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Social Media: A Problem or A Phenomenon?

“I have more than one thousand friends, but I know none of them” one of my friends in the university said. I got astonished how something like this may happen, but things became clear when I knew she was talking about her Facebook friends. The sentence shocked me as all her friends are online friends or friends in the virtual world. This is true to a great extent as, due the fast-paced life and the great technological development, people get more involved in work so they do not have enough time to meet each other. The invention of the internet and its applications and, moreover, smart phones, makes it easy for all people to connect and meet each other online anytime, anywhere. Therefore, because of the lack of time and the easy access to modern technology, talking to people face-to-face becomes something difficult. That is why my friend, like a large number of people, have thousands of internet friends, but in reality, their friends are very few.

Searching about the issue that the internet and its applications make people more isolated opens the doors for broader facts and thousands of stories. People are connected all day long as their mobiles have applications that enable them to use the internet anytime in the day. In other words, it takes a long time to go to friends and meet them while people can meet online while at home, at work or at the gym. This creates a kind of new thinking and new habits in life and most importantly new ways of doing things and, by and by, the original and traditional ways of doing things become old-fashioned. Social media comes at the top of the table of the most used applications of the internet but at the same time, they contribute to making people more and more isolated. Therefore, although social media helps in making distances closer and allowing people to connect with each other without even meeting, they contribute to making people lonelier and make their health worse.

Using social media is very good if it is considered a way to connect with people whom are never seen for a long time. Neighbors, friends and family members miss each other while getting older because of marriage, work or even study, so they resort to the social media in order to meet again. They become friends again by the use of the several social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and many others. This is a very good use of the social media but the real problem is when people who are very close to each other use social media to connect when it takes them only a few minutes to meet. One hurting joke is that “if you want the family members to meet at the same house, just switch off the internet router” which is really hurting as family members in the same house do not meet as long as they are connected to the internet.

One heart-breaking story about the isolation the use of social media causes is the story of an old lady who died in her house for many months without anybody knowing about her although she has thousands of friends but on Facebook. Stephen Marche in his article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” discusses the role that social media, mainly Facebook, plays in making people lonely and isolated, as his title itself suggests. Marche takes an example of the eighty three year old Yvette Vickers, a Playboy porn star, who died in her room for months without anybody to notice. Once the police got into her house, they found that she was mummified beside her computer on which there were a lot of Facebook posts and tweets on Twitter and too many friends but on the web only. The story of Vickers is very touching as she died in isolation although the number of her social media friends is astonishing. “Vickers had made calls not to friends or family but to distant fans who had found her through fan conventions and Internet sites” which means that although she has thousands of friends, she died in loneliness as all her friends are in the virtual world. Moreover, “Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated: the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect” which means that the problem is in the users not in the technology. Once again, social media contributes to making people more and more isolated.

Besides the negative social effect of social media of being lonely and isolated, extra usage of the social media causes health problems. First of all, the screens of computers and smart phones cause dangers sight problems. Moreover, sitting before computers also causes problems to bones and spine. Users can simply post or tweet their status to express what they feel and other people can also simply react by liking the post and share the feelings so that this causes self-satisfaction. The psychology of users, therefore, change to be better. At the same time, when users post something and get negative comments, their psychology turns to the worst and so on. That is to say that besides social effects there are effects on both the physical and mental health of users.

Fleck and Migalski in their article The Impact of Social Media on Personal and Professional Lives: An Adlerian Perspective”, discuss the effects of social media on the health of users in accordance with the Adlerian theory which connects the word ‘social’ with relationships and interaction between people either positively or negatively. This article presents a good definition of social media, then relate social media to the Adlerian theory. Basically, the word social means society and relations between people so that, as social media is mainly built on social networks and interest in social relations of people in the virtual world, they can be analyzed in social and psychological terms. Users of social media can be diagnosed according to the way they behave whether they are interact with others for individual interests or for social interests. For Fleck and Migalski, excessive usage of social media is a psychological disease that can be diagnosed and treated, as “social media can add stress to boundary creation and maintenance” (138), which means that stress is one of the diseases that can be diagnosed and treated.

On the other hand, usage of social media is linked with urbanism and civilization so that it is a must as the world is changing which means that it is the user who is to blame for the problem, not the technology. In other words, people used to connect by signs then language was invented so that they use language to communicate. After that, the post and other developments were introduced, till the telephone was invented. During these changes and improvements, the way people used to do things changed. For example, people used river water and simple wooden materials to wash and clean clothes, whereas at the present, they are using washing machine. That is to say, by the technological improvements, people change how they do things so that technology has nothing to do with the effects of technology but the cause is the user. The same thing applies to social media as they are found to make people connect, but if people misuse them, it is the responsibility of the people, not the social media. in other words, using social media is a sign of development and urbanism and the problem is in the users not the technology. In other words, the usage of social media affects the empathetic social skills of users and so makes them unable to recognize the negative effects of using social media because the effect can be discovered on the long run. The effects of social media takes a long time to be defined, so people do not give social media great interest in terms of being a problem. According to Terri H. Chan, in his article entitled “Facebook and its Effects on Users’ Empathic Social Skills and Life Satisfaction: A Double-Edged Sword Effect”, it is clear that social media, mainly Facebook lessens users’ empathetic skills. Chan finds that “some people incline to replace genuine real world interactions with less engaging digital ones, causing the suppression” (277), which means that as long as people resort to social media as a kind of replacing the reality with the virtual world, it will be difficult to them to see there is any bad effect.

Urbanism and social media are connected to each other as using technology is linked with education and civilization. Zip, Parker and Wyly in their article entitled “Facebook as a Way of Life: Louis Wirth in the Social Network” discuss the implication of the change people have from real life to the virtual life. As the number of users of the internet is increasing rapidly and the facilities internet providers present, the debate about the effects of the usage of social media increases to take different perspectives. The authors discuss the usage of social media in comparison with urbanism. People in large areas are urbanized so that the usage of social media become inevitable as authors connected social media to urbanism. Social media is a phenomenon and each phenomenon has its own merits and demerits.

Although digital media is a revolution in the world of technology, it is not only the responsibility of users to extra use but also the programmers and owners of the social media companies. The policy of the social media owners depends on the largest number of people they can have. Facebook and twitter are the most known social media to which a large number of users have accounts. During the hidden war between the two companies to gain more and more users, each company presents facilities and new applications to tempt users. Therefore, users have nothing to do with the nature of the technology as all people are opt to temptations everywhere. Advertisements, offers and promotions are done to make customers buy the product. In this regard, social media changes into a product so that the responsibility is not that of users. In most of the cases, users cannot recognize the attempts done by social media owners in their advertisements. Although not all people are driven in this concern and people have the free choice, using social media for them is a result of the trend.

More importantly, the policy of the owners of the social media is built on their own benefit in the first place. In article by Lövheim, Jansson, Paasonen and Sumiala entitled “Social Media Implications for Everyday Life, Politics And Human Agency”, it appears clear that the policy of the social media owners contribute to the nature of users. “Detached from networks of potentiality, exchange, and investment, the act of internet usage is reframed as an isolated activity driven by the desire for online access” (Lövheim et al, 36) means that the usage of the internet is a sort of addiction. In this regard, social media is similar to drugs, smoking or alcohol in terms of addiction. In other words, the use of social media is exactly like anything else in the world as it is used by humans so that it is not true to say that it is the responsibility of the users because social media is like any other product and inventions that is used by people. To make it clearer, in case there were no social media, mobile phones will be used for only making calls and receiving them.

In Kuwait the problem of extra usage of the internet, mainly social media, is crystal clear. Only one walk by car makes it easy for anyone to see how everybody uses social media inside cars, at the traffic lights, on the street and everywhere else. Using social media is not specified to certain age-group, as children use social media exactly like adults. Moreover, the usage of social media interferes in everyday life as people advertise using Instagram, and politicians use Twitter to monger their politics or reply to a public opinion. The reasons behind the extra usage of social media is the cheap and available telephone and mobile services, as well as the availability of modern equipment like smart phones and tablets which are easy to get. The hurting scene is when the young people gather in one place, like Diwanya, and everyone is holding their smart phones not noticing or even talking to others. That is why the overuse of social media makes people more isolated.

In conclusion, social media usage is inevitable because of the easy accessibility to the internet by all people. The extra usage of social media makes people lonelier as they have a lot of friends but in the virtual world. The usage of social media makes the contact between people lesser and so makes the distances farther. Moreover, the excessive usage of social media makes people prone to health problems. Although some people say that it is the responsibility of users not the technology, social media are like any other invention that are used by humans. In a nutshell, rationality in using social media can reduce the effects and solve the problem.

Word count: 2206

Works Cited:

Fleck Jesse and Migalski Leigh Johnson. “The Impact of Social Media on Personal and Professional Lives: An Adlerian Perspective”. The Journal of Individual Psychology. 71.2 (2015), 135-142. Print

Marche Stephen. “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”. The Atlantic. May 2012. Web.

Lövheim Mia, Jansson André, Paasonen Susanna & Sumiala Johanna. “Social Media Implications for Everyday Life, Politics And Human Agency”. Approaching Religion. 3.2 (2013), 26-37. Print

Zip Larissa, Parker Rebekah and Wyly Elvin. “Facebook as a Way of Life: Louis Wirth in the Social Network”. Geographical Bulletin. 54 (2013), 77-98. Print

Chan Terri H. “Facebook and its Effects on Users’ Empathic Social Skills and Life Satisfaction: A Double-Edged Sword Effect”. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 17.5 (2014), 276-280