Social Media: The embodiment of the phrase, "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"

While the use of social media in everyday life lends itself to be a fairly reliable news source, it also has many ramifications, one of which is the decline in the communication skills of the everyday person.

Interpersonal communication is slowly being replaced by social media.

This is shown when Hayley Eastman of The Daily Universe claims that, "Not only do people use Facebook to communicate, but the great deal of time they spend on it takes away from the time they might spend interacting with people in person".

Facebook Messenger is just one example that shows how social media is beginning to replace interpersonal communication

Since people tend to carry their phones with them everywhere, the access to social media is greater now than it ever has been.

The aforementioned statement is further supported when Susan Tardanico writes, "Social technologies have broken the barriers of space and time, enabling us to interact 24/7 with more people than ever before" (1).

The above image shows that pedestrians are more focused on their phones and social media than what is going on around them and thus the driver must exert more caution when driving.

Due the constant access to social media that persists in today's society, there are some negative side effects to the extensive use of social media.

This is supported when Susan Tardanico states, "...social media has the potential to make us less social; a surrogate for the real thing" (1).

This image depicts pedestrians crossing a street and it can be seen that several people are on their phones and/or have them in their hands. This shows how people are interacting more with their phones and less with each other.

The negative side effects of social media are not limited to just verbal communication. Social media can also affect one's ability to read facial expressions and thus emotions.

This is supported by the statement in the article "In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions?", Stuart Wolpert says that, "people need more face-to-face interaction, and that even when people use digital media for social interaction, they’re spending less time developing social skills and learning to read nonverbal cues".

The inability to read emotion and understand verbal cues can affect relationships and it can affect one in the professional world.

The biggest reason that social media negatively impacts verbal communication skills is due to the extensive time that people spend on social media.

The above claim is supported when BBC News says that social media, "...can also be a waste of time as people can visit a site to check on thing and end up spending the whole day 'behind the screen'..." ("The positives and negatives of using social networking sites").

The increased access and applications of technology in everyday lives has led to people not knowing when enough is enough. In essence, some people do not know how to control themselves around technology and appear to be addicted to technology.

While there are many negatives to the use of social media, there are also some positives.

In her article "The upside of selfies: Social media isn't all bad for kids", Kelly Wallace says, "In fact, according to a report last year by the nonprofit child advocacy group Common Sense Media, one in five teens said social media makes them feel more confident, compared with 4% who said it makes them feel less so".

This is a positive because confidence affects how one might carry one's self.

However, one small positive does not outweigh the plethora of negatives that accompany social media.

Social media: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The negative effects that social media has on someone are much worse and much more extensive than the few, small positives that come out of using social media.

Works Cited

Blue, Victor J. Pictured in “New York’s Sidewalks Are So Packed, Pedestrians Are Taking to the Streets” by Winnie Hu. New York Times, 30 June 2016. JPEG.

Eastman, Hayley. “Communication changes with technology, social media.” The Daily Universe. Brigham Young University, 7 July 2013. 11 November 2012. Web.

“Eyes Test.” 10 February 2011, I can has science. JPEG

Grabowsky, Ute. “Mother With Her Children in a Kleingarten”. 10 August 2015, Getty Images. JPEG.

Mulatero, Lewis. “Social Media Life”. 20 August 2015, Getty Images. JPEG.

Nackstrand, Jonathan. “Cell Phone Pedestrian Sign.” 2 February 2016, Getty Images. JPEG.

Tardanico, Kelly. “Is Social Media Sabotaging Real Communication?” Forbes. Forbes, 30 April 2012. 14 November 2012. Web.

Tim-o-Tato. “Facebook Messenger No Longer Requires a Facebook Account.” 24 June 2015, Droid-Life. JPEG.

“The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966).” 1966, IMDb. JPEG.

“The positives and negatives of using social networking sites”. BBC News: School Report, BBC News, 8 April 2013. 21 November 2016. Web.

Wallace, Kelly. “The upside of selfies: Social media isn’t all bad for kids.” CNN Living. CNN, 7 October 2014. 14 November 2016. Web.

Wolpert, Stuart. “In our digital world, are young people losing the ability to read emotions?” UCLA Newsroom. UCLA, 21 August 2014. 11 November 2016. Web.