Wow! She has perfect features. God! I don’t look good. Everyone is getting successful! What am I doing with my life? Why are there not more than 200 likes? These are the types of concerns we have surrounded ourselves within today’s life. Actually, this dramatic monologue of social media use is happening with every one of us. But the funny thing is, we don’t see it happening at all. Social media is a combination of websites and a vast range of applications. It encompasses some of the biggest social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Like everything, social media also has some detriments along with good aspects. Below are some of the pros and cons of social media that we should recall.
Some Eye-Opening Pros and Cons of Social Media
Even though technology has made our lives much easier, there are always some existing and everlasting pros and cons of social media that binds with its use.
10 Pros of Social Media Use
1. Communication Becomes Easy
Social media is a tool designed to help communicate between faraway parts of the world. With the advent of technology, communication became much faster and easier. It keeps people connected. We have never been so connected at any point in human history. We can now reach out to people from different parts of the globe and see things over the horizon with much ease.
2. Entire Encyclopedia Is a Click Away
Before social media networking was here, people have to cross borders to gain knowledge. But now, the entire encyclopedia of information, innovations, and discoveries from any part of the world are just a click away. Social media helps make it possible for you to connect with professors, institutes, and experts from all over the globe, making learning much more effortless.
3. Promotes Empathy
The feeling of empathy goes beyond the barriers of culture and language. Empathy is a person’s ability to experience pain himself after seeing someone else in pain. This feeling can lead to altruism. Through social media, people have become more understanding of each other and show compassion and empathy towards the needy, regardless of where the person belongs to.
4. Provides Social Awareness
No doubt! Social media is the largest platform to provide social awareness. Many campaigns and programs are being launched in recent years to promote the betterment of society. Social media has helped a lot in promoting social changes like unveiling corruption, the betterment of educational institutes, standing up against gender stereotypes, and women empowerment.
5. Supports Talent and Personal Growth
The advent of social sites is to help connect individuals of similar interests. Certain interactive groups can boost your personal growth very well. These social networking sites attract greater audiences from all over the world, providing much-needed support.
6. Provides Entertainment in Lonely Hours
Social media use in moderation can provide entertainment and fun to its users. It helps you to uplift your mood, especially when you are lonely. Moreover, people of old age and those who live alone have a better source of fun.
7. Social Space for Introverted People
You are the most introverted and shy person on the entire planet and become awkward around people when you meet them. No problem! While you are trying to be more social in real life, you can still be social through social networking, connect with people, and showcase your talent.
8. Provides Timely Support in Crisis
The world has become a “Global Village.” This has been a major advantage to the safety and well-being of people. Through social media, we can pinpoint the exact location of a person in a critical situation. This helps in providing timely rescue in emergencies and in times of personal crisis.
9. Strengthens the Relationships
Just because your grandparents live in a different country doesn’t mean you can’t see them. Social media’s beauty is that your loved ones from faraway places can know what you are up to and can effectively interact with you. In fact, it is the reason long-distance relationships became much stronger.
10. Largest Business Advertisement Platform
The biggest merit dominating all the pros and cons of social media is, in fact, business. Business advertisements have become relatively easy, fast, and wide-reached because of current networking. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become online marketing platforms that include traffic from all over the world.
10 Cons of Social Media
1. Causes Addiction
Have you ever been without your phone for a couple of hours and not be worried somehow? That’s because without us knowing, technology has made its way to be an addiction in no time. And now people don’t seem to survive without it, which makes it a big concern.
2. Triggers Doubts and Insecurities
While scrolling through social media, we often come across posts of people who seem to have the best of everything; lifestyle, relationships, vacations, grades, and achievements. When you see these things, your life seems pale in comparison to theirs. You doubt yourself and become insecure in your life.
3. Promotes FOMO
Maybe one of the significant issues among the pros and cons of social media is “Fear of Missing Out,” or “FOMO.” It is an anxious feeling caused by the problematic overuse of digital media. It’s when you turn off the screen, and you become more and more anxious about when you’ll look at the screen again. You always feel that you are missing out on a lot of things.
4. Falling Behind Schedules
Honestly! All of us must have been procrastinating on that one task that needs to be done so badly. In fact, “Procrastination” is the result of addiction to social media use and more screen-time. We put important tasks and duties on hold, which impacts our sense of responsibility.
5. Risks Your Privacy
The major demerit includes “cyberbullying,” which is because of the hacking of unprotected accounts. Your personal information might be in other people’s hands. Even when you remain cautious and keep everything private, there are still risks that people may toy with your privacy.
6. Negatively Affects Your Focus
According to some studies, the excessive use of mobile phones makes young people neglect their duties and replace study hours with social media use. This is the reason why students cannot focus properly on the tasks at hand. This leads to their lower academic performance and poor grades.
7. Missing Out on Real Life
People are so engrossed in keeping themselves up to date. They keep a check of their online friends and often miss out on real-life interactions. Researchers call this “together alone,” as such people are lonely when offline because they fail to develop connections with real people around them. And because we are so immersed in our online world, we miss the milestones of our life without realizing.
8. Exposure to Violence
There is no filter at all to what displays on social media. Although it is a good source of information, it can also lead to more exposure to violence and crimes. People can come across videos of actual crimes on their newsfeed. People misuse this platform to showcase violence and crimes, which is bad for our youth.
9. Health Complications
The constant poor posture, feelings of insecurities, anxiety, and depression are the most common ones. Teens using mobile phones are more prone to these psychological damages than older people. People get absorbed in the world of social media, which makes the overuse of social media a severe drawback.
10. Diminishes Creativity
With vast social connections, everything is a click away. People tend to tap on their screens rather than think about a certain problem. The lack of originality of ideas and thoughts is evident with more and more active use of social media. Thus, people can become less productive, as well.
Final Take on Pros and Cons of Social Media
Although this new era demands the latest modes of communication and more technology use, there’s always a thing called “Moderation.” Anything more than moderate is poison. The same is with social media use. It is better if you try to get rid of your addictions as early as possible because the reverse is difficult once you go deeper into it. This moderation of social media use can ensure “Social Media Wellness.” These above-mentioned pros and cons of social media can help you evaluate its benefits and drawbacks more precisely. Thus, we should continuously assess and ensure that we utilize our time more productively and not just scroll through other people’s fake screen lives.
