By Noah Pillot
When you think of social media today, what comes to your mind?. It feels like every news article I read on social media is discussing the negative impacts and side effects of social media. Governments all around the world are making new laws to restrict phone access during school hours due to the negative effects that phones have on classrooms. Students are being impacted by these new laws and regulations, with the government banning access to phones during school hours. But does social media only affect people negatively?
Positives of Social Media.
Social media today is often looked down upon and is seen solely as a negative tool that doesn’t benefit you at all. I think people only focus on the negatives of social media, while there are many positives. Social media is used to preserve and teach different cultures to people around the world, just like how Instagram was used to preserve the Gujarati Culture. (Chauhan 2025) Social media not only allows you to connect with others all around the world, but can also help with either starting your own business or personal brand. According to Business.com, around 62.3% of the population in the world uses social media. With a daily average of over 2 hours and 23 minutes (Dublin 2019) this means that over half of the entire world’s population is constantly scrolling through social media, and if you promote your product or business on social media, you both gain customers fast and connect with your customers virtually.
Negatives of Social Media
Many articles and news sources today are researching and looking into the effects that social media has on young teens and adults. Many news articles point out that social media contributes to the increase in mental health in teens. For example, foxnews.com brings out one of their doctors, Dr. Marc Siegel, an American physician and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health. Dr. Marc says that social media is leading the youth into addictive behavior and is causing more mental health issues among teens. I agree with Dr. Marc that Social media is very addictive, not just for teens but for everyone, because of the algorithm.
On almost all social media, there is something called the algorithm, which is a system designed to keep you hooked on social media. The algorithm tries to feed you things that you would enjoy seeing. It predicts what you would like based on things you like on that social media platform. For example, if you like a cat video and not a dog video, the algorithm will provide more cat videos because it thinks that you like cats more than dogs. This system is designed to keep you on the platform for the longest amount of time, and can keep you addicted. This is because many social media users get their news from social media, especially teens. According to a study done by the New York Times, the New York Times interviewed nearly 400 teens about their relationship with the news. And the 400 teens responded by saying that Social Media is their main source of getting their news. (Learning Network, 2024) Social media news is also very inaccurate. News on social media spreads like wildfire and can often resemble the game of telephone. People take things out of context or intentionally leave certain information out to make their side or point of view look better.
My Personal Experiences
For as long as I can remember, social media has always been a part of my life. Social media has been an integral part of communication in my life as well. I remember first asking my parents for a phone in 5th grade. My parents were hesitant at first because of how young I was asking for a phone. Since I was so young, I wasn’t mature enough to use a phone, so they waited until I entered 6th grade to give me my first phone for my birthday. My parents gave me my first phone in 6th grade, and this changed how I lived my life from then on. I was always able to communicate with my parents at any time, which is one of the main reasons why my parents got me my first phone.
Social media also impacted my life during the pandemic. When the pandemic started, schools immediately transitioned from physical school to online school. This change caused a drastic change in everyone’s lives, but especially students. I remember vividly the days when I would stare at the bright blue screen flashing in my face for 8 hours a day. My parents were worried about how long the online school would last, as it’s not only impacting kids’ mental health around the world, but also their physical health, as they weren’t able to go outside. In the country I was living in at the time, I couldn’t even leave my home for 6 months, which impacted me negatively as I wasn’t able to interact with anyone outside of my family. Overall, I think online learning made it way harder to learn since there were many more distractions. I would hear the constant DING, DING, DING in one ear as my friends tried to text me during a lesson.
After the pandemic, I was able to go back to school. Social media became a great way for me to connect with friends and family across the world. Since I moved around a lot, I have made friends from all over the world, and I have been able to still keep in contact with them through social media apps. Social media has been a great way to connect with them and make sure I don’t lose contact with them after years of not seeing them. Social media apps make it easy for me to connect and reconnect with people I can’t communicate with in person. I remember moving away from one of the countries I used to live in, which was Singapore. I had to say goodbye to all my friends, but still to this day, I keep in contact with them through social media.
Conclusion
In conclusion, social media is a platform that I feel affects the users both negatively and positively. Social media is like quicksand; the more time you spend in it, the harder it is to get out. Social media isn’t just negative, though. If you’re starting up a business and want to advertise it, you can promote your product or business and get a lot of attention. Social media is all about balancing time with social media.
Some ways you can balance social media with other activities are by setting a timer when using social media. For example, if you’re doing homework or work in general, and want to take a break. You can pace yourself with social media and your work. This has been a way for me to balance social media and technology with my personal school work. This is a good way to reward yourself as well and also balance the amount of time you spend on social media.
Citations
Chauhan, Shruti. The Married 91-Year-Olds Using Instagram to Preserve Gujarati Culture. 20 July 2025, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge3lglk31o.
Siegel, Marc. “The War to Save Our Teens from Social Media.” Fox News, 20 Sept. 2023, www.foxnews.com/opinion/war-save-our-teens-social-media.
Beard, McKenzie. “You Don’t Have to Delete Social Media — 4 More Healthy Ways to Use It That Will Reduce Stress.” New York Post, 15 Mar. 2025, nypost.com/2025/03/15/health/four-tips-for-a-healthy-social-media-experience/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
Dublino, Jennifer. “4 Benefits of Using Social Media to Grow Your Small Business.” Business.com, 8 Mar. 2023, www.business.com/articles/social-media-to-grow-business/.
Ruby, Daniel. “67+ Fake News Statistics for 2022 (Research & Data).” Demandsage, 30 Nov. 2022, www.demandsage.com/fake-news-statistics/.
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