Cited

Dijck, Jose. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.

Deen, Hana S. Social Media: Usage and Impact. Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2012. Print.

Griffiths, Mark. "Social Networking Addiction: Emerging Themes and Issues." Nottingham Trent University, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2015., from <http://omicsonline.org/social-networking-addiction-emerging-themes-and-issues-2155-6105.1000e118.pdf>

McLeod, Saul. "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." Simply Psychology. 17 Sept. 2007. Web. 13 Mar. 2015., from <http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html>

Scheepers, Helana, and Rosemary Stockdale. "The Dependent Variable in Social Media Use." Journal of Computer Information Systems, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015., from <http://iacis.org/jcis/articles/JCIS54-2-3.pdf>

"The History of Social Networking." Digital Trends. 4 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015., from <http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking/>