Social Media and Young Adults

Introduction

The recent years have witnessed a decline of young adults who blog the internet while witnessing an increase in number of social media use. The latter proved to   be a darling of the young adults in the year 2006. This brings the need to discuss the changes since blogging proves and other activities outside internet proves useful to the young adults rather than the social sites. A higher percentage of the online young adults spend more time on the social networks as compared to the adults (Lenhart et al, 2010). Social media has continued to impact more on the habits of the student of which has been a subject to critics by the parents and the respective colleges. The time young adults spend on the media has been on the increase thereby yielding suspicion on the failure in their daily activities. Most of colleges and parents have associated the social media to the failure of the young adults in schools and places of work.  This article explores how relation of young adults to the social media and the critics it has received from the adults.

Most of the parents have considered the emergence of social media (such as facebook, twitter and myspace) as a hindrance to the teenagers handling the supposed crucial activities in their lives. Such activities include spending more time with the elderly in the quest to receiving teaching of moral standards in the society. The parents view these activities as bringing the difference between the extent of moral standards between their time and of the young adults. They recall that they spent most of their time with their parents and the elderly thereby restricting them to the virtues of the society (The New York Times, 2010). However, the introduction of social media has reduced the contact that the young adults have with their elderly who could have provided them with knowledge about the moral standards of the society. Instead, the young adults spent most of their time on the social media with friends from different regions without meeting them face-to-face. This has made the young adults miss valuable experiences that help in developing empathy, understanding emotional nuances and read social cues like facial expressions and body language (The New York Times, 2010). Further, most of the parents have witnessed their children much withdrawn because of missing the confidence of face-to-face interactions (The New York Times, 2010). For instance, young adult will only have to post a birthday wish on the wall of his or her friend rather than considering attending the party in person. Parents also note that much concentration on Facebook has made their children lose concentration on carrying out their daily chores besides the school assignment. These situations have made most of the parents hold it against social media because they feel that it deteriorates children’s capabilities.

Millions of modern college students use social networking sites for numerous purposes. Studies have tried to illustrate on how, why, and when college students use the social networking sites in relation to their free time. Approximately college students take 30 minutes of their daily time to visit the social networking sites. This is considered as a daily routine. The college students visit the social networking sites as means of communication to other students and online-established friends. This interaction or communication method is in the form of one-to-many (students are the creators of the information being disseminated to other users). Despite this essence of communication and interaction, college students spend much of the time within the social networking sites observing the content rather than posting relevant information. The main application of the social networking sites is to enable college students to keep contact with their friends and online-established relationships. The other way in which college students use social networking sites is to express their identity. This is in the form of political, social, religious, and cultural identity to foster accurate and healthy communication with other social networking sites users. Another way in which college students use social networking sites is through adoption of online studying groups to enable students conduct further discussion through the sites. This would enhance their development academically and socially. The use of social networking sites such as facebook is a modern trend since most students own accounts in the relevant sites. In order to keep with the modern trend, students adopt the use of these sites regardless of the positive and negative influences attached to the sites (Tiffany et al, 2008).

Studies show that social networking sites possess both positive and negative influences in relation to the users. One of the main advantages is that the social sites offer the opportunity to users to develop new relationships and reconnections with family and friends thus growth of communication. The sites also results into the development of the creative aspect of users through blogging, messaging, and games. Social sites are also valuable tools in bringing individuals with similar ideologies together. Users of the sites also have the opportunity to share quality content thus development of the society. It is also evident through research studies that users of the social sites have obtained help in relation to key life issues such as purchasing of equipment. College students also have the opportunity to discuss educational topics thus furthering their development academically and socially. Social networking sites reduce the act of face-to-face communication by encourage online interaction in the modern world (ProCon.org, 2012). The other negative aspect of the social networking sites is that users are at risk of over-sharing personal information. These risks might relate to the employment of the user, financial, and criminal predators thus putting the account owners at risk with the authority. Online user also lack sufficient evident to prove that people they are interacting with are genuine individuals thus elements of internet predation. Social networking sites also associate with bullying known as the cyber bullying thus inflicting psychological effects on the users. Research studies indicate that about 17 percent of the students suffer cyber bullying thus drop in grades and development of depression. Social networking sites are also causes of disorders with reference to brains and personality in children (young adults). This reflects on the lack of ability by the children to execute effective and efficient real conversation (ProCon.org, 2012).

Conclusion

Even though, social media has facilitated communication within a far distance, it has far much reaching effect on the young adults. Most of the young adults have become addicted to the various social media in the quest to connect with their friends. This has made the young adults divert their attention from the useful home and school activities. The social media have made it easier for the young adults to access malicious contents that are always a taboo in most of the societies. The young adults have also missed crucial information from the blogging activities because of the concentration on social media. Social media can only become a better site if there is a restriction on its use in terms of time and age.

References

The New York Times, 2010. Antisocial Networking? Retrieved from:                                                 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewa                nted=all&adxnnlx=1348775035-cBbldJbx6Z9yGxWsNNKIXA

Lenhart, A., Purcell, K. & Aoron, S., (2010). Social Media and Young Adults.             http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx

ProCon.org, (2012). Are social networking sites good for our society? Retrieved from

http://socialnetworking.procon.org/#Background On 14th October 2012.

Tiffany et al, (2008). College Students Networking Experiences on Facebook. Volume 30, Issue    3, May–June 2009, Pages 227–238.

Matt Huston. (2012). Young adults turning away from Facebook. Retrieved from

http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/03/01/young-adults-turning-away-facebook