Bermudez1

Jazmin Bermudez
Prof. Jackie Hymes
English 115, M/W 11:00-12:15
17 November 2014
Impact of Social media
In todays society technology has grown and caused an enormous impact on todays
generation. Alongside this growth of technology has come the growth of the internet and social
media. Due to this growth of social media it has caused controversy both good and bad. Since the
growth of social media news has been able to spread faster and more efficiently, in some cases
students have begun to do better in school, and it allows one to make new friends. However, with
the listed pros there is a con. Although social media has allowed news to spread faster in some
cases the news in false, students grades have also dropped due to being distracted by social
media, and although it allows one to make new friends it has also led to cyberbullying because it
allows others to hide behind a computer screen. Social media has impacted todays society in
several ways, however the bad outweighs the good.
Social media has allowed news to spread faster, students to perform better in school, and
allow one to expand their number of friends. Social media spreads news faster and more
efficiently because it is more convenient and due to the amount of people that use social media.
Over 50% of people use social media which means the base for social media is extremely large
and thats how most of the news gets spread around. This statistic also demonstrates that most
news is acquired through social media because over half of reporters post news on social
networking. Also included in that statistic are students. Most students that use social networking

Bermudez2

sites also use it to talk about school work. There has also been several types of studies conducted
to show how students who use social media affect their performance in school positively. With
social media and social networking students can expand their friendships from just school to
from anywhere in the world. Social media allows one to interact with just about anyone from all
over the world. This allows one to broaden their circle of friends and make outside connections.
Not only can social media help make new friends but it can also help friends stay connected.
Social networking and social media tend to play a big role in ones social life in todays society,
it can help several individuals improve their lives and help them stay connected to other
individuals, however all though social media has these positive contributions it also has negative
ones.
Social media and social networking has said to be one cause in the drop of students school
performance. Since the growth of new technology, the younger generation has been a main
contributor to the huge success of all the new technology. This is because the older generations
find it sometimes difficult to use the new technology because they are accustomed to their older
technology. While the younger generation has grown up during the same time as the growth of
the new technology which makes it easier for them to understand how to use the technology
because they are not accustomed to any other type of technology. Because the new technology is
a huge part of the younger generations lives, it tends to carry onto school life as well. For
instance over the past few years many students have been caught for cheating using cell phones
to hold their information. With this new technology comes a greater access to social media. In
other words students are distracted often by social media because it is very easy for them to
access it. Students then lack in completing school work because they are distracted using social
networking and media and use the time to go on social networking and media rather than study

Bermudez3

or do homework. Also because information is easily accessible students dont have the motive to
try and retain the information because they can retrieve it whenever they please. Studies have
shown that students who use social media more often receive a grade point average of 3.0
compared to students who dont use social media as much who receive a grade point average of
3.8. Any student knows how important it is to have a high grade point average and the difference
between the two is massive and those two different grade point averages make a big difference
on whether one attends a great school to a not so great school. Even though social media and
networking has helped improve school life for some students one can see that the amount of way
it has impacted students school life in a bad way is greater than good.
Social media and social networking allows news to spread faster and more efficiently
however most of the time the news is completely false. Many of the news that gets spread is
unreliable because the news gets spread so quickly one may not even know where it came from
or if it was from a credible source. It easy for anyone to post anything online and call themselves
a reliable source because they dont have anyone telling them they cannot do that. This then is
followed by people believing everything they read online and then spread that information to
others. In recent years many different devastating tragedies have occurred and the news brought
a lot of attention to the tragedies. There was then several posts about the tragedies and most of
the news was false and people were spreading false information about a devastating tragedy
which appeared as inconsiderate to the people the tragedies affected. Some of those tragedies
were the Sandy Hook elementary shooting, lost Malaysian airplane, and Boston marathon
bombing, all devastating tragedies that shook the nation. About 50% of people use social media
to find out about the news, this is a huge proportion of people that in some cases are being fed
the wrong information. Although it is important that news gets spread quickly, it is more

Bermudez4

important that the news being spread is true and because any can post something online and it
can be completely untrue, it causes more damage than good.
Social media allows for one to gain a whole circle friends and one doesnt not even have to
meet in person. Although one can meet a whole new group of people through social media and
social networking sites, the individual lacks human interaction and a lack of human interaction
leads to poor social skills. A lack of social skills can affect ones life in more ways than just one,
for instance without proper social skills one would do poorly during a job interview where they
would have to have a good connection with the person intervening them. So in the long run a
lack of social skills could lead to a loss in a potential job. In addition to a lack of human
interaction, a person one meets online may not always be who they say they are. In todays
culture this is known as catfishing which is where a person uses a different picture of a person
or pretends to be someone else just to be able to talk to the person they desire. While on the other
end the person has no idea the other one is fake because all they see is a picture and not the real
person. However the affect social media and social networking is the ability to allow an
individual to bully the other and there are no consequences for the bully. Since the growth of
social media and social networking activity, cyber bullying has risen dramatically. Individuals
find it easier to attack someone online rather than in person because through the internet there are
no boundaries or consequences since they have the ability to hide behind a computer screen. In
some cases the bully uses a different profile and adds the victim and begins to bully and usually
it is someone the victim knows but actually they dont who it is because the bully has the ability
to create a completely fake person. Even though social media and social networking sites allow
for one to make new friends, the anonymity that comes along with sites is dangerous because
you can never be too sure if the person you are talking to is real.

Bermudez5

Social media has grown dramatically over the past years and has caused many changes in
society. These changes then affect the lives of people in either good or bad way or sometimes
both. Some of those changes include the speed of how news gets spread, how students perform in
school, and meeting new people. These changes have both good and bad factors ranging from
false news being spread to meeting someone in a different country without actually meeting them
in person. However, all the good does not outweigh the bad, for every good aspect social media
brings there is something bad attached to it and sometimes it is just plain bad.

Bermudez6

Works Cited
ProCon.org. "Are social networking sites good for our society?" ProCon.org. 23 Sept. 2014.
Web. 1. Nov. 2014
"Seomworld." The Effect of Social Media on Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2014.