In this period of time, social media is something that we all cannot escape from. We use all kinds of social media platforms in our everyday life, causing social media has a very strong effect to our society. We all have a dependency on social media for fulfilling our everyday needs. We use social media to do our tasks and assignments, to shop for our primary or secondary needs, to keep things in touch with our friends, etc. There are so many functions of social media, but besides the positive things that we’ve mentioned before, social media also has a negative effects for our life. (Yollanda)
One of the main problems of using social media is how its addiction affects on how we behave on social media platforms, such as on Instagram. When people are using Instagram, they tend to act or show the media someone they are not, for example, you post a picture of your healthy meal even though in real life it is not what you usually eat, you did it because you want people to think that you are living a healthy lifestyle. Although this might not seems to be such a big deal, but if this action is done repeatedly, it will be considered unethical because you’re not true to yourself. (Luthfia)
On the other hand, social media makes you more to consumptive. For example, people tend to want to look better than their friends in social media. Then, it leads them to buy products or go places, it simply can make people more competitive with each other on terms of our impression in social media. They don’t want to be seen outdated. Because of that thinking, people also spend more money on things they don’t necessarily need just because they want others to see that you can afford such things that are considered have a prestige or value. Moreover, people are easily to make hoaxes then spread it anonymously. The way hoaxes spread quickly in social media makes people believe it easily without checking the fact. (Carissa)
As you can see from the previous paragraph, there are a lot of benefits and also negative effects, mostly negative effects. Some of the negative effects might seem inevitable like how it would be quite difficult for us to change our behaviour towards it. But nevertheless, it is possible for us to seek for some help as in trying in baby steps to cope with our addiction towards it. For example, maybe a social media break would give us some space to reflect on ourselves. Competitiveness is not always a bad thing, but in this context, competitive is not necessarily needed. Social media is a platform to express yourself, it is not a media to compete with anyone nor trying to make ourselves a little less. We also believe, that hoax is much more inevitable, because not also hoax is contagious, it is also a culture that has been going on for quite some time. We suppose the best way to cope with that is by being more aware and critical with everything we got from social media. In conclusion, although there are many negative effects that we found from social media, as a user it is our job to be wise on using it and it is also our responsibility if something from social media actually changes us. (Annisa)
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