Today it is impossible to imagine our world without social media; you will hardly find a millennial without an account on any popular social platform; all successful brands have an account on the social media But is it good that the social media plays such an important role in our life?
Chamath Palihapitiya, ex-vice president for growth at Facebook, during his recent speech, explained the audience why he believed that social media was more of a hindrance than a help to the society.
Negative impact of the social media
Palihapitiya’s opinion about Facebook as well as any other platform of this kind is considered: such tools destroy the basic principles of the society and interconnections between individuals. Because of the oversubscription to the social media and online communication, people lose track of the ways how common real-life converse is processed. Online chats create short-term interconnection unlike long-term connections formed with help of real communication.
- Social media serves as a source of misinformation and spreads it with astonishing speed
- It interferes personal communication between people.
- Facebook tends to share personal information of users to third-parties, even WhatsApp also collects your personal info and location of you tap the live location sharing on.
- Social media is a perfect place for cyberbullies
- Sometimes with live video streaming something wrong spreads like fire. Till date, Facebook has this one, before a few month Twitter also included live video option that can act as a two-sided knife!
Another point of view
Of course, there are many defenders of this way of communication, who state that the negative impact of the social media can be diminished by changing the way of utilizing it. Thus, there is a big difference between scrolling the news feed passively and when you get too much engaged in messaging. In this situation usage of the social media resembles the real word a lot: when you act like an observer, it feels much worse than you are engaged in interaction with close people.
How can the situation be improved?
Facebook already makes the first steps to lessen the negative influence of the platform overuse:
- The first news on the news feed will be the news from close people instead of clickbait headlines
- It is possible to hide posts from certain user or group for a month to improve the quality of received content
- Users can limit the amount of content that their ex-es publish and can view
- The platform had a dig at the research of the connection of media technologies and well-being of the society
Still, all these steps are not highly evaluated by the critics of the social media, as they believe that all these seeming improvements are aimed to throw dust in our eyes.
In order to avoid possible consequences, one should take ownership of the usage of the social media. For example, establishing device-free hours at home when all family gathers together can be a sound solution as well as limiting the number of social media platforms where you have an account.
