social media essay university

Feb 15, 2023

6 Example Essays on Social Media | Advantages, Effects, and Outlines

Got an essay assignment about the effects of social media we got you covered check out our examples and outlines below.

Social media has become one of our society's most prominent ways of communication and information sharing in a very short time. It has changed how we communicate and has given us a platform to express our views and opinions and connect with others. It keeps us informed about the world around us. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn have brought individuals from all over the world together, breaking down geographical borders and fostering a genuinely global community.

However, social media comes with its difficulties. With the rise of misinformation, cyberbullying, and privacy problems, it's critical to utilize these platforms properly and be aware of the risks. Students in the academic world are frequently assigned essays about the impact of social media on numerous elements of our lives, such as relationships, politics, and culture. These essays necessitate a thorough comprehension of the subject matter, critical thinking, and the ability to synthesize and convey information clearly and succinctly.

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We will provide various examples of social media essays so you may get a feel for the genre.

6 Examples of Social Media Essays

Here are 6 examples of Social Media Essays:

The Impact of Social Media on Relationships and Communication

Introduction:.

The way we share information and build relationships has evolved as a direct result of the prevalence of social media in our daily lives. The influence of social media on interpersonal connections and conversation is a hot topic. Although social media has many positive effects, such as bringing people together regardless of physical proximity and making communication quicker and more accessible, it also has a dark side that can affect interpersonal connections and dialogue.

Positive Effects:

Connecting People Across Distances

One of social media's most significant benefits is its ability to connect individuals across long distances. People can use social media platforms to interact and stay in touch with friends and family far away. People can now maintain intimate relationships with those they care about, even when physically separated.

Improved Communication Speed and Efficiency

Additionally, the proliferation of social media sites has accelerated and simplified communication. Thanks to instant messaging, users can have short, timely conversations rather than lengthy ones via email. Furthermore, social media facilitates group communication, such as with classmates or employees, by providing a unified forum for such activities.

Negative Effects:

Decreased Face-to-Face Communication

The decline in in-person interaction is one of social media's most pernicious consequences on interpersonal connections and dialogue. People's reliance on digital communication over in-person contact has increased along with the popularity of social media. Face-to-face interaction has suffered as a result, which has adverse effects on interpersonal relationships and the development of social skills.

Decreased Emotional Intimacy

Another adverse effect of social media on relationships and communication is decreased emotional intimacy. Digital communication lacks the nonverbal cues and facial expressions critical in building emotional connections with others. This can make it more difficult for people to develop close and meaningful relationships, leading to increased loneliness and isolation.

Increased Conflict and Miscommunication

Finally, social media can also lead to increased conflict and miscommunication. The anonymity and distance provided by digital communication can lead to misunderstandings and hurtful comments that might not have been made face-to-face. Additionally, social media can provide a platform for cyberbullying , which can have severe consequences for the victim's mental health and well-being.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the impact of social media on relationships and communication is a complex issue with both positive and negative effects. While social media platforms offer many benefits, such as connecting people across distances and enabling faster and more accessible communication, they also have a dark side that can negatively affect relationships and communication. It is up to individuals to use social media responsibly and to prioritize in-person communication in their relationships and interactions with others.

The Role of Social Media in the Spread of Misinformation and Fake News

Social media has revolutionized the way information is shared and disseminated. However, the ease and speed at which data can be spread on social media also make it a powerful tool for spreading misinformation and fake news. Misinformation and fake news can seriously affect public opinion, influence political decisions, and even cause harm to individuals and communities.

The Pervasiveness of Misinformation and Fake News on Social Media

Misinformation and fake news are prevalent on social media platforms, where they can spread quickly and reach a large audience. This is partly due to the way social media algorithms work, which prioritizes content likely to generate engagement, such as sensational or controversial stories. As a result, false information can spread rapidly and be widely shared before it is fact-checked or debunked.

The Influence of Social Media on Public Opinion

Social media can significantly impact public opinion, as people are likelier to believe the information they see shared by their friends and followers. This can lead to a self-reinforcing cycle, where misinformation and fake news are spread and reinforced, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The Challenge of Correcting Misinformation and Fake News

Correcting misinformation and fake news on social media can be a challenging task. This is partly due to the speed at which false information can spread and the difficulty of reaching the same audience exposed to the wrong information in the first place. Additionally, some individuals may be resistant to accepting correction, primarily if the incorrect information supports their beliefs or biases.

In conclusion, the function of social media in disseminating misinformation and fake news is complex and urgent. While social media has revolutionized the sharing of information, it has also made it simpler for false information to propagate and be widely believed. Individuals must be accountable for the information they share and consume, and social media firms must take measures to prevent the spread of disinformation and fake news on their platforms.

The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health and Well-Being

Social media has become an integral part of modern life, with billions of people around the world using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to stay connected with others and access information. However, while social media has many benefits, it can also negatively affect mental health and well-being.

Comparison and Low Self-Esteem

One of the key ways that social media can affect mental health is by promoting feelings of comparison and low self-esteem. People often present a curated version of their lives on social media, highlighting their successes and hiding their struggles. This can lead others to compare themselves unfavorably, leading to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Another way that social media can negatively impact mental health is through cyberbullying and online harassment. Social media provides a platform for anonymous individuals to harass and abuse others, leading to feelings of anxiety, fear, and depression.

Social Isolation

Despite its name, social media can also contribute to feelings of isolation. At the same time, people may have many online friends but need more meaningful in-person connections and support. This can lead to feelings of loneliness and depression.

Addiction and Overuse

Finally, social media can be addictive, leading to overuse and negatively impacting mental health and well-being. People may spend hours each day scrolling through their feeds, neglecting other important areas of their lives, such as work, family, and self-care.

In sum, social media has positive and negative consequences on one's psychological and emotional well-being. Realizing this, and taking measures like reducing one's social media use, reaching out to loved ones for help, and prioritizing one's well-being, are crucial. In addition, it's vital that social media giants take ownership of their platforms and actively encourage excellent mental health and well-being.

The Use of Social Media in Political Activism and Social Movements

Social media has recently become increasingly crucial in political action and social movements. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have given people new ways to express themselves, organize protests, and raise awareness about social and political issues.

Raising Awareness and Mobilizing Action

One of the most important uses of social media in political activity and social movements has been to raise awareness about important issues and mobilize action. Hashtags such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, for example, have brought attention to sexual harassment and racial injustice, respectively. Similarly, social media has been used to organize protests and other political actions, allowing people to band together and express themselves on a bigger scale.

Connecting with like-minded individuals

A second method in that social media has been utilized in political activity and social movements is to unite like-minded individuals. Through social media, individuals can join online groups, share knowledge and resources, and work with others to accomplish shared objectives. This has been especially significant for geographically scattered individuals or those without access to traditional means of political organizing.

Challenges and Limitations

As a vehicle for political action and social movements, social media has faced many obstacles and restrictions despite its many advantages. For instance, the propagation of misinformation and fake news on social media can impede attempts to disseminate accurate and reliable information. In addition, social media corporations have been condemned for censorship and insufficient protection of user rights.

In conclusion, social media has emerged as a potent instrument for political activism and social movements, giving voice to previously unheard communities and galvanizing support for change. Social media presents many opportunities for communication and collaboration. Still, users and institutions must be conscious of the risks and limitations of these tools to promote their responsible and productive usage.

The Potential Privacy Concerns Raised by Social Media Use and Data Collection Practices

With billions of users each day on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, social media has ingrained itself into every aspect of our lives. While these platforms offer a straightforward method to communicate with others and exchange information, they also raise significant concerns over data collecting and privacy. This article will examine the possible privacy issues posed by social media use and data-gathering techniques.

Data Collection and Sharing

The gathering and sharing of personal data are significant privacy issues brought up by social media use. Social networking sites gather user data, including details about their relationships, hobbies, and routines. This information is made available to third-party businesses for various uses, such as marketing and advertising. This can lead to serious concerns about who has access to and uses our personal information.

Lack of Control Over Personal Information

The absence of user control over personal information is a significant privacy issue brought up by social media usage. Social media makes it challenging to limit who has access to and how data is utilized once it has been posted. Sensitive information may end up being extensively disseminated and may be used maliciously as a result.

Personalized Marketing

Social media companies utilize the information they gather about users to target them with adverts relevant to their interests and usage patterns. Although this could be useful, it might also cause consumers to worry about their privacy since they might feel that their personal information is being used without their permission. Furthermore, there are issues with the integrity of the data being used to target users and the possibility of prejudice based on individual traits.

Government Surveillance

Using social media might spark worries about government surveillance. There are significant concerns regarding privacy and free expression when governments in some nations utilize social media platforms to follow and monitor residents.

In conclusion, social media use raises significant concerns regarding data collecting and privacy. While these platforms make it easy to interact with people and exchange information, they also gather a lot of personal information, which raises questions about who may access it and how it will be used. Users should be aware of these privacy issues and take precautions to safeguard their personal information, such as exercising caution when choosing what details to disclose on social media and keeping their information sharing with other firms to a minimum.

The Ethical and Privacy Concerns Surrounding Social Media Use And Data Collection

Our use of social media to communicate with loved ones, acquire information, and even conduct business has become a crucial part of our everyday lives. The extensive use of social media does, however, raise some ethical and privacy issues that must be resolved. The influence of social media use and data collecting on user rights, the accountability of social media businesses, and the need for improved regulation are all topics that will be covered in this article.

Effect on Individual Privacy:

Social networking sites gather tons of personal data from their users, including delicate information like search history, location data, and even health data. Each user's detailed profile may be created with this data and sold to advertising or used for other reasons. Concerns regarding the privacy of personal information might arise because social media businesses can use this data to target users with customized adverts.

Additionally, individuals might need to know how much their personal information is being gathered and exploited. Data breaches or the unauthorized sharing of personal information with other parties may result in instances where sensitive information is exposed. Users should be aware of the privacy rules of social media firms and take precautions to secure their data.

Responsibility of Social Media Companies:

Social media firms should ensure that they responsibly and ethically gather and use user information. This entails establishing strong security measures to safeguard sensitive information and ensuring users are informed of what information is being collected and how it is used.

Many social media businesses, nevertheless, have come under fire for not upholding these obligations. For instance, the Cambridge Analytica incident highlighted how Facebook users' personal information was exploited for political objectives without their knowledge. This demonstrates the necessity of social media corporations being held responsible for their deeds and ensuring that they are safeguarding the security and privacy of their users.

Better Regulation Is Needed

There is a need for tighter regulation in this field, given the effect, social media has on individual privacy as well as the obligations of social media firms. The creation of laws and regulations that ensure social media companies are gathering and using user information ethically and responsibly, as well as making sure users are aware of their rights and have the ability to control the information that is being collected about them, are all part of this.

Additionally, legislation should ensure that social media businesses are held responsible for their behavior, for example, by levying fines for data breaches or the unauthorized use of personal data. This will provide social media businesses with a significant incentive to prioritize their users' privacy and security and ensure they are upholding their obligations.

In conclusion, social media has fundamentally changed how we engage and communicate with one another, but this increased convenience also raises several ethical and privacy issues. Essential concerns that need to be addressed include the effect of social media on individual privacy, the accountability of social media businesses, and the requirement for greater regulation to safeguard user rights. We can make everyone's online experience safer and more secure by looking more closely at these issues.

In conclusion, social media is a complex and multifaceted topic that has recently captured the world's attention. With its ever-growing influence on our lives, it's no surprise that it has become a popular subject for students to explore in their writing. Whether you are writing an argumentative essay on the impact of social media on privacy, a persuasive essay on the role of social media in politics, or a descriptive essay on the changes social media has brought to the way we communicate, there are countless angles to approach this subject.

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A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

The Impact of Social Media: Is it Irreplaceable?

July 26, 2019 • 15 min read.

Social media as we know it has barely reached its 20th birthday, but it’s changed the fabric of everyday life. What does the future hold for the sector and the players currently at the top?

• Public Policy

In little more than a decade, the impact of social media has gone from being an entertaining extra to a fully integrated part of nearly every aspect of daily life for many.

Recently in the realm of commerce, Facebook faced skepticism in its testimony to the Senate Banking Committee on Libra, its proposed cryptocurrency and alternative financial system . In politics, heartthrob Justin Bieber tweeted the President of the United States, imploring him to “let those kids out of cages.” In law enforcement, the Philadelphia police department moved to terminate more than a dozen police officers after their racist comments on social media were revealed.

And in the ultimate meshing of the digital and physical worlds, Elon Musk raised the specter of essentially removing the space between social and media through the invention — at some future time — of a brain implant that connects human tissue to computer chips.

All this, in the span of about a week.

As quickly as social media has insinuated itself into politics, the workplace, home life, and elsewhere, it continues to evolve at lightning speed, making it tricky to predict which way it will morph next. It’s hard to recall now, but SixDegrees.com, Friendster, and Makeoutclub.com were each once the next big thing, while one survivor has continued to grow in astonishing ways. In 2006, Facebook had 7.3 million registered users and reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer. In the first quarter of 2019, the company could claim 2.38 billion active users, with a market capitalization hovering around half a trillion dollars.

“In 2007 I argued that Facebook might not be around in 15 years. I’m clearly wrong, but it is interesting to see how things have changed,” says Jonah Berger, Wharton marketing professor and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On . The challenge going forward is not just having the best features, but staying relevant, he says. “Social media isn’t a utility. It’s not like power or water where all people care about is whether it works. Young people care about what using one platform or another says about them. It’s not cool to use the same site as your parents and grandparents, so they’re always looking for the hot new thing.”

Just a dozen years ago, everyone was talking about a different set of social networking services, “and I don’t think anyone quite expected Facebook to become so huge and so dominant,” says Kevin Werbach, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. “At that point, this was an interesting discussion about tech start-ups.

“Today, Facebook is one of the most valuable companies on earth and front and center in a whole range of public policy debates, so the scope of issues we’re thinking about with social media are broader than then,” Werbach adds.

Cambridge Analytica , the impact of social media on the last presidential election and other issues may have eroded public trust, Werbach said, but “social media has become really fundamental to the way that billions of people get information about the world and connect with each other, which raises the stakes enormously.”

Just Say No

“Facebook is dangerous,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) at July’s hearing of the Senate Banking Committee. “Facebook has said, ‘just trust us.’ And every time Americans trust you, they seem to get burned.”

Social media has plenty of detractors, but by and large, do Americans agree with Brown’s sentiment? In 2018, 42% of those surveyed in a Pew Research Center survey said they had taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while 26% said they had deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone.

A year later, though, despite the reputational beating social media had taken, the 2019 iteration of the same Pew survey found social media use unchanged from 2018.

Facebook has its critics, says Wharton marketing professor Pinar Yildirim, and they are mainly concerned about two things: mishandling consumer data and poorly managing access to it by third-party providers; and the level of disinformation spreading on Facebook.

“Social media isn’t a utility. It’s not like power or water where all people care about is whether it works. Young people care about what using one platform or another says about them.” –Jonah Berger

“The question is, are we at a point where the social media organizations and their activities should be regulated for the benefit of the consumer? I do not think more regulation will necessarily help, but certainly this is what is on the table,” says Yildirim. “In the period leading to the [2020 U.S. presidential] elections, we will hear a range of discussions about regulation on the tech industry.”

Some proposals relate to stricter regulation on collection and use of consumer data, Yildirim adds, noting that the European Union already moved to stricter regulations last year by adopting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) . “A number of companies in the U.S. and around the world adopted the GDPR protocol for all of their customers, not just for the residents of EU,” she says. “We will likely hear more discussions on regulation of such data, and we will likely see stricter regulation of this data.”

The other discussion bound to intensify is around the separation of Big Tech into smaller, easier to regulate units. “Most of us academics do not think that dividing organizations into smaller units is sufficient to improve their compliance with regulation. It also does not necessarily mean they will be less competitive,” says Yildirim. “For instance, in the discussion of Facebook, it is not even clear yet how breaking up the company would work, given that it does not have very clear boundaries between different business units.”

Even if such regulations never come to pass, the discussions “may nevertheless hurt Big Tech financially, given that most companies are publicly traded and it adds to the uncertainty,” Yildirim notes.

One prominent commentator about the negative impact of social media is Jaron Lanier, whose fervent opposition makes itself apparent in the plainspoken title of his 2018 book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now . He cites loss of free will, social media’s erosion of the truth and destruction of empathy, its tendency to make people unhappy, and the way in which it is “making politics impossible.” The title of the last chapter: “Social Media Hates Your Soul.”

Lanier is no tech troglodyte. A polymath who bridges the digital and analog realms, he is a musician and writer, has worked as a scientist for Microsoft, and was co-founder of pioneering virtual reality company VPL Research. The nastiness that online existence brings out in users “turned out to be like crude oil for the social media companies and other behavior manipulation empires that quickly came to dominate the internet, because it fuelled negative behavioral feedback,” he writes.

“Social media has become really fundamental to the way that billions of people get information about the world and connect with each other, which raises the stakes enormously.” –Kevin Werbach

Worse, there is an addictive quality to social media, and that is a big issue, says Berger. “Social media is like a drug, but what makes it particularly addictive is that it is adaptive. It adjusts based on your preferences and behaviors,” he says, “which makes it both more useful and engaging and interesting, and more addictive.”

The effect of that drug on mental health is only beginning to be examined, but a recent University of Pennsylvania study makes the case that limiting use of social media can be a good thing. Researchers looked at a group of 143 Penn undergraduates, using baseline monitoring and randomly assigning each to either a group limiting Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat use to 10 minutes per platform per day, or to one told to use social media as usual for three weeks. The results, published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression over three weeks in the group limiting use compared to the control group.

However, “both groups showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out over baseline, suggesting a benefit of increased self-monitoring,” wrote the authors of “ No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression .”

Monetizing a League (and a Reality) All Their Own

No one, though, is predicting that social media is a fad that will pass like its analog antecedent of the 1970s, citizens band radio. It will, however, evolve. The idea of social media as just a way to reconnect with high school friends seems quaint now. The impact of social media today is a big tent, including not only networks like Facebook, but also forums like Reddit and video-sharing platforms.

“The question is, are we at a point where the social media organizations and their activities should be regulated for the benefit of the consumer?” –Pinar Yildirim

Virtual worlds and gaming have become a major part of the sector, too. Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader says gamers are creating their own user-generated content through virtual worlds — and the revenue to go with it. He points to one group of gamers that use Grand Theft Auto as a kind of stage or departure point “to have their own virtual show.” In NoPixel, the Grand Theft Auto roleplaying server, “not much really happens and millions are tuning in to watch them. Just watching, not even participating, and it’s either live-streamed or recorded. And people are making donations to support this thing. The gamers are making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Now imagine having a 30-person reality show all filmed live and you can take the perspective of one person and then watch it again from another person’s perspective,” he continues. “Along the way, they can have a tip jar or talk about things they endorse. That kind of immersive media starts to build the bridge to what we like to get out of TV, but even better. Those things are on the periphery right now, but I think they are going to take over.”

Big players have noticed the potential of virtual sports and are getting into the act. In a striking example of the physical world imitating the digital one, media companies are putting up real-life stadiums where teams compete in video games. Comcast Spectator in March announced that it is building a new $50 million stadium in South Philadelphia that will be the home of the Philadelphia Fusion, the city’s e-sports team in the Overwatch League.

E-sports is serious business, with revenues globally — including advertising, sponsorships, and media rights — expected to reach $1.1 billion in 2019, according to gaming industry analytics company Newzoo.

“E-sports is absolutely here to stay,” says Fader, “and I think it’s a safe bet to say that e-sports will dominate most traditional sports, managing far more revenue and having more impact on our consciousness than baseball.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Facebook has begun making deals to carry e-sports content. In fact, it is diversification like this that may keep Facebook from ending up like its failed upstart peers. One thing that Facebook has managed to do that MySpace, Friendster, and others didn’t, is “a very good job of creating functional integration with the value they are delivering, as opposed to being a place to just share photos or send messages, it serves a lot of diversified functions,” says Keith E. Niedermeier, director of Wharton’s undergraduate marketing program and an adjunct professor of marketing. “They are creating groups and group connections, but you see them moving into lots of other services like streaming entertainment, mobile payments, and customer-to-customer buying and selling.”

“[WeChat] has really instantiated itself as a day-to-day tool in China, and it’s clear to me that Facebook would like to emulate that sort of thing.” –Keith Niedermeier

In China, WeChat has become the biggest mobile payment platform in the world and it is the platform for many third-party apps for things like bike sharing and ordering airplane tickets. “It has really instantiated itself as a day-to-day tool in China, and it’s clear to me that Facebook would like to emulate that sort of thing,” says Niedermeier.

Among nascent social media platforms that are particularly promising right now, Yildirim says that “social media platforms which are directed at achieving some objectives with smaller scale and more homogenous people stand a higher chance of entering the market and being able to compete with large, general-purpose platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.”

Irreplaceable – and Damaging?

Of course, many have begun to believe that the biggest challenge around the impact of social media may be the way it is changing society. The “attention-grabbing algorithms underlying social media … propel authoritarian practices that aim to sow confusion, ignorance, prejudice, and chaos, thereby facilitating manipulation and undermining accountability,” writes University of Toronto political science professor Ronald Deibert in a January essay in the Journal of Democracy .

Berger notes that any piece of information can now get attention, whether it is true or false. This means more potential for movements both welcome as well as malevolent. “Before, only media companies had reach, so it was harder for false information to spread. It could happen, but it was slow. Now anyone can share anything, and because people tend to believe what they see, false information can spread just as, if not more easily, than the truth.

“It’s certainly allowed more things to bubble up rather than flow from the top down,” says Berger. Absent gatekeepers, “everyone is their own media company, broadcasting to the particular set of people that follow them. It used to be that a major label signing you was the path to stardom. Now artists can build their own following online and break through that way. Social media has certainly made fame and attention more democratic, though not always in a good way.”

Deibert writes that “in a short period of time, digital technologies have become pervasive and deeply embedded in all that we do. Unwinding them completely is neither possible nor desirable.”

His cri de coeur argues: that citizens have the right to know what companies and governments are doing with their personal data, and that this right be extended internationally to hold autocratic regimes to account; that companies be barred from selling products and services that enable infringements on human rights and harms to civil society; for the creation of independent agencies with real power to hold social-media platforms to account; and the creation and enforcement of strong antitrust laws to end dominance of a very few social-media companies.

“Social media has certainly made fame and attention more democratic, though not always in a good way.” –Jonah Berger

The rising tide of concern is now extending across sectors. The U.S. Justice Department has recently begun an anti-trust investigation into how tech companies operate in social media, search, and retail services. In July, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced the award of nearly $50 million in new funding to 11 U.S. universities to research how technology is transforming democracy. The foundation is also soliciting additional grant proposals to fund policy and legal research into the “rules, norms, and governance” that should be applied to social media and technology companies.

Given all of the reasons not to engage with social media — the privacy issues, the slippery-slope addiction aspect of it, its role in spreading incivility — do we want to try to put the genie back in the bottle? Can we? Does social media definitely have a future?

“Yes, surely it does,” says Yildirim. “Social connections are fabrics of society. Just as the telegraph or telephone as an innovation of communication did not reduce social connectivity, online social networks did not either. If anything, it likely increased connectivity, or reduced the cost of communicating with others.”

It is thanks to online social networks that individuals likely have larger social networks, she says, and while many criticize the fact that we are in touch with large numbers of individuals in a superficial way, these light connections may nevertheless be contributing to our lives when it comes to economic and social outcomes — ranging from finding jobs to meeting new people.

“We are used to being in contact with more individuals, and it is easier to remain in contact with people we only met once. Giving up on this does not seem likely for humans,” she says. “The technology with which we keep in touch may change, may evolve, but we will have social connections and platforms which enable them. Facebook may be gone in 10 years, but there will be something else.”

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Social Media Essay: Benefits and Drawbacks of Social Networking Sites

The advent of various social media channels has revolutionized the internet landscape by introducing us to global networking. Today, an individual can connect with another in a completely different part of this world just in a matter of seconds. We will take you through various notions and opinions associated with social media and how they impact our everyday lives. Also, there are some incredible tips to give you a better insight into how to write a social media essay.

Sep 03 2020 ● 8 min read

Table of Contents

What is social media essay, how do you write a social media essay, structure of social media essay, various tones of a social media essay, incorporate an attractive topic.

As you know, an social media essay is a piece of writing that is used to introduce an essential topic to the world with its underlying advantages and disadvantages. These aspects are driven solely by facts and should not contain the opinions of the writers. It is drafted to give others a better understanding of the subject in hand.

No matter which subject it pertains to, an essay ends with a conclusion where the writers are permitted to give their opinion after weighing the advantages and disadvantages.

Similarly, a social media essay is written to appreciate the positive aspects and highlight the negative impacts of social media in this time and day. The conclusions include the analysis of the two elements by the writers in their own lives and give an open-ended point of view. Depending upon the essay writer or paper writing service , the decision can be decisive, too, but that is not encouraged.

Today, the use of social networks, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, or LinkedIn, has increased exponentially. An average millennial spends 2 hours and 58 minutes per day on social media platforms like Facebook. While some say that the platform is super-informative, others argue that all the information gathered on this platform is trivial and doesn't justify long hours invested in the use of social media.

The above arguments make using social media by individuals with a debatable issue, and this is why a lot of students are required to write an essay on social media. So, here are some incredible tips to help you out in writing an essay on social media even if you don't have marketing skills .

A classic essay consists of 3 parts – the introduction, main body, and the conclusion.

• The Introduction

As you introduce the main topic, always begin with how it is relevant to the current scenario. You can do this by providing some background information. The information can be made richer by adding some reliable stats and data . Once you have established the topic, you need to give a strong thesis statement of the hypothesis on which your essay is based.

The thesis statement in your essay should be precise and debatable. If not, the arguments that you are going to put forward in the essay would make no sense.

The main body of your text should consist of logical arguments in relevance to your hypothesis. Make sure you put forward one statement in one paragraph and start a new one with another section. This will make your essay look more organized.

Also, when developing ideas, only include the ones you can write clearly about. If not, avoid them. Make sure that the essay develops coherently.

To conclude the essay about social media, bring back your hypothesis, and state how the aspects you discussed earlier support or nullify it. Make it a point to summarize all ideas, but do not start adding more ideas when you are about to conclude. You can now give an, ideally, open end to your essay.

A great conclusion is the one that provokes thought and will make your readers question the use of social media in their everyday lives.

Also, remember that essays do not have to include pros and cons always. They can either be full of pros or cons or both, depending upon your hypothesis. Just ensure they are relevant.

You might believe that an essay is an essay, and two of them would be similar, but that's a misconception. Different essays have varying tones depending on how the author is treating the thesis statement through the main body of the text. Here are a few examples of essays on social media in different tones.

• Sample of a Persuasive Essay

If you are asked to write an academic paper about the effects of social media on the mental health of teenagers and young adults, you should make it persuasive. For this, just writing about the topic is not enough. It would help if you had an impactful thesis, followed by powerful arguments to support or question your theory.

The perils associated with social media addiction are forcing parents and "grown-ups" to throw their benefits in bad light today. In the race to become best in academics and non-academic activities, people are losing their grip on how social networks bring people together. They empower individuals with knowledge about various cultures and languages, which might not have been possible otherwise.

Social media sites can be addictive, and students might waste their formative years scrolling through the trivial feed and gain nothing but superficial knowledge. But that is just because neither parents nor the school is encouraging positive social media behavior. If these institutions start offering tips to students to limit and utilize their time on social media , one would be amazed to see their achievements.

Is social media a catalyst for the downfall of student life? Well, social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and more are teeming with inspirational achievers and content creators who go the extra mile to share their stories and inspire students. If the children are taught to see their access to social media as an opportunity to grow rather than a competition for likes and followers, they are bound to work harder and achieve goals that seemed insurmountable earlier.

• Sample of Negative Essay about social media

If you have been asked to highlight the negative aspects of social media, your teacher does not mean that you have to cross all limits to present the use of social media in a bad light. Instead, what they are asking for is some logical and believable arguments that tell us why social media is harmful to society.

Social media is destroying family links by creating a virtual shell for each individual, which dissociates them with their own parents and siblings. The kids are adversely affected by increased access to social media if parents are always indulged in their devices and ignore them. Eventually, even kids start using tools to connect to other people, ignoring their family members.

Since kids and teenagers are the most impressionable age groups, they start believing that everything that glitters on social media platforms is gold, and they become materialistic. Their lives start revolving around likes, comments, and followers/subscribers. No matter whether their minds are prepared for such exposure or not, social media exposes them to the best and the worst about this world, which might turn them into rebels. They start valuing their online friends more than their offline lives and go to unimaginable extents to keep them entertained.

So, parents and elders need to pay attention to their children and limit their social media use so that they can learn to form real relationships and values.

• Weighing the pros and cons

Another way in which you can present your social media essay is by comparing the positive and negative aspects associated with it. In such essays, the conclusion is better left open for the readers to decide their own take on social media.

One cannot argue that social media has taken the world by storm by allowing like-minded individuals to connect and share their experiences with the world. You can use these platforms to make new friends and discover the ones who have lost touch. You can talk to everyone on your friend list and share your content on these channels to become a part of the creators' community. There is no dearth for talent on social media and its admirers.

On the other hand, if you use social media sites for long stretches of time in one go, you run the risk of addiction. Gradually, a social media addict starts to build a cocoon for themselves, which they find hard to step out of. This leads to a disconnect between you and the family you already have and love. One might feel too confined yet comfortable in their space that they have no urge left to step out, pushing them towards social seclusion, or worse – depression.

When you flip the coin again, you will discover that social media has become an incredible platform for small businesses to grow and earn good profits . The grass-root companies do not have to invest much for advertising and promotion or even own an establishment. All they have to do is to create a grassroots marketing strategy for themselves, and their brand will start selling in no time!

In the end, social media is a game-changer on the World Wide Web. It allows people to connect with the virtual world with the risk of disconnecting with the real world. Then again, businesses are doing well on these platforms. There are indeed two sides to social media, one positive and another negative, and it is up to you which one you lean towards more.

• Argumentative social media essay

A challenging but equally exciting type of essay on social media you should know about is an argumentative essay. It is often written when you are tasked with altering the point of view of the reader, which is of a completely opposite belief. Here is a sample for your better understanding.

Social networks have an uncertain future with the string impression they leave on users, especially the younger generations. Parents panic with the first mention of social media sites by their children and learning about their presence on these platforms because they are afraid of cyberbullying. They do not want their children to get cat-fished by some stranger on Reddit when they are not around.

Moreover, social media platforms are the reason why several individuals are losing their confidential data every day to corporate houses. These businesses are using the information to bug users with ads about stuff they do not want to buy.

If such instances carry on, the day is not far when the government will start to keep checks on the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other channels. Massive surveillance will be imposed on these sites to prevent malicious minds from harming innocent teenagers physically or by hacking into their systems. So, before you get a chance to ask " have I been hacked ", know that someone is taking care of it.

Having an attractive topic for your social media essay does not mean using poetic words in it. You should have an issue relevant to the current scenario. In the process of selecting a fascinating topic, do not forget to keep it within the extents of your knowledge. If it becomes too complicated for you to write about, you will be stuck when coming up with arguments and ideas.

The perfect topic would be the one which offers good potential for research and is interesting for the readers too. Even if you present profound arguments about such topics, they should be in a logical, comprehensible, and readable format for people to understand easily.

Writing a social media essay is no cakewalk, whether you are a high-school student or university student. All you need to do is, structuralize it properly, be clear with the ideas and arguments you are planning to present, pick the tone of your essay, and began writing. Do not forget to top your essay up with a catchy topic so that your entire hard work doesn't fall flat.

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Writing for Social Media: A Guide for Academics

Published: August 10, 2019

Making connections is a critical element of any academic career. Because colleagues may be across the world, social media can be a useful tool for starting and developing relationships with other scholars. A basic use of social media, is periodically updating a profile with information about conference presentations or recently published articles. These kinds of posts notify audiences about a scholar’s academic life and also may be of interest to friends and family.

More and more, however, academics are using social media not only to maintain connections, but to gain a following. They write posts that connect deeply, advocate for a cause, or inform their followers about a truly stimulating idea. Their social media presence contributes to their reputation, introduces their ideas to new audiences, and even can influence a conversation. For example, some history graduate students and faculty from a variety of universities around the country have begun participating in virtual movie screenings . During these screenings, they all watch the same Netflix film together and tweet their reactions. The doctoral candidate who is the architect behind these screenings said that they helped him stay “intellectually engaged with an academic community.” Social media may also help increase access for those in marginalized communities including scholars with disabilities, as Professor Jason S. Farr and Postdoctoral Fellow Travis Chi Wing Lau argue .

This isn’t to say, however, that there aren’t risks associated with social media use. Lecturer and Senior Fellow Gordon Fraser argues that Twitter’s abbreviated format and polarization can “reduce academics to mere peddlers of opinion.” Other scholars have been the targets of hate on social media. After Professor Albert Ponce gave a lecture in which he discussed white supremacy and racism in the United States, he received “attacks on Facebook and threatening voice messages and emails.” While anyone may attract the ire of partisans on social platforms, research shows that this harm is unevenly distributed across identity. A 2018 study from Amnesty International and Element AI , found that 7.1% of the messages sent to women were “problematic” or “abusive.” Women of color were 34% more likely than white women to receive these messages and black women, in particular, were 84% more likely than white women to receive these problematic or abusive messages. Ultimately, each scholar must determine how these risks compare to the potential rewards of using social media.

This page is intended to introduce academics at all levels to the way that social media can be used to build and sustain an intellectual network. Here, we group social media posts across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram into three categories based on their purpose: to inform, to connect, or to advocate. While these categories are in no way inclusive of all social media posts written by academics, our informal study has shown that these kinds of posts are common among scholars. These categories are also not mutually exclusive. In actuality, authors often blend these categories together to write compelling posts. This page includes several thought-provoking examples of each post category from UW-Madison faculty and graduate students and provides commentary about each example. By discussing these examples, we hope that you will be able to learn more about how to effectively engage with your audience on your platform of choice. We also want to celebrate some of the powerful and impressive work that our colleagues are doing at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

As you’ll see from the examples below, social media posts are rhetorically complex and may be interpreted in a variety of ways.  This interpretation is dependent on the reader’s relationship to the post, among other factors. The explication below suggests some of the many effects and goals of these posts.

While using social media to inform may seem straightforward, in actuality, it can be challenging to create a post that both informs and encourages others to engage with the content that you’re posting. Some exciting posts that we see in this category mix the factual with the personal—they tell audiences something more than can be read on Wikipedia, in a conference’s program guide, or publisher’s website. In the first example below, we see Professor Ainehi Edoro tell a story about her experience in Tübingen, Germany, via the Instagram account of Brittle Paper, an online project—founded and edited by Edoro—that exhibits African writing and literary culture.

The next example in this category is from Professor John Hawks, who has used Twitter to point out a factual inconsistency in a newspaper article. The article in question was later edited to note that one of the researchers for the study featured in the article had a possible conflict of interest.

Deplorable that the @washingtonpost is spreading the nonsense that "Horns are growing on young people's skulls". https://t.co/OUCeNVNZQ9 There is an interesting story here, and part of it is about journalists' gullibility and moral panics. pic.twitter.com/4Nc7Ow41BY — John Hawks (@johnhawks) June 20, 2019

Another key purpose of social media is to connect with followers. (Of course, we might say that every post’s goal is to connect with others, but some posts seem to foreground this purpose more than others.) Posts whose primary goal is to connect often ask questions, use humor, and exhibit genuine emotion in order to relate to their audiences. Below, graduate student Erica Kanesaka Kalnay comments on Easy brand slippers to explore her friends’ feelings of nostalgia on Facebook.

In this unconventional tweet about fruit snacks, Professor Karl Broman links to a page on his personal website that describes an informal research project that he completed with his children about the flavor distribution of their favorite brand of gummy candy.

Are fruit snacks clustered? The evidence is weak. http://t.co/bp5SbtqjMq pic.twitter.com/1hKNe3myA1 — Karl Broman (@kwbroman) February 14, 2015

Finally, graduate student Danielle Nelson shares a photo of her collections of Sylvia Plath books on Instagram and recalls warm memories of a conference she attended in Belfast.

  To Advocate  

Because of the public nature of social media and its accessibility to audiences beyond the academy, one of the most powerful uses of social media is to advocate for social change. We often see scholars draw on their research to influence public opinion. Below, in a viral tweet, Professor Sami Schalk responds to comments criticizing Serena Williams after her performance at the 2018 Tennis Open Final. Schalk cuts to the heart of the controversy and cogently responds to critics who disparaged Williams for her outbursts in reaction to what many perceived to be the match’s sexist and racist officiating.

Black women are allowed to have feelings in public. It doesn’t make us weak, immature, disgraceful, unstable or an embarrassment. If you’re embarrassed for a black woman expressing emotion in public, those are your feelings not hers. Black women are allowed to have feelings — Sami Schalk (@DrSamiSchalk) September 9, 2018

Below, Professor Kristen Slack breaks from the 280-character limit to advocate for funding programs designed to combat child maltreatment in a series of tweets. Here, Slack merges the genres of social media and academic prose by writing at length, citing her sources, and including statistics.

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How Social Media is Reshaping Today’s Education System

by Lori Wade

There’s no denying that, ever since social networks and social media made way into our lives, everything is different. Beginning with the way we socialize, interact, plan for parties or even how often we go out. We won’t go into a debate regarding the ethical aspects of the way Social Media is influencing our lives. Instead, this article proposes to focus on the numerous ways in which social media is changing the way the education system works. So, stay tuned to find out what effects does social networking have on the way our children are educated both at school and outside of it.

Empowering Effects Starting from elementary school up until university graduation, social media has the role to empower parents, students and teachers to use new ways of sharing information and build a community. Statistics show that 96% of the students that have internet access are using at least one social network . What’s even more extraordinary is that, even though some of the students use the social networks for entertaining and other purposes, there are a lot of them that actually use it to promote a lot of positive and useful activities. From finding a summer internship, promoting a success story about how to win the student-loan battle or collaborate on international projects, everything is made possible.

Implementation in Schools? When it comes to social media, schools tend to adopt different positions. It’s a general consensus that they’re useful when it comes to sharing information or organizing the school tasks. And at the same time, the social networking is blamed for the lack of attention in students during classes.

But an increasing trend of adopting social media in school is starting to show. And since students already devote a lot of time for social media and connecting with others outside school hours, why not do it during school as well?

It’s a matter of practicability, really, because it makes perfect sense to use the online universe to communicate with your students since they’re already there most of the time. There’s no need for another case study about the usage of social media in schools. You simply need to walk through the hallways of any school or colleague to see kids of all ages totally immersed in their smartphones. Browsing their news feed, sharing photos on Instagram of sending Snapchat messages has become a part of their daily routine.

How Can Teachers Penetrate the Online World? Moodle and Blackboard are just two examples of learning management system that involves online learning for more than 10 years now. Slowly but steady, such systems will lead to the actual implementation of social media within classrooms. And the best tool available for teachers is social media itself. Only by being open-minded and using the technology themselves will they be able to really reach out to students.

“ The best teachers I’ve ever had have used technology to enhance the learning process, including Facebook pages and events for upcoming projects” – Katie Benmar, Freshman

  As the above statement emphasizes, students also react very positively when a teacher is willing to use their methods and adapt them as part of the educational process. And it makes perfect sense since a homework has a certain strictness about it, but an online chat discussing a certain book gives students the ability to open up and share their opinions.

Daring Teachers Of course, the examples of teachers already implementing social media in classes are far numerous that we can know of, however, there are a few that did such a great job that their students almost made them viral. For example, a biology teacher from Bergen County proposed a challenge to his students. They had to debate over the subject of meiosis on Twitter by using a specific hashtag. This is a great opportunity for students to have fun and learn at the same time. As you need to know your meiosis in order to compress it into 140 characters.

“ We live in a digital ecosystem, and it is vital that educational institutions adapt ”

Carla Dawson – Digital Marketing Professor at the Catholic University of Cordoba

Professor Dawson really has a valid point there as history showed us all that, no matter how strong the resistance, technological progress and new trends will eventually become a standard. Of course, this applies to developed countries that already have a well-structured traditional educational system. It’s a totally different situation when it comes to developing countries that are still struggling to find their way.

A Stronger Community Through Social Media The benefits of social media in the education process doesn’t have to stop at the teacher-student relationship. There are a lot of other benefits that can be extracted from the use of social networking at higher levels as well. For example, principals or administrators can find a new way to integrate social media. Like sharing school news via social networks, holding online meeting with the parents or even starting fundraising for different projects.

And social media can quickly become the only channel of communication since we’re living fast-paced lives, parents are usually busy with work and cannot attend school meetings. But this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be in touch with events or be able to check on their kids every once in awhile. Just like in every other field, communication is vital and if it can be done easily with the help of social media, why not go for it?

It may not be criteria just yet, but soon enough questions like ‘Does this school have a Facebook page?’ could become just as important as the things that parents are asking right now. Like, how well equipped the library is or what are the optional classes their child can be part of.

Conclusions The bottom line is that social media is a big part of our day to day life and there’s no point of keeping it away from the education process. School, college and university staff should be encouraged to make use of technology for student and parent communication. This could easily turn into an argumentative essay topic for college . But the benefits are obvious, starting with healthier parent-teacher relationships and all the way to permanently changing the way our children will learn.

Essay on Role of Social Media

Students are often asked to write an essay on Role of Social Media in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Role of Social Media

Introduction.

Social media is a powerful tool in our modern world. It connects people globally, allowing us to share ideas, news, and personal updates.

Connecting People

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter connect us with friends and family. They help us stay informed about their lives.

Information and Awareness

Social media is a great source of news and updates. It helps raise awareness about social issues and events happening around the world.

Education and Learning

Social media can be educational. Many educators and experts share knowledge and resources, aiding in learning.

250 Words Essay on Role of Social Media

The advent of social media.

Social media, a revolutionary tool of the 21st century, has transformed the way we communicate, share information, and perceive the world. It has woven itself into the fabric of our daily lives, becoming an indispensable part of our society.

Communication and Information Dissemination

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have made global communication seamless. They allow for instantaneous sharing of ideas, news, and personal experiences. This has democratized information, making it accessible to all, but also poses challenges regarding the spread of misinformation.

Social Activism and Awareness

Social media has become a powerful tool for social activism. Movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have utilized these platforms to raise awareness, mobilize people, and effect change. However, the risk of ‘slacktivism’ – passive activism without real-world action – is a concern.

Marketing and Business Strategies

Businesses have leveraged social media for marketing, customer engagement, and brand visibility. They can interact directly with consumers, gather feedback, and tailor their strategies accordingly. The rise of influencer marketing is a testament to this new era of digital commerce.

The Double-Edged Sword

While social media has numerous benefits, it also has its drawbacks. Issues such as privacy breaches, cyberbullying, and the detrimental effects on mental health cannot be overlooked.

500 Words Essay on Role of Social Media

In the contemporary world, social media has become an integral part of our lives. It has transformed the way we communicate, interact, and perceive the world around us. This essay explores the role of social media, focusing on its impact on personal relationships, public discourse, and business.

Personal Relationships

Social media has drastically altered how we maintain and form relationships. It has enabled us to stay connected with loved ones, irrespective of geographical boundaries. We can share our experiences, milestones, and everyday moments, fostering a sense of closeness. However, this digital connection also has its pitfalls. It can lead to an over-reliance on virtual interactions, potentially undermining the value of face-to-face communication. Moreover, the constant comparison with others’ curated lives can lead to feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.

Public Discourse

Business and marketing.

In the business world, social media has revolutionized marketing strategies. Businesses can now directly engage with their customers, understand their needs, and tailor their services accordingly. It also provides a cost-effective platform for advertising and brand promotion. However, the use of personal data for targeted advertising raises ethical concerns about privacy and consent.

Social media has also played a pivotal role in education, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has facilitated remote learning, enabling students and teachers to stay connected. It also provides a platform for collaborative learning and knowledge sharing. However, the digital divide and the risk of cyberbullying are significant challenges that need to be addressed.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Social Media Essay: A Comprehensive Guide

• Emily Scott

In an age when one tweet can start a global conversation and an Instagram picture may change trends, it's amazing to realize that the typical person spends about 2 hours and 31 minutes every day on social media sites. That's more than 900 hours a year spent scrolling, enjoying, and sharing in the huge digital world. As we grow more enmeshed in the fabric of online communities, the need of understanding and communicating the dynamics of social media through the written word, particularly in a social media essay, becomes clearer. So, why begin on the adventure of writing an essay about this common feature of modern life? 

Social Media Essay Introduction

In this post, we'll look at how to write an essay on social media and why these narratives exist, as well as a variety of other interesting topics. From the heartbeat of internet relationships to the rhythm of good narrative, we'll walk you through the process, giving tips on structure, technique, and the creative soul that distinguishes each essay. And whether you're seeking assistance or wondering 

Why Write a Social Media Essay

In a world filled with hashtags, filters, and the continual hum of notifications, sitting down to write an essay about social media may appear as out of place as a cassette tape in a streaming era. However, there's something strangely cathartic, almost rebellious, about pausing in the midst of 280-character wisdom to delve deeper into the why of our digital existence.

So, what exactly is a social media essay, and why would you write one? It's more than just a test of intellectual curiosity. It's a personal trip, a meditative break in the never-ending scroll. While writing the essay, we get the ability to articulate the intangible, to give life to the pixels that dance across our screens. It's an opportunity to make sense of the chaos, find meaning in the memes, and, perhaps, learn a little more about ourselves in this digital wilderness.

Let's be honest: our online lives revolve around memes, viral challenges, and meticulously edited selfies. So, why bother wrestling with words and paragraphs in a world when brevity reigns supreme? The solution lies in the art of unraveling the digital fabric that surrounds us.

There's something magical in articulating the dance between the sublime and the banal that happens within the limits of our screens. An article serves as a lens, focusing our attention on the nuances of social media dynamics, such as internal jokes that become global phenomena, the ripple effect of a well-timed retweet, and the quiet conversations that occur in the comment sections.

6 Key Tips for Writing a Social Media Essay

Now that we've embarked on a journey of writing essays about the digital landscape, it's only fair to arm ourselves with a few reliable tools. Consider these guidelines to be your compass, guiding you through the sometimes turbulent, often unforeseen waters of writing a social media essay.

Define your angle : Choose a specific aspect of social media to focus on. Will you explore its impact on education, mental health, political discourse, or something else entirely? Having a clear angle will guide your research and make your essay more cohesive.

Research like a pro : Don't just rely on personal anecdotes or opinions. Dig into academic journals, credible news sources, and relevant statistics to support your arguments. Consider interviewing experts or everyday users of social media to gain diverse perspectives.

Strike a balance : Acknowledge both the positive and negative impacts of social media. Avoid portraying it as a simple "good" or "bad" phenomenon. Show your critical thinking skills by presenting a nuanced discussion of its complexities.

Engage your audience : Use vivid language, relatable examples, and even humor (if appropriate) to keep your reader hooked. Remember, you're competing with the constant distractions of social media itself, so make your essay engaging and thought-provoking.

Support your claims : Every point you make should be backed up with evidence. This could include factual data, quotes from experts, or personal stories that illustrate your arguments. Use relevant and credible sources to strengthen your essay's credibility.

Conclude with a bang : Don't just summarize your points. Offer a thoughtful conclusion that ties everything together and leaves your reader with something to ponder. Perhaps propose solutions to identified problems or suggest areas for further research.

Social Media Essay Topics

In the huge world of social media, where every like and share adds to the digital story, selecting the proper social media essay titles and topics becomes an important compass for inquiry. Let's look at thought-provoking themes that will not only hold your interest but also spark thoughtful discussions about the complexities of our linked world.

Individual & Identity:

The impact of social media on self-esteem and body image.

How social media shapes our sense of identity and belonging.

The rise of "fake personas" and the concept of online authenticity.

Social media and the pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.

The impact of social media on mental health and anxiety.

Society & Culture:

The role of social media in spreading misinformation and propaganda.

The rise of "echo chambers" and political polarization.

How social media influences social movements and activism.

The influence of social media on conventional media and journalism.

The ethics of data gathering and privacy issues on social networking.

Business & Marketing:

The effectiveness of social media marketing for businesses and brands.

The development of influencer marketing and its effects on consumer behavior.

Social media advertising presents both obstacles and opportunity.

The ethical considerations of targeted advertising and data use.

The future of social media and its role in the global economy.

Specific Platforms:

The unique impact of specific platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.

The evolution of social media platforms and their changing features.

The impact of social media on specific demographics like teenagers, young adults, or seniors.

The ethical concerns and controversies surrounding specific platforms.

The future of specific platforms and their potential impact on society.

If these subjects sparked your attention, you'll probably find persuasive essay ideas to be just as fascinating! Dive into our post to discover a selection of possibilities that can catch your interest and inspire your next writing project.

Wrapping Up

As our university essay writing service professionals wrap up this post, we've explored the emotional intricacies, societal reflections, and transformative potentials buried in our digital narratives. An article on social media offers a glimpse into the delicate dance of our online lives, encouraging introspection, empathy, and knowledge of other stories. Allow your articles to honestly reflect, sparking discussions that deepen our collective experience in this ever-changing digital universe.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Sociology of Media and Communication — Social Media

Argumentative Essays About Social Media

Social media argumentative essay topics.

This is a comprehensive resource to help you find the perfect social media essay topic. Whether you're navigating the complexities of digital communication, exploring the impact of social media on society, or examining its effects on personal identity, the right topic can transform your essay into a captivating and insightful exploration. Remember, selecting a topic that resonates with your personal interests and academic goals not only makes the writing process more enjoyable but also enriches your learning experience. Let's dive into a world of creativity and critical thinking!

Below, you'll find a curated list of essay topics organized by type. Each section includes diverse topics that touch on technology, society, personal growth, and academic interests, along with introduction and conclusion paragraph examples to get you started.

Argumentative Essays

• The Influence of Social Media on Teen Self-Esteem

Introduction Example: "In the digital age, social media platforms have become central to our daily interactions and self-perception, particularly among teenagers. This essay explores the impact of social media on teen self-esteem, arguing that while it offers a space for expression and connection, it also presents significant challenges to self-image. "

Conclusion Example: "Having delved into the complex relationship between social media and teen self-esteem, it is clear that the digital landscape holds profound effects on individual self-perception. This essay reaffirms the thesis that social media can both uplift and undermine teen self-esteem, calling for a balanced approach to digital engagement."

• The Role of Social Media in Political Mobilization

Introduction Example: "As political landscapes evolve, social media has emerged as a powerful tool for political mobilization and engagement. This essay investigates the role of social media in shaping political movements, positing that it significantly enhances communication and organizational capabilities, yet raises questions about information authenticity. "

Conclusion Example: "Through examining the dual facets of social media in political mobilization, the essay concludes that while social media is a pivotal tool for engagement, it necessitates critical scrutiny of information to ensure a well-informed public discourse."

Compare and Contrast Essays

• Instagram vs. Twitter: Platforms for Brand Promotion

Introduction Example: "In the competitive realm of digital marketing, Instagram and Twitter stand out as leading platforms for brand promotion. This essay compares and contrasts their effectiveness, revealing that each platform caters to unique marketing strengths due to its specific user engagement and content dissemination strategies. "

Conclusion Example: "The comparative analysis of Instagram and Twitter highlights distinct advantages for brands, with Instagram excelling in visual storytelling and Twitter in real-time engagement, underscoring the importance of strategic platform selection in digital marketing."

Descriptive Essays

• Describing the Social Media Landscape of Today

Introduction Example: "Today's social media landscape is a vibrant tapestry of platforms, each contributing to the digital era's social fabric. This essay describes the characteristics and cultural significance of current social media trends, illustrating that they reflect and shape our societal values and interactions. "

Conclusion Example: "In portraying the dynamic and diverse nature of today's social media landscape, this essay underscores its role in molding contemporary cultural and social paradigms, inviting readers to reflect on their digital footprints."

Persuasive Essays

• Encouraging Positive Social Media Habits

Introduction Example: "In an era where digital presence is ubiquitous, fostering positive social media habits is essential for mental and emotional well-being. This essay advocates for mindful social media use, arguing that intentional engagement can enhance our life experiences rather than detract from them. "

Conclusion Example: "This essay has championed the cause for positive social media habits, reinforcing the thesis that through mindful engagement, individuals can navigate the digital world in a way that promotes personal growth and well-being."

Narrative Essays

• My Journey with Social Media: A Personal Reflection

Introduction Example: "Embarking on a personal journey with social media has been both enlightening and challenging. This narrative essay delves into my experiences, highlighting how social media has influenced my perception of self and community. "

Conclusion Example: "Reflecting on my social media journey, this essay concludes that while it has significantly shaped my interactions and self-view, it has also offered invaluable lessons on connectivity and self-awareness, affirming the nuanced role of digital platforms in our lives."

As you explore these topics, remember to approach your essay with an open mind and creative spirit. The purpose of academic writing is not just to inform but to engage and provoke thought. Use this opportunity to delve deep into your topic, analyze different perspectives, and articulate your own insights.

Each essay type offers unique learning outcomes. Argumentative essays enhance your analytical thinking and ability to construct well-founded arguments. Compare and contrast essays develop your skills in identifying similarities and differences. Descriptive essays improve your ability to paint vivid pictures through words, while persuasive essays refine your ability to influence and convince. Finally, narrative essays offer a platform for personal expression and storytelling. Embrace these opportunities to grow academically and personally.

Some Easy Argumentative Essay Topics on Social Media

• The Impact of Social Media: Advantages and Disadvantages
• Is Social Media Enhancing or Eroding Our Real-Life Social Skills?
• Should There Be Stricter Regulations on Social Media Content to Protect Youth?
• Social Media's Role in Relationships: Communication Enhancer or Barrier
• Does Social Media Contribute to Political Polarization?
• The Role of Social Media in Shaping Perceptions of Divorce
• The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health: Benefit or Harm?
• Can Social Media Be Considered a Reliable Source of News and Information?
• Is Social Media Responsible for the Rise in Cyberbullying?
• Impact of Social Media on Mental Health
• Does Social Media Promote Narcissism and Self-Centered Behaviors?
• The Role of Social Media in Business Marketing: Is It Indispensable?

Hooks Examples for Argumentative Essay about Social Media

• "In an era where a single tweet can ignite a movement or ruin a reputation, social media's influence on our lives is undeniable. But is this digital revolution more beneficial or harmful to society?"
• "As social media platforms increasingly shape public opinion and behavior, the debate intensifies: Do they promote free expression or fuel misinformation and division?"
• "Social media has transformed how we communicate, but at what cost? Exploring the impacts on mental health, privacy, and societal norms reveals a complex web of benefits and drawbacks."
• "With billions of users worldwide, social media holds unprecedented power. Should we celebrate its role in connecting people or scrutinize its potential to manipulate and mislead?"
• "From viral challenges to political campaigns, social media is a double-edged sword. Is it a force for positive change or a threat to our privacy and well-being?"

The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health: Scrolling Through Struggles

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The Role of Hate Speech in Social Media

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Pros and Cons of Social Media: Social Networking

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Social Media Cons and Prons: Evaluating Its Advantages and Disadvantage

The importance of staying safe on social media, impact of social media on our lives, social media: negative effects and addiction, discussion on whether is social media beneficial or harmful for society, negative effects of social media: relationships and communication, social media pros and cons, social media - good and bad sides, a study of the role of social media concerning confidentiality of personal data, how social media causes stereotyping, social media addiction: consequences and strategies for recovery, the role of social media in making us more narcissistic, the effect social media is having on today's society and political atmosphere, digital/social media, censorship in social media, why teenagers are addicted to social media and how it affects them, advantages and disadvantages of social media for society, enormous impact of mass media on children, the role of social media in the current business world, social media is the reason for many of the world’s problems and solutions.

Social media is a digital platform that allows users to create, share, and exchange information and ideas.

Social media's origins trace back to May 24, 1844, with the telegraph's electronic dots and dashes. Modern narratives often cite the 1969 creation of ARPANET as the internet's beginning. In 1987, the National Science Foundation's NSFNET, a robust nationwide digital network, was established. A significant milestone in social media history occurred in 1997 with the launch of Six Degrees, the first genuine social media platform.

• Social Networking Sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.
• Microblogging Platforms: Twitter.
• Media Sharing Networks: Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat.
• Discussion Forums and Community-Based Platforms: Reddit and Quora.
• Blogging Platforms: WordPress and Blogger.
• Social Bookmarking and Content Curation Platforms: Pinterest and Flipboard.
• Messaging Apps: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.

Facebook (2004), Reddit (2005), Twitter (2006), Instagram (2010), Pinterest (2010), Snapchat (2011), TikTok (2016)

• Increased Connectivity
• Information Sharing and Awareness
• Networking and Professional Opportunities
• Creativity and Self-Expression
• Supportive Communities and Causes
• Privacy Concerns
• Cyberbullying and Online Harassment
• Information Overload and Misinformation
• Time and Productivity Drain
• Comparison and Self-Esteem Issues

The topic of social media is important because it has revolutionized the way we communicate, connect, and consume information. It has a significant impact on businesses, politics, relationships, and society as a whole. Understanding the implications and effects of social media is crucial in today's digital age.

• Social media users spend an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes per day on social networking platforms. This amounts to over 7 years of an individual's lifetime spent on social media, highlighting its significant presence in our daily lives.
• Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users, with more than 500 million of them using the platform on a daily basis.
• YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google.
• Social media has become a major news source, with 48% of people getting their news from social media platforms. This shift in news consumption highlights the role of social media in shaping public opinion and disseminating information in real-time.
• The average internet user has 7.6 social media accounts.

1. Schober, M. F., Pasek, J., Guggenheim, L., Lampe, C., & Conrad, F. G. (2016). Social media analyses for social measurement. Public opinion quarterly, 80(1), 180-211. (https://academic.oup.com/poq/article-abstract/80/1/180/2593846) 2. Appel, G., Grewal, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. T. (2020). The future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing science, 48(1), 79-95. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1?error=cookies_not_support) 3. Aichner, T., Grünfelder, M., Maurer, O., & Jegeni, D. (2021). Twenty-five years of social media: a review of social media applications and definitions from 1994 to 2019. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 24(4), 215-222. (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2020.0134) 4. Ruths, D., & Pfeffer, J. (2014). Social media for large studies of behavior. Science, 346(6213), 1063-1064. (https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.346.6213.1063) 5. Hou, Y., Xiong, D., Jiang, T., Song, L., & Wang, Q. (2019). Social media addiction: Its impact, mediation, and intervention. Cyberpsychology: Journal of psychosocial research on cyberspace, 13(1). (https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/11562) 6. Auxier, B., & Anderson, M. (2021). Social media use in 2021. Pew Research Center, 1, 1-4. (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2021/04/PI_2021.04.07_Social-Media-Use_FINAL.pdf) 7. Al-Samarraie, H., Bello, K. A., Alzahrani, A. I., Smith, A. P., & Emele, C. (2021). Young users' social media addiction: causes, consequences and preventions. Information Technology & People, 35(7), 2314-2343. (https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/ITP-11-2020-0753/full/html) 8. Bhargava, V. R., & Velasquez, M. (2021). Ethics of the attention economy: The problem of social media addiction. Business Ethics Quarterly, 31(3), 321-359. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-ethics-quarterly/article/ethics-of-the-attention-economy-the-problem-of-social-mediaaddiction/1CC67609A12E9A912BB8A291FDFFE799)

Relevant topics

• Effects of Social Media
• Media Analysis
• Personal Identity
• Discourse Community
• Sex, Gender and Sexuality
• Cultural Appropriation
• Social Justice

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Essay on Social Media for School Students and Children

500+ words essay on social media.

Social media is a tool that is becoming quite popular these days because of its user-friendly features. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more are giving people a chance to connect with each other across distances. In other words, the whole world is at our fingertips all thanks to social media. The youth is especially one of the most dominant users of social media. All this makes you wonder that something so powerful and with such a massive reach cannot be all good. Like how there are always two sides to a coin, the same goes for social media. Subsequently, different people have different opinions on this debatable topic. So, in this essay on Social Media, we will see the advantages and disadvantages of social media.

Advantages of Social Media

When we look at the positive aspect of social media, we find numerous advantages. The most important being a great device for education . All the information one requires is just a click away. Students can educate themselves on various topics using social media.

Moreover, live lectures are now possible because of social media. You can attend a lecture happening in America while sitting in India.

Furthermore, as more and more people are distancing themselves from newspapers, they are depending on social media for news. You are always updated on the latest happenings of the world through it. A person becomes more socially aware of the issues of the world.

In addition, it strengthens bonds with your loved ones. Distance is not a barrier anymore because of social media. For instance, you can easily communicate with your friends and relatives overseas.

Most importantly, it also provides a great platform for young budding artists to showcase their talent for free. You can get great opportunities for employment through social media too.

Another advantage definitely benefits companies who wish to promote their brands. Social media has become a hub for advertising and offers you great opportunities for connecting with the customer.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Disadvantages of Social Media

Despite having such unique advantages, social media is considered to be one of the most harmful elements of society. If the use of social media is not monitored, it can lead to grave consequences.

Thus, the sharing on social media especially by children must be monitored at all times. Next up is the addition of social media which is quite common amongst the youth.

This addiction hampers with the academic performance of a student as they waste their time on social media instead of studying. Social media also creates communal rifts. Fake news is spread with the use of it, which poisons the mind of peace-loving citizens.

In short, surely social media has both advantages and disadvantages. But, it all depends on the user at the end. The youth must particularly create a balance between their academic performances, physical activities, and social media. Excess use of anything is harmful and the same thing applies to social media. Therefore, we must strive to live a satisfying life with the right balance.

FAQs on Social Media

Q.1 Is social media beneficial? If yes, then how?

A.1 Social media is quite beneficial. Social Media offers information, news, educational material, a platform for talented youth and brands.

Q.2 What is a disadvantage of Social Media?

A.2 Social media invades your privacy. It makes you addicted and causes health problems. It also results in cyberbullying and scams as well as communal hatred.

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The Impact of Social Media on Teens' Mental Health

Social media has some good intentions: connecting you with people all around the world, showing you content you are interested in, and providing endless entertainment. But there are also negative consequences to endless scrolling. Research has shown that young adults who use social media are three times as likely to suffer from depression , putting a large portion of the population at risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. 

In the U.S., suicide rates have declined slightly since 2019, but it continues to be a serious concern among our younger generation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of suicides in females aged 15-24 increased 87 percent over the past 20 years. And among males aged 15-24, the number of suicides rose by 30 percent over that same time period. 

Almost every teen now has an account on at least one social media platform. They use social media to reach out to friends, share experiences, and tell the world about themselves. However, without realizing it, they are managing an addiction. 

Jessica Holzbauer , a licensed clinical social worker at Huntsman Mental Health Institute , explains how our smartphones are, by design, addictive. “We get a dopamine release in our brain when we pick up our phone or log into social media,” she says. Using social apps is essentially priming your brain into thinking you are rewarding yourself every time you pick up your device. 

Negative Impacts of Social Media

Is it true that using social apps could negatively affect your mental health? 

“In short, yes, social media can have negative consequences for our mental health,” Holzbauer says. “The younger generation grew up with social media and the ability to see anything, anytime, anywhere. Our ability to tolerate the distress of waiting has been eroded because we can Google the answer to almost any question. We no longer have to wait to know who was the actor that played Ron Burgundy in Anchorman or where to find the nearest library.” 

In many ways, social media has removed the barriers between the user and the audience—with far-reaching implications. “We can act on impulse and post something to social media that may reflect a feeling or thought in the moment but may not be true to us a day later,” Holzbauer says. “When our more level-headed self is back in charge, we can feel embarrassment, shame, or regret for posting something impulsively.” 

We also know that content can be filtered, edited, and manipulated before it’s posted, which can lead to unattainable standards being broadcast to the entire world for anyone to see. Users are obsessed with instant gratification and in some instances base their worth or image off the images they see and the amount of likes they receive on their post. 

“The information teens are putting out is one factor—another is the information they are taking in,” Holzbauer says. “Social media is giving them access to images, people, and ideas they otherwise would not be able to access. This can be a very positive thing, but we know it can also have negative consequences.” 

A recent study from Facebook found Instagram to have harmful effects among a portion of its millions of young users, particularly teenage girls. Findings indicated that Instagram makes body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls. And among teenagers who reported suicidal thoughts, 6 percent in the U.S. traced them back to Instagram. 

Warning Signs Your Teen Is Struggling

This is not to say that keeping teens from social media will keep teens from having suicidal thoughts. Instead, it is a call for parents to be aware of what their kids are doing online—and to look for any changes in their child’s behavior. 

“If your child is starting to focus too much of their attention on social media at the expense of real-life interactions, parents should be concerned,” Holzbauer says. “At the very least, this should spark a conversation about the behaviors to ensure there aren’t more serious issues going on like bullying, anxiety , or other issues.”  

Parents should also look for behaviors not necessarily related to social media that may signal a problem. If a teen is acting differently, seems disinterested in life, or is talking about not wanting to live, actions should be taken. It can be a hard conversation to have —but it might save their life. 

Parents aren’t the only ones who should be on alert. Friends should also be aware when it appears someone is in trouble. They may even have more insight into the situation because they are sharing social media experiences and seeing similar content. One thing all teens should know is that if a friend appears to be considering suicide, they should not write it off as someone being “dramatic” or seeking attention. Be sure to tell someone if you see concerning behavior online and know the resources available. 

Tips for Healthy Social Media Use

We all know how the algorithm works—the more you look at your phone, the more it will send compelling content to keep your eyes from looking away. It’s hard to break habits of checking TikTok or Instagram and constantly refreshing to see more, but it’s important to take time away for our mental and physical health. Parents can set a good example through their own virtual behavior. Here are some tips for parents and their teens .

988 , the national suicide and crisis lifeline, is available anytime, anywhere. Simply call, chat, or text 9-8-8 for an immediate response from a licensed mental health professional. In Utah, students also have access to the  SafeUT app  where they can chat confidentially or submit a tip about themselves or a friend. 

• mental health
• social media

The Psychology of Social Media

In today’s cultural and technological climate, everyone uses some sort of social media. According to a monumental 2018 Pew Research Center study, 88% of respondents between the ages of 18 to 29 reported using some kind of social media. Seventy-eight percent of 30- to 49-year-olds said the same.

The number of reported users dips for the next age group but not as much as you may think. A stunning 64% of people between the ages of 50 and 64 use social media on a frequent basis. For a generation that didn’t grow up with the internet or social media, this statistic is surprising and helps explain the prevalence of social media use in our culture.

With the pervasiveness of social media across all ages, more attention needs to be given to what it’s doing to us as individual users. The endless stream of communication and connection provided by social media is changing the way we think and absorb information. As it is, people are currently developing social media habits that can simultaneously benefit and harm their mental health. The question being, what does social media do to your brain?

Because this trend of extended social media use will only continue, more researchers are joining the field to analyze and understand the psychology of social media in our constantly connected culture.

Social Media and The Brain

From a neurological perspective, social media affects different brain functions in unique ways. It contains many combinations of stimuli that can trigger different reactions, and because of this, social media’s effects on the brain appear in a variety of ways.

Positive attention on social media, for example, affects multiple parts of the brain. According to an article in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience , accruing likes on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram causes “activation in brain circuity implicated in reward , including the striatum and ventral tegmental area, regions also implicated in the experience of receiving Likes from others.” This sounds really complicated and involved, but when approached from a different perspective, it becomes a little more digestible.

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is one of the primary parts responsible for determining the rewards system in people’s bodies. When social media users receive positive feedback (likes), their brains fire off dopamine receptors, which is facilitated in part by the VTA.

Another study that employed the use of MRI technology to monitor brain activity found similar results. As researchers analyzed the brains of adolescents browsing Instagram, they found that “viewing photos with many (compared with few) likes was associated with greater activity in neural regions implicated in reward processing, social cognition, imitation, and attention.”

Again, with social media so tightly connected to individuals’ rewards systems, users should realize the power – and possibility for abuse – of the platforms they use. Things like gambling and narcotic drugs have the power to rule over the brain’s rewards system in a similar capacity. Social media users should be aware of these parallels to avoid potential pitfalls.

Outside of the rewards systems, social media stimuli can affect the brain’s decision-making and emotional processing functions. In yet another study that observed the brain activity in adolescents, researchers found that parts of the brain that deal with emotional and sensory processing reacted noticeably when participants felt excluded . This study highlighted the effects of “online social exclusion” on the developing brains of adolescents. What this means is that when social media users are excluded from online groups, chats, or events, the brain reacts in these specific regions directly.

The research on social media and how the parts of the brain react to it is still in the early stages. While these studies reflect an effort toward better understanding the effects of social media on different parts of the brain, there’s still a lot of progress to be made. Social media is growing by leaps and bounds and these studies are helping us identify more about why people post on social media.

Why We Post on Social Media

People choose different material to post on different social media platforms. When people want to post pictures, they tend to pick Instagram. When they want to post short bits of text like jokes, they go to Twitter. So much goes into deciding what to post where, and that’s not even including the psychological factors that determine what gets posted and what doesn’t.

Psychological Motivations for Posting

Pinpointing exactly why people post is an impossible exercise. However, by understanding some significant social media behaviors, it becomes easier to grasp general motivations for posting.

A recent Medium article titled “The Psychology of Social Sharing” helped articulate the different tiers of posting motivations. While the writers for this article approached the psychology of posting on social media from a marketing perspective, they tapped into clear psychological incentives for sharing content. They even cleverly adapt noted psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs to reasons why people post and consume updates. They are:

• Physiological needs: People sometimes post to benefit the health or well-being of their friends and family.
• Safety: Physical, mental, and financial security are important for people when they choose to post some material on their social media.
• Love/belonging: Users generally want to post to feel some kind of social acceptance from a group or a particular individual.
• Esteem: People want to quell the rewards-oriented parts of their brains, which helps explain why people post “me-centric” content regularly.
• Self-actualization: As the most important facet of the human needs hierarchy, this aspect of social media posting manifests when people share their successes – getting a new job, completing an arduous project, or graduating from school, to name a few examples.

The psychological world has only recently begun to confront the motivations for posting material on social media. An article titled “Why We Share: A Study of Motivations for Mobile Media Sharing” posed an actual experiment where respondents were asked to record their posting habits and corresponding feelings in a diary and then participate in post-study interviews. After monitoring the media sharing behavior, the researchers found “that social and emotional influences played an important role in media sharing behavior.”

Some researchers have looked toward the ways social media has affected the psychological development in children. The article “Growing Up Wired: Social Networking Sites and Adolescent Psychosocial Development” stated that some reasons people share is because they have been reared since childhood to post. The researchers said:

Overall, adolescents and young adults’ stated motivations for using (social networking sites) are quite similar to more traditional forms of communication – to stay in touch with friends, make plans, get to know people better, and present oneself to others.

Moreover, the researchers in the study explained that children and adolescents are beginning to have their identities shaped by posting on and engaging with social media.

One reason people post on social media, according to an article in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , is because social media sharing can link to positive social media feedback and self-esteem. More directly, the quest for likes or follows on social media heavily influences why people post. The positive attention some users receive for posting inspires more and more social sharing in many users.

In sum, people generally post from some kind of emotional position that seeks a response. Since the very nature of social media centers on communication, it makes sense that the primary motivation for posting comes from a psychological point to connect with others. But this constant quest for acceptance and exposure on social media can lead to major psychological problems for some.

Interested in finding out more about how social media affects brain function? Want to know more about the positive and negative effects of social media on mental health? Download our free guide to start learning about social media psychology today!

When Social Media Habits Turn to Social Media Addictions

Social media dependency has received more and more consideration in the last five years. The boom of social networking applications has caused many researchers to explore not only why people post the content they choose to share, but also the addictive tendencies in some users.

Specifically, the article “Social Networking Sites and Addiction” pinpointed some reasons people become addicted to social networking sites (SNS). These reasons include lower self-esteem and a general anxiety about being excluded.

The authors were quick to make the distinction between social networking and social media, though, since “social networking is a way of being” while “individuals can become addicted to using social networking sites.” They extend social media addiction to connect more clearly to smartphone addiction, and that levels of addiction may depend of sociodemographic information. Further, the researchers conclude that the fear of missing out (FOMO) “may be part of SNS addiction.” These are all significant features of how people are more and more inclined to post on or consume social media because of an underlying addictive behavior problem.

Social media addiction is gaining traction in the academic world because a growing number of people are reporting problems of dependence. The article “The Relations Among Social Media Addiction, Self-Esteem, and Life Satisfaction in University Students” detailed a study that explored the consequences of excessive social media use. In it, respondents who reported a moderate use of social media had a much more positive outlook on their social positions. Other participants overwhelmingly reported “addictive use of social media had a negative association with self-esteem.” These same respondents in the survey said they lacked satisfaction with their lives, which they directly linked to their lowered self-esteem.

Moreover, the chapter “Social Networking Addiction” from Behavioral Addictions contextualized the significance of social media addiction in a world where it hasn’t been researched as much as it should . The chapter explored more directly ways that mental health professionals can conduct effective screening and treatment processes in response to users suspected of having addictive tendencies.

Though this chapter does a good job of providing impressive prospective frameworks for screening and treatment responses, a lot more work needs to be done to confront the problem directly. In order to unpack the psychology of social media more comprehensively, a closer look into preventative measures needs to be taken.

Understanding the Change in Self Concept from Using Social Media

Social media allows users to express their personalities in unique ways. But the ability to create multiple accounts and to curate the material on their profiles has given users an unprecedented opportunity to develop new personae. These new digital identities can align with, be a complement to, or conflict with users’ real personalities.

How Social Media Shapes Identity

In order to understand more clearly how social media shapes individuals’ identities, it’s necessary first to look at the landscape of social media.

The article “Psychology of Social Media: From Technology to Identity” stated the spatial makeups of hybridized social media networks has given a “rise to ‘interreality,’ a new social space, more malleable and dynamic than preceding social networks.” Out of these new frameworks, people now:

• Alter their own social identities.
• Change the ways others perceive them through curated social media profiles.
• Use social media tools to expand their own social connections.
• Have their real identities concealed by virtual ones.

As a result of this power through new social media technology, users are in some ways able to have much greater control over their identity formations. The researchers warned, however, that social media tools should be used by older, more mature people because, when “it’s used in an irresponsible way by people who are too young, they can cause problems and difficulties that in some cases even time cannot erase.”

From a social media psychology standpoint, this new ability to control one’s own identity formation is as empowering as it is alarming. Users can build their identities on social media as honest representations of their personalities and traits, and at the same time, they can also create entirely new social media personae. This power has impressive advantages and severe consequences.

The Effects of Self-Perception on Social Media

Social media users’ self-image is put under a microscope when they constantly compare their situations with others. And these comparisons happen frequently when they engage with each other. Matthew Pittman and Brandon Reich, both media specialists and academics, have found that people can sharpen their own identities when they engage in intimate, image-oriented social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest.

They stated that “quantitative results suggest that loneliness may decrease , while happiness and satisfaction with life may increase, as a function of image-based social media use. In contrast, text-based media use appears ineffectual.” As a result, some users have greater confidence and a stronger self-perception on social media in image-oriented environments.

On the other hand, social media can also motivate people who view themselves negatively to build entirely new identities. The thinking here, though not always malicious, is to trick others into thinking they’re someone else. In the context of social media dating services, this practice is known as catfishing. According to Scientific American, “Users may feel pressured to alter (height, weight, and age) information to present what they perceive is their ideal self and maximize their attractiveness .” Social media has created an environment where users feel pressured to either lie or fabricate their physical and psychological identities to become more desirable.

These pressures extend far beyond the dating world and into many other facets of social media interactions. The vulnerabilities of some social media users more generally can lead to a “ false Facebook -self.” According to the study “The ‘Facebook-self’: characteristics and psychological predictors of false self-presentation on Facebook,” researchers were able to highlight that people with low self-esteem on social media were much more likely to create alternate, sometimes conflicting Facebook personas.

Social Pressures to Fit into Social Media Groups

A huge incentive to use social media stems from the acceptance users can receive from various groups. As with practically all aspects of social media, this group-focused direction of social media has benefits and drawbacks.

One major benefit for social media users is they can reach out to and connect with groups of people with similar interests across the planet. People can find more information about niche hobbies, popular pastimes, and general interests. This ability to belong to different groups is excellent for people coming from smaller or distant communities, and the psychological advantages for those individuals are immense.

According to Art Markman of Psychology Today, belonging to a group can dramatically improve a person’s drive to complete tasks. Specifically, he stated “that even a simple relationship between people based on arbitrary reasons, like sharing a birthday or being randomly assigned to a group, is enough to increase feelings of warmth and motivation.” Social media, thus, offers opportunities for people to form groups for both general and specific interests, which can help improve their overall productivity.

On the other hand, belonging to a group too closely or intimately can change the way the typical social media user thinks and behaves. The academic journal Media Psychology recently published a study that found that when users keep to their social media groups, they begin to mimic the behaviors of those groups. This mimicry results in a social media identity bubble that’s reinforced by prolonged engagement with the group.

Social Media and Mental Health

Outside of the ability to dominate emotional and mental states, social media platforms have the power to influence, either positively or negatively, the psychological behaviors of people. Social media can dramatically help to improve users’ mental health, but at the same time, it can negatively impact people’s psychological well-being.

Mental Health Benefits from Social Media

Though many researchers focus on the cons of social media use, there are several potential mental wellness advantages. The advantages extend across demographics and appear in unexpected ways.

For millennials, who tend to dominate some spheres of social media consumption, the digital world of social sharing poses several mental health and relationship benefits. Psychologists Adriana M. Manago and Lanen Vaughn found there are ample opportunities for friendship and happiness as younger people transition to adulthood. Specifically, they said younger social media users can now create stronger bonds with friends because of the easy access to friends’ information and interests.

Further, they found these connections give users an opportunity for greater independence and autonomy, which increases their critical thinking and decision-making abilities. These feelings of community and self-worth will palpably improve the mental health of users over the course of time.

The organization Painted Brain, which combats mental health hardships through advocacy, artistic expression, and business, outlined the ways social media can positively affec t the mental health of users. From a psychological standpoint, they found many positive effects of social media on mental health, such as:

• Social integration with similar interest groups.
• Healthy and body-positive lifestyle motivations.
• The availability of support groups.
• Maintaining and building new relationships.
• An introduction into new modes of thinking.

Mental Health Consequences from Social Media Use

While there certainly are tangible benefits to social media consumption and engagement, it’s been rightly critiqued for its tendency to have toxic effects on users’ mental health.

This kind of anxiety manifests much more severely in teens. As licensed clinical social worker Katie Hurley found, teens online must “confront cyberbullying, trolls, toxic comparisons, sleep deprivation, and less frequent face-to-face interactions.” In a cultural moment that stresses the importance of staying online all the time, these seemingly disconnected issues can overwhelm users and result in profound anxiety. These negative effects on teens’ mental health illustrates the need for parents, educators, and other role models to build better models for social media engagement.

Further, according to a scholarly article published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , higher levels of depression correlate with Facebook use. The study found the subjects’ mental health suffered with the more time they spent on Facebook, causing users to feel worse about their own positions when they compared their profiles with others.

Another article by medical doctor and cyberpsychologist Igor Pantic echoed the finding . He stated that “prolonged use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, may be related to signs and symptoms of depression.” As people compare their lives to so many others, they will only find their mental health continue to deteriorate.

The Implications of Social Media Psychology

The field of social media psychology has only existed for the past 10 to 15 years, which coincides directly with the rise of social media. As a result, the research being conducted is still in its early stages. In nearly all the scholarly articles featured in this guide, researchers mentioned on the limitations of their own methods so that future studies could explore them further.

Because there are so many gaps in the existing research, new perspectives need to join the field. According to Atlantic contributor and psychologist of 20 years Jean M. Twenge, people need to become much more aware of the consequences of social media dependence for the sake of our children’s future . “What’s at stake isn’t just how kids experience adolescence,” she said. “The constant presence of smartphones is likely to affect them well into adulthood.”

You can respond to and help solve this overarching problem by continuing your education in the field. There are many levels of career paths in psychology that offer different research opportunities, depending on your own professional and personal preferences. An online B.S. in Psychology will prepare you to analyze and understand the psychological effects of social media on users by studying social psychology , group dynamics, and more.

Gain greater insight on how social media influences, both positively and negatively, the psychology of users with King University Online’s psychology degree. Our program is taught by trained and decorated faculty who will prepare you for a successful future. With year-round course availability and a generous credit transfer policy, you may be able to earn your degree in as little as 16 months.

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• Speech Topics in English on Social Media

How to Write a Speech on Social Media?: Format and Samples

Social media is the communal interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities. It has become the basic need and quality of human beings to be social. The spectacular developments in communications and innovative and astonishing entertainment have given access to information and the ability to provide a voice for people who would never have been heard. The current generation is fortunate enough to witness some of the most amazing technological developments ever in history. It has become the rage of this age.

At Vedantu, we help kids with easy tips and resources to prepare and deliver great speeches.

What do you Mean by Social Media?

We frequently come across the term "social media" and are quite familiar with it, but what does it actually mean? Social media is a medium for communication and content creation, allowing users to share information, opinions, ideas, and much more. There are two main viewpoints about social media: one group believes it has a negative influence on people, while another group thinks it brings many positive outcomes. A comprehensive speech on social media should address both of these perspectives to provide a balanced view.

What are Some of the Most Widely used Social Media Platforms?

Let's look at what has made social media so popular and widely used in recent years. One major factor is the large number of active users, which greatly affects how much the platform grows, how attractive it is, and how people engage with it. This big user base helps make the platform successful and influential.

These applications serve as the building blocks for a large number of other applications as well. Currently, Facebook is the most popular social networking site on the planet, with more than 2.7 billion active monthly members worldwide. Each social media platform owned by the same company, including Facebook (the company's most popular forum), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram, has more than 1 billion monthly active users.

In addition, as the number of people who use social media continues to grow, it becomes increasingly clear how important social media has become in today's society.

Monograph on Social Media Use - An Introduction

People have always wanted to connect with others, but in the past, communication was limited to face-to-face interactions such as visiting homes or attending gatherings.

Today, social media has transformed how we connect. Due to busy lives and geographical distances, people now rely on technology to maintain relationships. Social networking sites and apps have revolutionised communication by allowing users to share information and ideas globally through interactive platforms. These sites, accessible from desktops, laptops, and mobile phones, are popular due to their features and ease of use.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter help us stay in touch with friends and acquaintances, while tools like YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp allow us to share photos and videos. Additionally, B2B social platforms and review sites enhance the shopping experience by facilitating discussions and offering collective buying deals.

Social Media and Its Significance

Every person's daily routine involves some kind of social media interaction. Anyone, anywhere, at any time , can connect with you through social media as long as you have access to the internet .

While everyone was confined to their homes, unable to speak with anybody other than family and friends, it is critical to communicate with friends and family during Covid-19 to avoid being isolated. The outbreak resulted in social media being an essential tool for individuals to make entertaining videos and engage in social media challenges and activities, which helped keep people busy during these challenging circumstances.

As a result of the quick rise and extension of digital marketing, social media has played an essential part in this expansion. It's also a fantastic resource for finding information on a wide variety of topics. People may learn a great deal and stay up to date with the newest news worldwide by utilizing this. But there is always a drawback to every good that comes with it, no matter how beneficial. As a consequence, the following are some of the most significant advantages and disadvantages of social media in today's fast-paced society.

Format of the Speech

Here is a simple format for structuring a speech:

Introduction

Greeting : Address the audience.

Opening : Start with a quote, question, or interesting fact to grab attention.

Purpose : Clearly state the purpose of your speech.

Overview : Briefly outline the main points you will cover.

Main Point 1 : Present your first main idea or argument.

Supporting Details : Provide evidence, examples, or anecdotes.

Main Point 2 : Introduce your second main idea or argument.

Supporting Details : Offer additional evidence or examples.

Main Point 3 : Discuss your third main idea or argument.

Supporting Details : Share further evidence or examples.

Summary : Recap the main points of your speech.

Closing Statement : End with a strong statement or call to action.

Thank You : Thank the audience for their time and attention.

Benefits of Social Media

Social media sites are erasing differences in age and class. It has assumed a different dimension altogether through interactive sharing. It has now become a medium of mass reach at a minimum cost. Today, one can benefit from social sharing to build a reputation and bring in career opportunities.

They target a broad audience, making it a valuable and effective tool for society.

It reaches people even in remote areas, and the information is spread like fire .

Distance is no more a limitation because of social media. You are constantly updated with the latest news and happenings in the society and environment through social media websites.

Sites and blogs like Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many more have become tools for people to connect across the globe. People can attend live talks or live sessions, or lectures happening anywhere in the world while staying at home.

Teachers and professors can teach on different topics from remote places.

You can now identify great possibilities for a job through multiple social media sites like LinkedIn, Google, Naukri, and job search.

Social media enables companies to use these sites as a network to generate awareness about their product , promote their brand, and increase their sales. It saves the cost of marketing and advertising.

These networking sites on social media provide a comprehensive platform for young aspiring artists to showcase their passion and skills.

Political leaders use the platform of social media for spreading social communication to mass. These days, the political candidates are also communicating with the voters through social media.

Nowadays, a person’s fame or popularity is determined by the number of links he has created with these social media sites.

It is an excellent educational tool.

It has the potential to increase public awareness of a range of societal issues.

Due to the speed with which data is transmitted over the internet, consumers can stay current on the latest developments.

Social media can be used to disseminate information to the media.

Additionally, there are some social benefits, such as communicating with long-distance family and friends.

It has the potential to open up incredible career opportunities online.

We believe that social media has a lot of positive effects, but we also recognize that, like anything else, it has some negative ones. Keep reading to gather an idea on the same.

Disadvantages of Social Media

However, social media has caused addiction to users. Despite huge benefits, it has some unfavourable consequences.

Users of social media are becoming victims of fraudulent and online scams that seem to be genuine.

It opens up a possibility for hackers to commit fraud and launch virus attacks.

The productivity of people is getting hampered due to extreme usage and indulgence in these social media sites.

Harmful and disrespectful comments and reviews from employees about the company hamper its image tremendously.

Students, too, are exceedingly active on social media sites these days, limiting them from outdoor activities.

Students indulge in disputes because of these social media, and sometimes school has to resolve the conflicts.

Some sites are used to express personal anger or dispute, due to which a lot of chaos and confusion is created.

Investigate whether it is possible to cheat on tests.

As a result, students' grades and performance have suffered.

Users are more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats such as hacking, data theft, spamming, and other similar crimes due to a lack of privacy.

Sample Speech on Social Media

Sample Speech 1 - The Positive Impact of Social Media

Good (morning/afternoon/evening) everyone,

Today, I want to talk about the positive impact of social media. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have changed the way we connect with others. They allow us to stay in touch with friends and family no matter where they are in the world.

Firstly, social media helps in maintaining relationships. For instance, platforms like WhatsApp enable us to send instant messages, share updates, and keep up with the lives of loved ones. Secondly, it is a powerful tool for learning and growth . Sites like YouTube provide educational content on a variety of topics, from cooking to coding.

In conclusion, while social media can have its downsides, its ability to keep us connected and informed makes it a valuable tool in our modern lives. Thank you.

Sample Speech 2 - The Negative Effects of Social Media

Hello everyone,

Today, I’m going to discuss the negative effects of social media. While social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter offer many benefits, they also come with significant drawbacks.

One major issue is privacy. Many people are unaware of how much personal information they are sharing online. This can lead to unwanted attention and even identity theft. Another problem is the impact on mental health. Constant comparison to others on social media can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

To sum up, while social media has its advantages, we must be aware of its potential negative effects and use these platforms responsibly. Thank you for listening.

Sample Speech 3 - Balancing Social Media Use

Today, I want to speak about balancing social media use in our daily lives. Social media is a great tool for communication and entertainment, but it's essential to find a balance to avoid overuse.

Firstly, setting limits on screen time can help maintain a healthy balance. For example, allocating specific times for checking social media can prevent it from consuming too much of our day. Secondly, it's crucial to engage in offline activities. Spending time with family and friends in person can provide a more meaningful connection than online interactions.

In conclusion, by managing our social media habits and focusing on real-life interactions, we can enjoy the benefits of social media without letting it overwhelm our lives. Thank you.

Test your Knowledge: Speech on Social Media

Task 1 - 5 Minute Speech On Social Media in Education: Explain how social media supports learning, with examples and pros and cons.

Task 2 - Student Speech on Social Media and Mental Health: Discuss how social media affects mental health and share tips for managing its use.

Task 3 - Short Speech on Social Media's Impact on Communication: Describe how social media changes communication, highlighting benefits and challenges.

Now check out if you got them all right from the answers below:

Task 1 - 5 Minute Speech on Social Media in Education:

Prepare a speech on how social media can enhance educational experiences. Start by introducing the concept of using platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, and educational forums for learning. Discuss how these platforms provide access to a wide range of resources, from video tutorials to professional networking opportunities. Explain the benefits, such as interactive learning and easy access to expert advice. Also, address potential drawbacks, like distractions or the spread of misinformation. Conclude with tips on how students and educators can use social media effectively for educational purposes while managing its challenges.

Task 2 - Student Speech on Social Media and Mental Health:

Craft a speech that explores the impact of social media on mental health, particularly for students. Begin by discussing the positive aspects, such as the ability to connect with peers and find supportive communities. Then, cover the negative effects, including issues like cyberbullying, social comparison, and the pressure to maintain a perfect online image. Share strategies for maintaining mental well-being, such as setting time limits on social media use, being mindful of content consumption, and seeking support when needed. Emphasize the importance of a balanced approach to social media to protect mental health.

Task 3 - Short Speech on Social Media's Impact on Communication:

Write a brief speech focusing on how social media has transformed communication. Start by highlighting the advantages, like instant messaging, video calls, and staying in touch with friends and family globally. Discuss how these tools have made communication more convenient and diverse. Then, address challenges, such as reduced face-to-face interactions, miscommunication due to lack of non-verbal cues, and the potential for misunderstandings. Offer suggestions for balancing online communication with real-life interactions, such as setting aside time for in-person meetings and being clear and respectful in digital conversations.

Takeaways from this Page

Social media has both benefits and drawbacks. Using it productively can be a tool of immense help, but over usage can become a silent enemy. Thus, we as users have to learn to balance and not be controlled by this technology. Managing our social media habits wisely ensures we gain the positive aspects while avoiding potential negative effects. Balancing online interactions with real-life experiences helps maintain a healthy relationship with social media.

FAQs on Speech Topics in English on Social Media

1. What do you Understand by Social Media?

Social media is the communal interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities.

2. How has Social Media benefited Society?

Social media has incredibly benefited society. It has erased the age and class barrier. Social media sites target a wide audience. People can connect with each other from any corner of the world. Distance is no more a limitation. Teachers and students are connecting through social media tools. People find jobs, shop and share reviews and discuss with others. It is a comprehensive platform for people to showcase their talents and passion.

3. What are the disadvantages of Social Media?

The disadvantages of social media are that youth is getting hooked to it inappropriately. People are falling into prey to fraudulent and illegal activities. Too much indulgence in social media is hampering the productivity of people. 

4. How has Social Media brought a Change in Human’s Lives?

In earlier days, humans did not have too many means of communication. This was the reason why they did not socialize much. Even if they did, their socialization was narrowed to meeting their own relatives or friends in a close circle. People could not explore much about what was happening around the globe. The job seekers were restricted to finding jobs through someone or a newspaper. Now, technology has brought a revolution in the lives of people. Distance is no more a constraint for communication. People can communicate with anyone from anywhere in the world. The entire information about what is happening across the globe is available at the touch of our fingertips. Job seekers have not only widened their horizon of finding jobs but also given interviews on social media platforms. Social media has made the lives of people much simpler, easier, and faster.

5. In what ways does social media influence our lives?

The emergence of social media has had a considerable influence on people's lives. Using social media in one's everyday life allows one to communicate, interact, and be sociable while also learning about current events, creating a variety of meals, educating oneself, travelling to any place, and taking advantage of many other perks.

6. Which social networking sites are the most well-known?

There are several social media platforms where you may utilize Youtube Messenger. These include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Whatsapp, and Pinterest.

7. Does social media have a role in our overall well-being?

Social media sites have the following roles in our overall well-being.

Social media addiction may cause physical and psychological harm to the person using it excessively, including eye strain, social disengagement, and disturbed sleep.

If you spend too much time fighting and disagreeing, this might harm your health in the long run.

In terms of emotional relationships, social media may be a great way to meet new people and keep in contact with individuals you already know. Building relationships with others is beneficial.

Social media is a veritable informational treasure trove when it comes to staying healthy. This has several benefits. Doubtful information might be just as damaging as not thoroughly investigating it.

8. What is a 5 Minute Speech on Social Media?

A 5 Minute Speech on Social Media is a brief presentation that covers the main points about social media’s impact. It should highlight both positive and negative aspects, engaging the audience quickly. It’s ideal for classroom or public speaking events.

9. How can I prepare a Student Speech on Social Media?

To prepare a Student Speech on Social Media, start by researching the topic. Include key points like benefits, risks, and examples. Practise your speech to stay within time limits and ensure clarity.

10. What should be included in a Short Speech on Social Media?

A Short Speech should include an introduction, main points about the impact of social media, and a conclusion. Focus on being concise and clear, covering essential facts without going into too much detail.

11. How do I make a 5 Minute Speech on Social Media engaging?

To make a 5 Minute Speech on Social Media engaging, use interesting facts and real-life examples. Keep your language simple and connect with your audience through relatable content. Practise your speech to deliver it confidently.

12. What are common topics for a Student Speech on Social Media?

Common topics for a Student Speech on Social Media include its impact on communication, privacy concerns, and its role in education. Choose a topic that interests you and provides a balanced view of social media’s effects.

13. How can I write an effective Short Speech on Social Media?

To write an effective Short Speech on Social Media, outline your main points and keep your language simple. Include a strong opening, clear explanations, and a memorable conclusion. Practise to ensure you stay within the time limit and speak confidently.

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UP social media policy: Influencers can earn up to ₹ 8 lakh; YouTubers can rake in more

Up social media policy: influencers will be paid ₹5 lakh, ₹4 lakh, ₹3 lakh and ₹2 lakh for their accounts on x, facebook and instagram..

The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet has approved the Uttar Pradesh Digital Media Policy, 2024, under which the government has decided to prepare a list of social media influencers who will receive state advertisements for promoting schemes and achievements of the UP dispensation.

Those sharing information on government schemes, initiatives and projects through their channels will be given opportunities to earn revenue through advertisements.

Influencers can now earn up to ₹ 8 lakh through government's advertisements.

Sanjay Prasad, Principal Secretary of the state's Information department, said on Tuesday that the government has decided to prepare a list of agencies/firms to provide advertisements to promote them for making and displaying content/tweets/videos/posts/reels about schemes and achievements of the UP government on online platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, reported The Indian Express.

Also read: Delhi University sets up committee on social media policy for employees

According to the number of subscribers and followers, the department will prepare a list of social media influencers, agencies and firms under four categories. The amount of payment will be based on the category a person falls under.

Also read: Don’t use social media to flaunt your work, U.P. bureaucrats told

These influencers will be paid a maximum of ₹ 5 lakh, ₹ 4 lakh, ₹ 3 lakh and ₹ 2 lakh for their accounts on X, Facebook and Instagram.

For YouTube videos, shorts and podcasts, the influencers of these four categories can earn up to ₹ 8 lakh, ₹ 7 lakh, ₹ 6 lakh and ₹ 4 lakh per month.

Also read: Centre plans to remove liability protections for social media firms

The social media policy aims to regulate content on these platforms. It also contains guidelines for addressing objectionable social media content.

Per the new policy, reported India Today, anti-national content would be considered a serious offence which carries a punishment of between three years to life imprisonment.

Defamatory and obscene content will also be punishable.

• ₹ 8 lakh; YouTubers can rake in more','cta_text':'Uttar Pradesh','article_id':'101724842311136','article_category':'india news','publish-date':'Aug 28, 2024 06:31 PM IST','logged_in_status':(getCookie('ht_token') ? 'logged_in':'non_logged_in'),'user_ID':(getCookie('ht_token') ? getCookie('_ht_clientid'):'NA')});" > Uttar Pradesh
• ₹ 8 lakh; YouTubers can rake in more','cta_text':'Social Media','article_id':'101724842311136','article_category':'india news','publish-date':'Aug 28, 2024 06:31 PM IST','logged_in_status':(getCookie('ht_token') ? 'logged_in':'non_logged_in'),'user_ID':(getCookie('ht_token') ? getCookie('_ht_clientid'):'NA')});" > Social Media
• ₹ 8 lakh; YouTubers can rake in more','cta_text':'Yogi Adityanath','article_id':'101724842311136','article_category':'india news','publish-date':'Aug 28, 2024 06:31 PM IST','logged_in_status':(getCookie('ht_token') ? 'logged_in':'non_logged_in'),'user_ID':(getCookie('ht_token') ? getCookie('_ht_clientid'):'NA')});" > Yogi Adityanath
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Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World

A fabulous story, or spilling etymological beans

Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology

Anatoly Liberman's column on word origins,  The Oxford Etymologist , appears on the OUPblog each Wednesday. Subscribe to Anatoly Liberman’s weekly etymology articles via  email  or  RSS .

• By Anatoly Liberman
• August 28 th 2024

For a long time, I have been trying to learn something about the source of the idiom to spill the beans “to divulge a secret” but discovered nothing. Though the Internet is full of vague suggestions, no one knows the origin of this phrase (which, incidentally, is a fairly common case with idioms). As just indicated, neither do I. Yet at the end of this essay, a rather disappointing hypothesis will be offered, and in the absence of more substantive ideas I thought it might be reasonable to touch on the origin of bean , a word that perhaps presents more interest than the evasive idiom.

The great sixth-century scholar Isidore of Seville was the author of a book titled Etymologiae , that is, “Etymologies,” one of the most famous works written in the Middle Ages. After Isidore, etymology as a branch of linguistics had to wait for more than a thousand years before turning into some semblance of science. However, we read ancient and medieval theories of word origins, from Plato on, with interest, because the tortuous history of human thought is not less instructive than the achievements of our time and because occasionally old scholars guessed well. In Isidore’s days (as well as before and long after him), learned people derived all words of European languages from Hebrew, Greek, or Latin.

As regards bean , or rather Latin faba , Isidore derived it from Greek phago – “eat(ing).” English speakers know phago – from the compounds sarcophagus and esophagus . Isidore’s idea outlived him by many centuries. Yet it inspires little confidence. Significant is only his comment: “Because beans are the first vegetables for humans.” In this respect, he was certainly right: beans have accompanied people through their entire history. Those who doubt it should read or reread John Steinbeck ’s charming story “ Tortilla Flat , ” as well as the immortal fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk . Finally, pay attention to the Latin name Fabius, which means “grower of beans.” One does not get such a name for nothing. By the way, Isidore consumed the beans, today known as Vicia faba , while our variety is called Phaseolus vulgaris and stems from America.

As far as English is concerned, let us first note that the same word for “bean” has been recorded in all the Old Germanic languages (the differences are due only to the vagaries of historical phonetics): Old English bēan , Old High German bōna (the modern form is Bohne ), Middle Dutch bone (Modern Dutch boon ), and Old Norse baun . Plinius mentioned the Frisian island Baunonia, apparently, “Land of beans.” The Common Germanic form must have sounded baun -.

Why, centuries and centuries ago, did people call this vegetable baun -? Similar forms have been recorded all over the place. For instance, the Slavic word for “bean” is somewhat like the Germanic one, namely bob . It has been suggested that bob is a sound-imitative word (like English phut or pooh – pooh ). Presumably, beans split with some noise. In the Grimms’ tale “ Straw, Coal, and Bean ,” the bean splits with laughter at seeing its companions perish. Why this event tickled the bean to death is a special subject, but we may assume that some noise did accompany the splitting. Anyway, a tailor who happened to be close by sowed the patient together (hence, we are told, to this day, a black seam appears in the middle of all beans).

Bob (the Slavic form) may have gone back to some form like bha-bh(a) . Monosyllables beginning with and ending in the same stop , such as dud , tut , gig , tut , kick , pop (and bob !) do look like onomatopoeic creations. But Germanic baun – is unlike the Slavic word bob – in that it lacks the second b . Attempts to reconstruct some ancient Indo-European protoform like babn-o , with the loss of the second b in Germanic, are among the many sterile exercises plaguing etymological algebra. Conversely, initial f in Latin and initial b in Germanic are a regular match: both go to the consonant b h .

Rather probably, the two forms ( baun -, its root being bau -, and bob -) emerged independently, even if the impulse that produced them was similar. Considering the fact that beans were known to Germanic speakers very long ago, one wonders whether the name of the vegetable might be borrowed from some indigenous speakers, that is, from the people who inhabited their land before the Germanic invaders (we may call them newcomers, because we have no evidence testifying to an invasion) and whose language is now lost beyond recovery. Such words taken over from an unknown language are covered by the term substrate . In our case, this guesswork is unproductive, because we have no information about that hypothetical language or about the previous settlers.

Let me finish this part of the essay with a bit of humor. Two phrases have been recorded in British dialects: Bob’s a dying and kick up Bob’s a-dying . Both mean “boisterous merriment; to make a great noise.” No one knows their origin, but it may not be quite fortuitous that the proper name Bob was chosen for the occasion (not Jack, let alone Tom, Dick, or Harry): perhaps it still evokes the idea of ruckus. I am now returning to the proverbial saying. Why do we say to spill the beans ? Everything is puzzling about it. The phrase surfaced late: no attestation in print before the beginning of the twentieth century. It looks like an American coinage (in any case, the first examples are from American media). And we don’t know what situation inspired the idiom. Who in real life used to spill beans and thus “leak” precious information? Even the image of beans being spilled is far from clear.

I have no answer to the riddle, but it is curious how often beans appears in idioms. An amusing British regional saying, which was current at least as early as the eighteen-thirties, sounded so: “To know how many beans make five,” that is, to be fully aware of one’s interests (a reference to some forgotten game?), while not to know beans still means “to be ignorant.” “Not to care a bean” is a synonym for “not to care a thing, a fig, a brass farthing” (or “a hill of beans”!), and so forth. To get beans means “to be punished,” to give somebody beans “to beat to a pulp,” and so it goes down to cool beans “great job.” This environment provides no clue to the phrase that interests us, but it shows that beans has long been a favorite element of idiomatic sayings (even more so than nuts ). Beans is also ubiquitous in the context of sex. This is surprising, seeing that beans, even though, as noted above, have played an outstanding role in human history, are no longer the most important part of our diet, while all the idioms with beans are or seem to be recent. (Incidentally, when Russian speakers draw blank, they are said to be left on (the) beans. Why? The phrase is ostat’sia na bobakh .)

Perhaps the phrase to spill the beans simply joined many others containing the overused word. Oscar Wilde once wrote a tale titled “ Sphinx without a Secret .” The tale is not one of his masterpieces, but the title is brilliant. Isn’t our idiom such a sphinx? You get beans, you give somebody beans, you spill beans. Why bother? I conclude: no need crying over spilled beans.

Featured image by Elizabeth Tyler Wolcott, Digital Commonwealth via Wikimedia Commons . Public domain.

Anatoly Liberman  is the author of  Word Origins And How We Know Them ,   An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction , and  Take My Word For It: A Dictionary of English Idioms .

Anatoly's latest book,  Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology  (OUP, 2024), is available to pre-order. 

His column on word origins,  The Oxford Etymologist , appears on the OUPblog each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to him care of  [email protected] ; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.”

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That some “don’t know beans” suggests others do know beans. Positive and negative also apply in bean brain versus use you bean. Beans grow in pods. If the pods get wet and then dry, beans spill. Someone who does know beans can be encouraged to spill them.

“Anyway, a tailor who happened to be close by sowed the patient together”

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How the media blew 2024′s election | Will Bunch Newsletter

Plus, does America really need the world’s ‘most lethal’ military?

I’m back — back from Chicago and also back, inshallah , with weekly newsletters from now until Election Day. Friends and neighbors who watched on TV keep asking me what covering the Democratic National Convention was really like. It was the difference between seeing Springsteen or the Stones in a documentary versus being at the show for a few pulsating hours.

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here .

Critics begged the media to rise to the occasion of the 2024 election, but it’s hitting new lows

This column, about the decline and fall of America’s political news media in such a pivotal election year, has proved very hard to write — not for a lack of material, but because I can’t keep pace with every day’s new and stunning examples of bad journalism, each one spiraling a tad lower.

I’ll start with the weekend’s lowlight: a news story that worked up the media food chain from the muck of smaller right-wing outlets , then got boosted on X/Twitter by Alex Thompson , a widely read national political correspondent for Axios, before the New York Post hyped it in your local Wawa and eventually the New York Times felt compelled to address it. You see, an idea that has animated the right for the last couple of weeks is the fantasy that Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz is a phony. Sunday’s purported news slammed Walz for a 2006 episode when his then-congressional campaign claimed he’d won a youth award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce when really it was — get this! — the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce!

Never mind that the 2006 Walz campaign had corrected this tiny mistake (picture Barack Obama doing the hand thing , but even smaller), probably the work of a junior staffer, the second they learned about it. The nattering nabobs of negativism had accomplished their mission in a year when the elite mainstream media has lost its doggone mind — going after small daily clickbait like a puppy chasing its tail, demanding news conferences only to ask trivial questions , issuing ludicrous “fact checks ,” and desperately seeking gravitas in the candidate just found guilty on 34 felony counts and liable for rape and financial fraud, who was dinged by NPR for 162 lies or distortions in just one news conference.

Indeed, the outrageous overinflation of the Walz story was nearly forgotten by Monday morning when the Times, which has bent over backwards to belittle the joy of Kamala Harris’ wildly successful Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, published an op-ed from the editor of the conservative National Review, Rich Lowry, headlined simply: “ Trump Can Win on Character .” Perhaps that’s true, as critics noted, if voters do what Lowry did in his piece and pretend that inconvenient facts like the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection or the fraud verdict had never happened. But while the column was ridiculed on social media, few people said they were giving up on the Times — because in this annus horribilis for the American media, many had already tuned out the NYT weeks or months ago.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen urged journalists to cover “ the stakes, not the odds” of the 2024 election while Margaret Sullivan — who writes for the Guardian and her Substack after stints at the Times and the Washington Post — was more blunt in beseeching the press to ignore the pull of both-sides journalism and take seriously the threat to democracy posed by Trump, who tried to override his 2020 election loss and has made no comforting assurances that he won’t try to do the same after Nov. 5, 2024.

Few journalists — if any — have listened. Much of the righteous fury during the Chicago DNC was directed at fact - checkers from the Times, Post, and independent organizations like PolitiFact. These organizations or practices were mostly established after the endemic political lying of the 2000s — remember the Iraq War ? But while no one would argue with their stated approach of tough, unbiased scrutiny of all sides, the fact-checking industrial complex can’t handle the truth when one party’s platform is based on a firehouse of lies and the other party is trying to be serious, if not always literal, about reality.

So Democratic convention week brought absurdities like PolitiFact tackling a DNC video that showed an actual Trump 2016 quote that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions and labeled it “mostly false” (!!) because his panicked aides later told him to walk back such a politically damaging statement. Also typical was USA Today calling it “false” when the DNC talks about “Trump’s Project 2025″ because the blueprint for his presidency was produced by the Heritage Foundation, even though most of its authors are former and would-be future Trump staffers and it offers the only program for filling jobs in a Trump administration.

C’mon, man.

It would require another column — maybe a book — to explain why this is happening. I see it as less the public’s main complaint (corporate control of the media) and more about our profession’s weird value structure, where it’s more important to be savvy, cynical, and not be portrayed as naive shills for liberalism than to care about saving democracy from authoritarian rule, on top of maybe a new and not always healthy brand of careerism from younger journalists.

The Chicago-based media critic Mark Jacob, a retired veteran editor of that city’s Tribune and Sun Times, nailed it Monday with a piece headlined “Mainstream media on a path to irrelevance.” Jacob has harsh words for how reporters have covered the race, writing that “too many political journalists are marinating in the Washington cocktail culture, writing for each other and for their sources — in service to the political industry, not the public.” But he also notes that traditional media can’t figure out how to compete for young eyeballs against sites like edgy and fast-paced TikTok . Jacob pointed out that public faith in mass media has plunged from 72% in 1976, after Watergate, to just 32% today.

You know who gets the new landscape better than anyone else? Kamala Harris.

The vice president and Democratic nominee is running to be America’s first post-media president. In Chicago, much was made of the fact that Team Harris and the Democrats invited 200 sometimes fawning internet “content creators” who got VIP treatment while mainstream journalists fought over nosebleed-level seats and refrained from eating or going to the bathroom for fear of losing them.

But more broadly, Harris and her campaign is 100% focused on message discipline to build her brand and sell it to the American people in a few short weeks. The surest way to get thrown off that message discipline would be a stray answer at an open news conference or in an interview with the likes of NBC’s Lester Holt — so for now, Harris is simply not doing that .

And she’s getting away with it. Mainstream journalists can carp and whine about this all they want, but when less than a third of Americans trust the mass media, few folks are listening to them. What’s been really striking this year is that while traditionally deep distrust of the mainstream press has been the domain of right-wing Republicans , now it’s liberals who once cheered for the media to do better who seem to be giving up on them .

This is not great. For one thing, the plunge in faith leads to cancelled subscriptions that leads to laid-off reporters or shuttered printing plants — not the vision of America’s founders who believed a free press is essential. In this campaign, I think the healthy journalistic mindset is that we want to save democracy in November, but we also want Harris to show she can answer at least a few tough questions and explain her policies beyond hopelessly vague generalities.

The reality, though, is that Harris might surge into the White House in January doing very little of this — maybe none at all, especially if Trump actually chickens out of their Sept. 10 debate in Philadelphia. Fifty years ago this summer, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency because people believed what they read about him in the Washington Post. Today, Harris feels she doesn’t need journalists at all, and a lot of the public is cheering her on. And a vainglorious elite news media with severe tunnel vision has no one to blame but themselves.

Yo, do this!

In the Better Late Than Never Department, the gap in newsletters deprived me of a chance to tell you that — in preparing for my Chicago trip — I finally watched 1969′s Medium Cool . The film by storied cinematographer Haskell Wexler uses America’s third-largest city, the social crises of the late 1960s, and a frame of journalistic ethics to create a remarkable if sometimes muddled time capsule. Wexler’s nervy decision to film fictional scenes amid the real-life chaos of the 1968 DNC is a compelling reason to track down a true relic.

Earlier this year, I told you about Benjamen Walker’s quirky podcast The Theory of Everything and its deep dive into the fascinating world of Cold War literary intrigue, “ Not All Propaganda is Art .” Walker is back with a great new episode on the 40th anniversary of 1984 (the year, not the book), which ties together Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson, the new Apple computer, and the zeitgeist of that eventful year from the perspective of a sci-fi obsessed middle-schooler, as George Orwell lurks in the background. A must-listen.

Ask me anything

Question : If Kamala pulls it out but doesn’t have a blue Senate, what will that mean for her agenda? — Everything’s Fine ( @ResistInBux ) via X/Twitter

Answer : The odds of this happening are strong — the GOP is guaranteed a pickup in West Virginia, which means Dems would need to defend every vulnerable seat (including Sen. Jon Tester in blood-red Montana) and/or pull an unlikely upset or two to do better than the slimmest 50-50-plus-Tim-Walz majority. A Republican Senate would surely prevent a President Kamala Harris from any Supreme Court picks, and vote down any progressive Cabinet nominees. And any liberal economic or social safety net policies would be dead on arrival. Pray for miracles this November.

What you’re saying about...

I was blown away by your enthusiastic response to the last newsletter’s question about America’s best and worst vice presidential nominees. In a tight race for worst, Sarah Palin (6 votes), a dunce, edged out Spiro Agnew (5), a felon, with 3 votes for Dan Quayle and single tallies for Richard Nixon, Andrew Johnson, Joe Lieberman, JD Vance , and Dick Cheney (from my dad!...so proud). Showing the leftward bent of this crowd, the best veep race was a tie between the most-progressive-ever No, 2, FDR’s Henry Wallace , and anti-poverty warrior Lyndon Johnson. Al Gore and Joe Biden each got two votes, with one apiece for Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, and Mike Pence, because, as Armen Pandola put it, “when you refuse to destroy the Republic, it’s about the best that a VP can do.”

📮This week’s question: Let’s go with more of an essay question. I know most of you aren’t happy with media coverage of the election; what’s wrong with the Fourth Estate, and how can it be fixed? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me your answer . Please put “Broken media” in the subject line.

Backstory on Harris and the world’s ‘most lethal’ military

The thousands of red, white and blue balloons have all popped, the echoes of DJ Cassidy segueing from Michigan’s Eminem to Minnesota’s Prince have finally died, and those American flags were all confiscated at O’Hare by the TSA (I’m guessing). But two words from Vice President Kamala Harris in her acceptance speech are still ringing for me, and for some other folks also pondering them. Harris made the somewhat boilerplate promise that her administration would offer the strongest military in the world, but added it will also be “ the most lethal .”

It was clear that one of the main purposes of Harris’ speech, in introducing herself as a presidential candidate for little more than a month since President Joe Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from the race, was to get voters picturing the would-be first American woman president behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, dealing with adversaries like Iran or Russia. And it accomplished that mission. But the seeming bloodlust of the “most lethal” vow was a bit cringe for some listeners — even, according to Newsweek , for her stepdaughter Ella Emhoff and sister Maya Harris, who didn’t join others in applauding. Leftists on X/Twitter spent the weekend tweeting about all the things — like health insurance or free college — they’d prefer over the “most lethal” military. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Harris supporter who agreed America needs a strong defense said our bloated Pentagon budget should be cut, and that “ enough is enough !”

Sanders has a point. America currently spends more on defense than the world’s next nine biggest militaries combined, and yet jacking up Pentagon spending every year is the only thing Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill can agree on. And just how lethal do we need to be? One study found that America, mostly through airstrikes from Syria to Afghanistan and elsewhere, killed at least 22,000 civilians since the 2001 terror attack, and maybe as many as 48,000. Some of those folks were anti-American terrorists, but a decent number were Afghanis attending weddings or just living their lives. The United States must be — and by all accounts is — able to defend itself, with deadly force when necessary, but our talent for killing human beings should be reined in, not celebrated by a would-be commander-in-chief. After a week with Stevie Wonder and The Chicks , it was the one false note from Chicago.

What I wrote on this date in 2019

Donald Trump was showing his age, and perhaps losing his mentally acuity or worse — on this date five years ago, when he was still our president. I wrote: “Suddenly, a topic that was only discussed by the unfiltered internet masses — is Trump mentally ill, or at age 73 suffering a steep decline in mental acuity — has gone mainstream, discussed openly by pundits like CNN’s Brian Stelter (“ It’s getting worse — we all can see it”) or with presidential candidates like New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker calling him “ a dangerous president .” In my Aug. 27, 2019 column I wrote that the constitutional remedies for this, such as impeachment or the 25th Amendment, had failed, and that stopping Trump was up to us. Just like today! Check out: “ The Constitution’s 3 ways to stop a demagogue like Trump haven’t worked. Now what ?”

Recommended Inquirer reading

Hopefully a lot of you already know I was in Chicago last week covering the DNC. I looked for the ghosts of 1968 ′s violent and tempestuous Democratic convention that haunted the Windy City (and were perhaps exorcised), drilled into the mindset of the pro-Palestinian protesters in the streets, wrote about the United Center vibes that felt more like a warehouse rave than a political confab, and finally how Kamala Harris and her celebration reclaimed the American flag for the Democrats. It was a week I’ll never forget.

One last thing about Chicago: It capped a truly epic summer not just for me but for my Inquirer colleagues who’ve been providing some of America’s best political coverage both from the road and from our little newsroom overlooking Independence Hall , where it all began. The great coverage from our team at the DNC last week was led by national political reporter Julia Terusso , the hardest working woman in show business; City Hall ace Sean Collins Walsh, who, like a journalistic Brian Dawkins, was all over Philly’s local pols ; photojournalist Jose F. Moreno, who produced some Pulitzer-worthy shots ; and my Opinion colleague Jenice Armstrong, who captured the emotions of watching the first woman of color accept a major-party nomination. You’re going to want to follow these guys and the rest of the Inquirer crew from now through Nov. 5, and to do that you’ll need to subscribe. Why not start today ?

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