Excessive Use of Social Media and The Internet Is Detrimental on One's Emotional, Physical, and Mental Health

The Internet and social media have become a vital aspect in today’s society. Millions of people are connected every day just through the click of a button. Though much of the research is still incomplete, it has been found that the overuse of the Internet is having a negative impact on its users overall health. Though with moderation the Internet can be beneficial, more people than ever are overusing the Internet, causing various negative effects to many of its users.

The Continuously Growing Use of Social Media is Having A Negative Affect on Its Users Mental Health

According to this study, people that heavily use the Internet and social media sites tend to have more feelings of depression and loneliness. Viewing others’ profiles on social media gives many users the impression that other people are happier than he or she is, causing many to feel left out and unsatisfied with his or herself. Often, this can manifest into depression. Besides this, the excessive use of social media can increase stress levels. The Internet allows its users to be constantly connected and when taken away, many feel anxious and stressed. As illustrated in this graph, according to a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation in January of 2010, heavy Internet users are much more likely to feel sad than moderate or light internet users.              

Society’s Overuse of the Internet is Negatively Affecting Physical Health Too

According to this article, when something interesting is found on the Internet, reward pathways are lighting up in the brain and users can become in danger of becoming addicted. As stated by Hilarie Cash who runs a center for Internet and video game addiction, “The hit-and-miss nature of the Internet — with some websites being interesting, while many are not — may make it an especially seductive medium. [There is a] little bit of chemical excitement that occurs in the brain when something of interest pops up on the computer screen…you never know what you’re going to get.” This is much like the nature of slot machines and why the Internet can be just as addicting.

It Is Clear That Social Media Impacts Users Emotionally and Physically, But Many Are Still Skeptical on Whether or Not It Is Considered a Mental Illness

Though many of the same reward pathways that occur during gambling light up when positive rewards pop up on the computer screen, many still do not classify Internet addiction as a mental illness. According to Dr. Dylan Selterman who has a Ph.D in Social/Physical Psychology and is a Psychology professor at the University of Maryland, excessive Internet use can be debilitating on all aspects of life, but it is one of the many pleasures in life that is not yet considered a mental illness when used in excess. 

Social Media and The Internet is Even Affecting Its Users' Intellectual Capabilities

The more people use the Internet, the harder it will be for that user to remember vital information that they have obtained throughout the day. The flood of competing messages that excessive internet usage causes interferes with the physical mechanics of the brain that move information into long-term memory. When so many messages are being charged into the brain at once, it makes it hard to completely and fully process everything. Downtime allows for the brain to go over experiences it has had all day and then solidify them. When the brain is constantly stimulated because of something such as the Internet or social media, the user prevents this from happening.

Internet Use is Connected to Shorter Attention Spans, too.

The Internet and social media sites are fast paced places. Millions of pieces of information are thrown at a person at once. With many different forms of smart phones, tablets, and laptops along with thousands of application readily available by the touch of the finger, using the Internet can be a distracting thing. According to Nicholas Carr, a critically acclaimed author, “The Internet speaks to the parts of our brain that are attracted to movement, visual imagery and novelty—primitive parts of the brain that do not lend themselves to deep thought and contemplation.” Social media and the Internet take away our ability to think deep thoughts and because of this it is much easier to become distracted, causing many Americans to have shorter attention spans.
 

With The Combination of Many Intellectual Capabilities Being Impacted, Students’ Grades Are Declining

Because so much more information is being flooded into Internet users’ brain, causing their long-term memory to be impacted, along with millions of more distractions, many students' grades are declining because they are unable to solidify the information learned at school. According to the same study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, it is more likely for a moderate or light Internet user to get good grades that a heavy internet user.   

Excessive Amount of Internet Use Also Takes Away the Possibility of Human Interaction

It seems as though in this day in age, everything has been switched from human interaction, to online. People are online dating, businesses are conducting meetings online, and many tend to talk over text or Facebook chat instead of communicating in person. Because of this, younger adults are not developing the necessary face-to face human contact skills that are still important in today’s society. Though throughout the past decade many tasks have been transformed onto the Internet, much still has not. A task such as an interview if typically conducted in person. Because many of the excessive Internet users are not developing the typical communication skills, their ability to perform these vital life skills have completely diminished, negatively impacting a large aspect of their life.

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Stephanie states that lower income societies typically are not fortunate enough to have the same amount of technology as many UMD students are used to

Though social media has such a large impact on today's society, the relationship between mental health and use of social networking sites is still unknown

In the past decade, social media has played a large role in almost every human beings life, so much that some people are even becoming addicted to it. Though still a controversial subject, studies show that this new internet addiction can be causing depressive symptoms in many people.

Before there were social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the Internet still had an affect on its users. 

In a study conducted in Kraut et al. in the late 1990s, he proved through that Internet use affected the way that people communicated. Although the Internet was just becoming widely popular and social networking sites had not yet been thought of, he showed that social relationships and participation in community life were negatively affected by excessive Internet use. The people that spent more time on the Internet spent less time with their families and friends, which fostered depressive symptoms within them. Because of this study, many believed that computer use would even have negative effects on children’s social development. The creation of social networking sites would only broaden this situation.

Social networking sites may prove to cause depressive symptoms in its users. 

When social networking sites were created, children and teenagers were spending more and more time on the Internet. Some people might even say that people were, and still are, becoming addicted to the internet. Besides changing the amount of time spent on the Internet, social networking sites also affected the way the human beings interacted. Some studies show that this change in Internet use caused depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness in the participants. These results can be for many reasons. For one, Facebook use is linked to participants’ impression that other users are happier. This can easily cause feelings of being left out which can manifest itself into depression. Another possible reason is that spending more time on social media can cause people to spend less socializing in real time, causing people to cut ties and inevitably causing the feeling of loneliness. Overall through many studies, people believe that social networking sites can cause a decline in mental health.

On the other hand, in some cases social media has also decreased depressive symptoms in its users.

Though many studies show that Internet use can increase depressive feelings in its participants, these results are still not completely conclusive. Some believe that the use of social media can actually reduce depression. In another study produced by Kraut et al., these results showed that online communication through social networking sites allowed the participants to strengthen and maintain social ties with family members and close friends. The people felt that they had a closer connection with their Facebook friends, which created closer relationships in reality too. This social support actually benefited mental health.

Because social networking sites are relatively new, experiment results are still questionable. 

Hundreds of studies have been created in order to discover the relationship between social media and mental health but still, more studies need to be produced in order to truly prove this relationship. The difficulty with this is that correlation does not mean causation; it is nearly impossible to conclude which variable is the cause and which is the effect. Though many believe that social media fosters depression, it could just as well be that people with depressive symptoms are attracted to social networking. Regardless, social networking has caused a great impact on today’s society and with more research to come, soon the true relationship will be revealed.

With technology changing every day, American technology users are finding different ways to adapt and access various news sources through different mediums.

By Tayler53 and Alyssa18

The United States citizens are very technologically advanced, with millions of people using smartphones, tablets, and the skyrocketing usage of internet. With various technologies being created each day, the media sites are becoming more and more competitive to fight for the attention of each internet user.

Though technology plays a great role in American's every day lives, many still prefer to receive their news from offline sources.

When comparing online and offline top brands that Americans use in order to obtain news, surprisingly, both local and television news and local newspapers triumph over Yahoo News, which is the leading online news site that technology users use in order to obtain news. About 45% of Americans watch their local news and 34% of Americans read their local newspaper while only about 28% of Americans read Yahoo News. It seems as though Americans still prefer to receive their news offline. With many apps available online to make newspapers readily available, people still chose to use the offline copy. For example, Fox News offline is used as a news source 33% of the time while it is only used online about 17% of the time. The same trend occurs from the New York Times.

Even though many still prefer offline news sources, digital devices and digital subscriptions sites are still extremely popular for obtaining news.

With Apple, along with hundreds of other brands, creating the most up to date technology for Internet users all over the world, it is no surprise that Americans are constantly using their devices in order to obtain news. In this day and age, it is even extremely popular to have more than one digital device. In 2014, 35% of Americans were getting their news on at least two digital devices. While this number seems larger, even more interesting is that 12% of Americans use three or more digital devices in order to obtain news. Within these devices, 11% of the users subscribe and pay for online news. This shows that even though many prefer offline new, subscription sites are still extremely prevalent.

While more Apple users obtain news from their tablet more than any other brand, Apple smartphones users do not use their phones the most to obtain news, compared to other brands.

It seems as though everyday Americans hear all about the latest technology that Apple is creating. There are thousands of commercials, advertisements, and promotions that Apple continuously releases in order to lure society into buying their products. With this being said, it is surprising that their users are not the ones most frequently using their phones to find news. Only 15% of Apple Smartphone users are using their device to obtain news while 18% of other Smartphone brand users use their device to find news. On the other hand, this is trend is not true for Apple tablet users. While only 8% of other tablet brand users use their table to get news, 13% of Apple tablet users use their device to obtain news.  

While the traditional online and offline newspapers and broadcasters provide the majority of the U.S. with news, social networks continue to increase in popularity in providing news information to the country.

In the United States, news information can be accessed through many different types of technology.  Today, broadcasters tend to be the leading form of news access, with 86% of people accessing through cross platform reach and 82% of people accessing through traditional (offline) reach.  The second highest form of news access by the U.S. is still newspaper, which may come as a surprise to many considering the massive amounts of other online news forms and other technologies.  58% of people access newspapers through cross platform reach and almost half of the nation (49%) still get their news from the traditional (offline) newspaper.  Although the majority of U.S. news is still accessed through broadcasting and newspapers, social networks continue to provide a reasonable amount of people with news.  Facebook is the top social network, providing 37% of citizens with news information.  Following Facebook, YouTube and Twitter give a combined percentage of 25% of people with news information.  These graphics prove that although the traditional news remains to be on top, news can be accessed in so many different places with the rapid increase in technology.

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The majority of both young adults and adults are hesitant when releasing private information when using the internet

Though many times it is thought that teenagers and even adults are careless when it comes to internet privacy, according to this Digiday article written by Saya Weissman, this is not necessarily the case. It seems that there is truly a growing concern pertaining to internet privacy. People are really trying to filter what they share with third parties on the internet due to fear of what others can do with their information. For example, many app users are going to the extent of not even downloading certain apps because they are realizing that a lot of their personal information would be shared within that app. Internet users are even becoming uncomfortable with personal information being released for the purpose of personalization. In today's society it is so easy for people to hack private information by the click of a button. People are starting to understand the dangers of this and are starting to tighten up about what information they release on the internet.