Cons of Social Media: is Social Media Making Us More Narcissistic

Social media has lots of cons. One of the biggest main concerns is how social media aids the spread of hate groups and online bullying. Around 10,000 tweets per day contain racial slurs. Many children may endanger themselves because they do not understand the public and viral nature of social media. Many online sites are vulnerable to security attacks, such as identity theft, viruses, and even hacking. People also tend to hide behind the screen, using social media as a “hide-out” from the real world. Social media tends to put children, teens, and adults at a higher risk for low self-esteem, eating disorders, and depression. 52% of students have reported being a victim to cyberbullying. It also inhibits posting and/or sending sexually suggestive messages and images. Around 22% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys are posting nude or partially nude photos. This tends to cause many unknowing adults to be charged with possessing child pornography and the teens being charged with distributing sexual explicit photos. Many criminals actually use social media to commit and promote crimes. 

Gangs use the sites to recruit children and teens, and organize violent crimes. Sex offenders also use social media sites to find victims for sexual exploitation. Online sites also cause people to spend less face-to-face interactions with people, which can cause someone to feel they are able to say anything without consequence. A study has also shown that social media is linked to personality and brain disorders, such as narcissistic personality traits. A lot of people use websites to pass time, but then feel that they have wasted their time to just feel more lonely and more depressed. This can also lead to stress and offline relationships problems, because as it was stated before, people can say anything online, thus causing tension in the outside world. So many like to believe what they see on social media is the truth, when they don’t know for a fact that it is true. It is also found that is gives stalkers an easier way of “stalking” you. They can literally stay inside a room all day and know everywhere and everything you are doing. Doesn’t that scare you? People lack so much emotional connection because they do not know how to live outside of the internet. Some may say this doesn’t apply to them, but if you look at the big picture it applies to more people than you think.

Works cited

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