Social media has negatively changed our culture Essay

Social media has negatively changed our culture - Essay Example The aim of this paper is to examine some of the popular accusations of social media and explain that the positive consequences of social media for the culture outweigh the suggested threats. At present, the world of social media is broad and presented by the variety of widely available networking sites that provide opportunities for socialization. The most popular among them can be considered Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other actively used by people across generations and social groups. All together they created the new digital arena for maintaining relationships, communicating, making business, or sharing news. (Sawyer, 2011) Obviously, such extensive popularity and influence which social media managed to gain in relatively short period of time could not leave one ignorant of the possible consequences of the tendency to spend time online instead of the real-life alternatives. As a result, the possibility of both positive and negative outcomes of social media is recognized. Both sides have elaborated particular set of arguments that seemingly contain the grain of truth and common sense, therefore, they need to be closely and thoroughly examined in order to formulate a personal position in this regard. The base of arguments of people who are trying to prove that social media represents a destructive force for a culture is the long one, but, to my mind, includes issues that can be prevented by careful use and conscious approach to social media. Among such negative claims can be mentioned disregard of privacy and sharing too much personal information that can be used for inappropriate goals. Also, much is being said about cyberbullying, online harassment that make people feel insecure and treat peace in the society. ("Technology can have,") Apart from that, social media is often blamed for promoting the culture of narcissism – excessive interest in oneself and one’s appearance. ("Technology can have,") All