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Since the creation of social media, we have seen a tremendous increase in the popularity of platforms such as: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even Reddit. Nowadays, the use of social media is part of our daily customs. But what is the impact of social media on the population, especially the youth? Social media is having a serious impact on the mental health of young people, leading to serve depression, or at worse even suicide. According to a 2019 Facebook survey “Teen Mental Health Deep Dive”, the impact of social media on young girls is severely damaging, especially concerning their body image, but regardless to demographic, the impact of cyber bullying and mental health from social media worrying. Will it be worse in the future?
The spread of information is not often regulated but in some case, such as when Donald Trump got banned from Twitter, regulation has been done which suggests further improvements in the future. When we can say that spreading information is useful in a way, as we saw with the use of Twitter by Donald Trump, sometimes people are using social media to spread fake news. In the future, information will be regulated better to try to achieve a spread of truthful information.
Stanley Cohen’s theory of Moral Panic can be readily applied to social media and the spread of information. Cohen suggests that the media purposely acts to inaccurately portray “threatening” (to the societal norms) issues which has the impact of causing irrational and widespread fear amongst the public. We can see this most recently with the Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 which saw mass media attention, which acted to panic shoppers and caused further shortage/supply issues.
To protect user’s privacy on social media, a user must be able to control their own privacy. They are only able to control this privacy if they possess the information necessary to make relevant choices[1]. Consumer knowledge and privacy should therefore be related to a consumer’s concern. If we link this to the platform with 2.9 billion monthly users, Facebook, these concerns have not been fulfilled. Facebook continues to have access to 45% of the population’s personal data and will likely have access to even more over the next ten years. Facebook’s current response to privacy has been inadequate. Data acquired through social media as shown by the Cambridge Analytica Scandal is a tool/weapon of great power. Companies or states are likely to continue to exploit or mishandle this personal data. Therefore, I believe the future impact of social media on people’s privacy in to be one of encroachment, social medias are likely to be more of a threat to people’s privacy in the future.
By Ava Brown, Ben Farrow, Gregor Horn, Justine Denuault and Beth Chisholm
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I think that with social media we can kind of control what we want to see and block everything else, so why do you think it creates such bad feelings? Is it an accumulation with what we see on tv and magazines too for example with ads and the fact that not everyone is represented which can give insecurities. Because almost everyone is on social media and so it is a little more inclusive even though most of the people only show their best self. Do you think we can use this tool to make people feel good? And if not what can we do to make everyone feel comfortable with themselves and just do good?
I think that because people show their best self on social media, it is not representative of the real life and that is why people cannot rely on what they see on social media and so feel bad. Also the fact that they are modifying their body can cause body issue. Even if we can block everything that we don’t want to see, we are in front of millions and millions of post and we will react to this post differently. I just think that because people are using social media to post their ‘perfect life’ (and now people start to notice that it is not beneficial), it reinforces the criteria inflicted by the society on the ‘perfect body’ and the stereotype of what’s a ‘perfect life’. We could definitely use social media differently but we would have to make major changes and it would be difficult but not impossible.
Do you think that if we get rid of fake news on social media the freedom of speech might be altered, because for instance if a newspaper publishes a satirical post that is not real because the truth is emphasized although it denounces something real? I mean who might be able to judge what is fake news and what is not, and if it’s a machine how can we be sure that the machine is not going to have an unbiased point of view? And I feel that it is the same issue with people that edit their pictures in order to show their best self it is not a hindrance to freedom of expression even if it is for the greater good?
I think we have to differentiate satire from fake news because fake news has for main purpose to spread a fake information and a satire has for purpose to make fun of an event for example. Freedom of speech is something that we cannot suppressed and freedom of speech is the freedom of seeing what is our opinion and what we think but if it is just to spread fake news, it is not necessarily our opinion and it is generally not for the greater good as we saw with how Donald Trump was using Twitter. Twitter did banned Donald Trump and we can see that the platform is controlling what is said on it. People and their pictures are only showing a better version of themselves but fake news is more something related to a piece of information and not a picture. And also, posting picture of ourselves on social media rely upon freedom of speech but we cannot control that unfortunately and so it doesn’t change how young women will react to these posts. In a nutshell, fake news is different from satire and posting edited pictures of ourselves is freedom of speech and we cannot suppress that, it is just promoting a perfect body image that is not achievable and that is the problem, it is different from fake news. I hope I answer your question well.
You mentioned the impact of social media on mental health and body image due to the editing of images. Do you think it possible that developers of these apps could introduce the need to disclose whether an image has been edited? is so, would this be effective in reducing the editing of images and therefore the impact of social media on body image? What other solutions to this issue do you think are possible in coming years?
I think that purpose of editing an image is to make believe people that this is a real picture non edited but the fact is that I don’t think people need to edit their pictures because every body is different and what people are showing on their edited picture is not achievable so instead of saying that it has been edited people should just stop editing their pictures because I think it would be the only solution to decrease the impact of social media on body image and mental health of people.
‘Fake news’ can be controversial as there will always be a debate and difference of opinion in what is ‘true’ and false.’ To an extent. However I agree that the hold social media has over us in particular young people that shows off a glamorous ‘ ideal’ world which is not reality. Fake news and fake presentations such as facetune editing and showing off the ‘best parts’ of life
Yes but as we saw with Donald Trump his use of social media was not made to spread information that are just controversial, it was clearly made sometimes to target people and to pour his anger on other politics to gain more vote. It was not a good use of social media and that is the problem with social media. People are not using social media for the purpose it has been created in the first place. But some ‘fake news’ can be controversial I agree with you because some people because an information has been spread, they believe that it is the truth or some people may have understood an information in a different way, that is why they are spreading unconsciously fake news.
I think your topic is a fundamental worry in this age of technology. We’re dealing with technology that we have no idea how to control and its detrimental effects on mental health. You highlight the key problems that these big tech companies aren’t resolving and even with people like Tristan Harris I feel that in the near future we’re gonna enter slowly into some kind of dystopian reality. This is a very current problem and you cover the problem well.