1. Doyle Grimes
Dr. Harold Blanco
19 November 2015
Debate Research Paper
What are the key issues of concern within the reading?
The article called “Social Media Explosion” is concerned with privacy issues
related to social media. It argues that sites like Facebook threaten the privacy
rights of the users. Beyond privacy, the article is concerned about how social
media affects relationships. It argues that face-to-face communication is
threatened because more people are choosing to communicate with technology
and social media. Some young people feel uncomfortable talking face-to-face
which is probably due to social media. This article is mainly concerned with how
social media is affecting personal relationships as well as issues concerning
privacy. It also touches on concerns with the community and how the population
is using social media as a political platform of sorts.
What are the benefits of social media? Please give multiple examples.
The article brings up a few benefits from social media that can help users. When
social media was still new, many people used social media as a tool to
communicate more effectively. Social media can link friends and people together.
It is a good way to socialize with people that are all over the world. Socializing is
one of “humanity’s strongest needs” and social media can help. Humanity can
benefit from social media because it can bring people together for common causes
2. within a community. An important positive part of social media is the ability to
share important information. People are able to bring awareness to certain causes
and rally support for different political efforts. As a result, people are becoming
globally aware of important events and politics in general.
People can use social media in a positive way to connect to different groups of
people. Because of the internet, people can socialize with people that live far
away. People can be more engaged in political activity which can help people be
more empathetic.
What are the concerns about social media? Please give multiple examples.
There are also many negative effects of social media that this article brings up.
Privacy is one major concern because of how easy personal information can be
accessed. Many companies will use data analysis programs to gather information
from users without their knowledge. Many people post information online on
private profiles but companies can still use data mining to gather personal
information. When people post information online, it leaves a footprint. Many
young people will post things online that is personal and a concern is that it is
posted forever.
Another major concern is the fact that social media is become an
obsession for many people. Young people especially are using the internet as the
best way to communicate instead of face-to-face conversation. Even though there
is not a lot known about how social media can affect relationships, there are still
analyzers that predict harm that social media is causing.
3. How has social media affected democratic societies?
Social media affects democratic societies because of the spread of information
regarding politics. Participatory politics is one effect of social media. Social
media has helped spark an interest in politics which as a result can cause more
people to get involved in the democratic voting process. This involvement can
affect how elections go because the more people know and get involved, the more
people will go out and vote in an election. Organizing causes is easier to do
thanks to social media so it has created more activists because the information is
easier for people to obtain.
On the other hand, social media has affected the democratic society
because it has caused many politicians to focus their campaign on social media.
This can be harmful because it neglects the people that are not on social media.
Because politicians use social media, the article says that some scholars fear a
“democratic deficit” because of directing the campaign to specific groups on the
internet.
4. Persuasive Argument Paper
The Negative Effects of Social Media
Social media has affected humanity in many different ways. For something that is still
relatively new to society, it has quickly become a necessary accessory to many people. Sites like
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are very popular today because they connect people.
Socializing is important for humanity and it is one thing that people thrive off of. Social media
has both positive and negative outcomes. Ultimately, the negative outcomes outweigh the
advatanges of social media because these disadvantages are hazardous to the user’s privacy,
relationships, and self-image.
First of all, there are many concerns about the issue of privacy regarding social media.
According to an article titled “Social Media Explosion”, privacy should be a major concern to
users because many companies are using data miners to exploit the users and get their personal
information without their knowledge. Privacy is a major concern because people are posting
more and more information without any regard. By understanding the motives of users on
Instagram, it is clear there are “relationships between identified motivations and key attitudinal
and behavioral intention variables”
“Pictures Speak Louder Than Words: Motivations for Using Instagram” by E. Lee, J.A.
Lee, J.H. Moon, and Y. Sung explores why Millennials are popularizing the social network,
Instagram, more so than any other in terms of speed of the popularity growth. The journal
identifies the fact that images are easier to consume than words and therefore more people are
inclined to browse Instagram rather than Twitter or Facebook. This emphasis on image and
5. appearance plays into the consumerism culture and also effects the users’ motivation, behavior,
attention-span, and self-expression (Lee 2015).
As technology becomes more and more personalized due to the convenience of the smart
phone, individuals are becoming more and more aware of their self and how they are perceived
by others. Social media sites and other personal applications are available at the touch of a
finger. The average person seems to be always scrolling through applications like Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram. As a result, the images and information that a person posts online are
shared to followers who offer up approval with likes and comments. Social media users are
essentially branding themselves online as they attempt to gain affirmations from their followers
to boost their ego. This emphasis on the individual is causing society to become more narcissistic
and arguably more materialistic.
For large scale social problems like this one, it can be helpful to bring awareness to the
issue. Often times, people will not realize they are practicing harmful social norms that they have
been conditioned to. The social media users with millions of followers can set trends and share
information with ease and as they do, they create a standard for other users to follow regarding
the content of their posts. With any large social problem, the powerful and influential are the
ones that need to decide to make a difference. The most popular users are celebrities who flaunt
their fortune and fame so it may be difficult to convince them to post anything differently
because of the pressure on them to keep up with appearances.
The problem will surely take a long time to resolve it is dependent on this solution
because it is up to each individual to think before they post. The problem with narcissim is
becoming a big issue because social media is a form of communication that is more based on the
individual user instead of the other people that are involved. In real life conversation, people
6. must involve the other person and consider their feelings, but with social media people can just
think about themselves alone without thinking about others. It is making people more selfish
according to to "Twitter versus Facebook: Exploring the Role of Narcissism in the Motives and
Usage of Different Social Media Platforms." In this article, it discusses how more people are
becoming narcissistic. If users start to become more aware of materialistic and narcissistic
tendencies on social media, they will stop from posting because this is a negative light.
There are differences in how each social media website affects the individual. Facebook
and Twitter make people react differently because each shares information in a very different
way. One thing that they both have in common is the fact that they both make people selfish and
they take away from a person’s privacy and perception of self image. On each site, the users will
compare themselves to other people and users which can make them feel worse about themselves
since people only post things they want others see.
All in all, social media is becoming an outlet for people but it is also creating many
problems because people are becoming obsessed with it. People have the urge to share more and
more information and that is making privacy a huge concern for many people. It is more of a
negative thing than a positive thing.
7. Works Cited
Clemmitt, M. (2013, January 25). Social media explosion. CQ Researcher, 23, 81-104.
Davenport, Shaun W., Shawn M. Bergman, Jacqueline Z. Bergman, and Matthew E. Fearrington.
"Twitter versus Facebook: Exploring the Role of Narcissism in the Motives and Usage of
Different Social Media Platforms." Computers in Human Behavior 32 (2014): 212-20.
Academic Search Premier [EBSCO]. Web.
Lee, Eunji, et al. "Pictures Speak Louder Than Words: Motivations For Using Instagram."
Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking 18.9 (2015): 552-556. Academic
Search Premier. Web.
Panek, Elliot T., Yioryos Nardis, and Sara Konrath. "Mirror or Megaphone?: How Relationships
between Narcissism and Social Networking Site Use Differ on Facebook and Twitter."
Computers in Human Behavior 29.5 (2013): 2004-012. Web. 6 Oct. 2015
