Since technology is evolving by the second, social media has become more popular making its way to all age group. The idea of social media making people more antisocial has been an ongoing concern and is only getting bigger as technology advances. Does social media live up to its name, or does antisocial media suit it more?
Many people argue that social media can ruin your life, and that it can turn you into an introverted and self-absorbed person. American studies have found that teenagers have begun experiencing a decline in intimate friendships as they choose social medias like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or any messaging apps to contact their friends over face-to-face communication. Another problem with social media is that people tend to act differently on social media than in real life. Our generation is absorbed in the media and their phones or laptops. There’s no doubt that people spend more time indoors than they do outdoors these days. When they are outdoors, you can see teenagers walking with their heads tilted down, staring at their phones, texting, scrolling through their feed, or playing games. Some are afraid that the most obsessed ones will get hurt from crashing their car or running into something due to not paying attention to the world around them.
People typically describe themselves as introverted over extroverted nowadays because social media has made them lazy. They’d rather stay indoors, only interacting with friends over their phone via text or facetime rather than going to socialize with their friends outdoors. At dinner tables, one can often find families or friends not saying a word to each other. Only because they choose social media and the internet to entertain them over having actual conversations with each other. People of older generation, compare ours to talking about how big the difference is from how teenagers interact in the present and how they used to interact in the past when their technology was not as advanced. Many adults, maybe even your parents, are known for always telling you to get off your phone. Telling you that you spend too much of your time on your phone and don’t actually interact with anybody. But what many adults don’t understand is that, teenagers feel like social media has made them more social.
I think that letting social media make you antisocial is your choice. The majority of people say that social media allows them to meet new people and make new friends they may have never met if social media didn’t. Social media allows communication with others who are close to you that you probably can’t see on a daily basis. It allows you to discover new things and know what’s going on with the world in a much faster and easier. I believe it all, just depends on whether you let this technology take over your life. The world is changing, and people need to balance these changes, to not let social media become a priority, and to not let it interfere with the amount of time we spend with people in real life.
