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Clayton Lightner
Harold Blanco
FYS 100
20 November 2015
The Benefits of Social Media
Social media is something that is relatively new to society. It comes in many forms, some
more popular than others. Some examples of social media that people use on a regular day basis
are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumbler. Social media is a fast growing
business with about 164 million Americans using social media as of 2011 (Clemmit 83). This
was four years ago so it is safe to say the number has grown significantly with the constant
technological advancements we have today. With social media there are both benefits and
concerns. Some concerns that come from social media, are said to be hurting personal
relationships, eroding privacy, and has gotten to a point to where people are at a point to where
they need the social media to function (Clemmitt 86-89). Even with the negatives people have
pointed out, the amount of benefits outweigh the concerns. Some examples of benefits are, it
engages communication with communities, helps the medical field share different ideas and
practices for patients, and allows people to speak their mind (Clemmitt 85-95; Stott 519-521).
Social media is growing rapidly and the benefits associated with social media are benefitting
society in multiple ways and as technology advances, more and more benefits to society will be
discovered.
With anything there are both pros and cons, however one usually outweighs the other.
And with social media the benefits and pros greatly outweigh the concerns. With that being said,
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the concerns should not be ignored. One concern that people say, is that social media is hurting
the personal relationships that people are forming. Relationships that are forming from social
media is growing very fast. A lot of this is because people do not prefer face-to-face
communication. In a survey with people born between 1990 and 1999 on favored
communications, the number one preferred method was texting and number two was
communicating via Facebook, with face-to-face conversation coming in last (Clemmitt 84).
With more people preferring to communicate online, it makes them more susceptible to identity
fraud and hoaxes (Clemmitt 84). One of the more famous instances of this was with Manti Te’o,
a Heisman finalist from Notre Dame. He said he was in a relationship for two years and during
his final season she had died from cancer (Clemmitt 83). After the season had ended, he had
found out the truth and his reputation was tarnished because of what happened. Throughout the
year people were sympathetic for him because he was having to play and go through such a
tough loss and when it was found out, people thought he did it as a publicity stunt even though
he really did not know. This is just one example of many that people say is raising concern to
social media. Looking at examples of this, it can be avoided. Manti Te’o not being able to meet
his girlfriend should have been an alarm that something is off. Just being aware and not being
naïve about the situation can help avoid this problem.
The second concern people believe comes from social media is that privacy is no longer
there for people anymore. People are able to find out almost anything about a person now with
all of the things people put online. Social media in some cases is hurting college students that are
going into professional schools. In a survey with medical school admissions officers, 53 percent
said unprofessional behavior on that applicants social media could jeopardize that candidate’s
spot. Other examples of privacy being violated is identity fraud. It happens all the time to people
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because of information people find online about people. People say these are concerns, however
a majority of these problems can be avoided. If people would not put information that is private
online, then these awful things would not happen to them. A lot of the blame should fall on the
person.
The last negative point is that kids now, are dependent on social media. Kaveri
Subrahmanyam, a psychology professor at California State University, has examined how the
dependency of social media and technology has affected kids (Clemmitt 87). She says kids sleep
with their phones and in the middle of the night wake up to respond to something on twitter or a
text (Clemmitt 87). This will hinder the way kids function because of the lack of sleep. Another
professor at the university, Larry Rosen, conducted an experiment on middle school, high school,
and university students. He monitored them at home and came to the conclusion that if the
student checked Facebook during a 15 minute study session, that student had a lower GPA
(Clemmitt 87). A lot of these problems can be linked to the parents. The parents are allowing the
kid to have their phone during a time when they should not which leads to dependency. A vast
majority of that problem could be avoided with have rules associated with the technology.
The benefits to social media outweigh the concerns that have been given. A majority of
the concerns could be fixed and avoided all together. The first benefit of social media is that it
helps engage people with the community. In 2011 there was a police shooting in the London
riots, and it helped people engage in helpful social engagement. On twitter a hashtag called
#riotcleanup rallied people and the streets were cleaned up (Clemmitt 85-86). Social media is
also helpful when it comes to giving donations throughout the community you are living in
(Clemmitt 86). Issues that come up can be debated in your own home instead of having to go to
the local courthouse. And since people prefer to communicate online, people are more
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comfortable engaging in debates about community issues. Engaging in community issues has
never been easier and a lot of that is owed to social media.
The second benefit to social media is linked to the medical field being able to
communicate different practices and the sharing of general useful information. At the Royal
College of Nursing, they have discussion forums that the nurses use to discuss different policies
and practices done and share advice with other colleagues (Stott 519). It is not just the
professionals in the medical field than find this opportunity to share information useful. Regular
people can get use out of this on a regular basis. If the general public have a question, it is easy
to get advice from a nurse or professional with the ability to instant message someone on
Facebook or tweet them directly (Stott 520). With the ability to do that, advice can be given
much faster than waiting for an appointment at a doctor’s office. And with about 355,000 nurses
using Facebook, the ease of communicating with someone is very high. With technology
advancing, communicating in the medical field will only get easier and will be more relevant to
society.
Lastly, with social media, people are able to speak their mind. It has already been
mentioned how people prefer to communicate online, so from that the conclusion can be drawn
that people will be more open to voicing their opinion and speaking their mind via Twitter,
Facebook etc. In other countries the government regulates a lot of the information online. Here
people are allowed to say whatever they want without serious repercussions. With smartphones,
people are able to have social media at their fingertips at all times (Clemmitt 95). So if
something happened to a person that brought out an emotion, that person can get on social media
and speak their mind and say how they feel. In the United States, the freedom to say what you
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want should be taken advantage of, and social media is a way that is extremely useful in
exercising that right and will only continue to grow as more social media gets created.
In conclusion, the concerns and benefits of social media were stated and example of each
were given. The concerns could be fixed and regulated to where they could be limited if not
avoided all together. The benefits of people having the ability to speak their mind, the medical
field being able to share information with colleagues, and people getting engaged with the
community are strong points and there is plenty of examples and detail of them being beneficial.
As social media grows and develops more and more, numerous benefits to social media will
result.
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Works Cited
Belangee, Susan, Marina Bluvshtein, and Daniel Haugen. "Cybersocial Connectedness: A
Survey Of Perceived Benefits And Disadvantages Of Social Media Use."Journal Of
Individual Psychology 71.2 (2015): 122-134. Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Nov.
2015.
Cardon, Peter W., and Bryan Marshall. "The Hype And Reality Of Social Media Use For Work
Collaboration And Team Communication." Journal Of Business Communication 52.3
(2015): 273-293.Business Source Premier. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
Clemmitt, M. (2013, January 25). Social Media explosion. CQ Researcher, 23, 81-104.
Stott, Ian. "Social Media In The Workplace: Approach With Caution." Nursing & Residential
Care 17.9 (2015): 519-521 3p. CINAHL Complete. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
