For this research paper we had to give our opinion about how Social Media is either helpful or hurtful for society. We were assigned to either research the helpful or hurtful side. The side I was given to research was the hurtful side.

1. Hannah Herbert
Dr. Harold Blanco
November 18, 2015
M/W/F
Social Media: Hurtful to Society
In the article that we had to read gave us details and examples on how Social Media is
hurting and helping in society. For my paper I will be focusing on the hurting debate and how it
is destroying this upcoming generation and the future ahead of us. Many believe that Social
Media is a great way to stay connected with people that you have either lost contact with or they
had to move away for certain reasons. They can use Facebook for example; it’s a great way to
stay connected with friends and family that you don’t get to see too often, many claim that they
feel like they are with those certain people and that they are not missing anything important
about their lives. Many use Social Media for several other reasons; for example they post
pictures, tweets, and updates on it to let everyone know what they are doing and how they are
doing in life at that certain moment. In the article, the helpful opinions claimed that having any
type of Social Media comes with a small price to pay for the benefits of online socializing. This
generation is the one that uses Social Media the most; this is basically the new “social norm” for
socializing with friends and new people, Facebook CEO, Zuckerberg, claimed since privacy no
longer exists. This is how they express their feelings toward someone or something and then
others will give their opinion about whatever is the most populated topic.
What many don’t know is that all of this can be great at times, but it can be dangerous and can
destroy someone’s life.

2. Today, many of the digital generation like to post many photos, articles, opinions, etc. on
any type of Social Media for attention. For the hurtful side, many claim that there is profound
effects not just on privacy but on both individual human relationships and how people relate to
their communities. Spending all their time on focusing on their Social Media profiles, individuals
don’t focus on the daily face-to-face interaction. In society, today, face-to-face interaction is not
the way to go; people choose to interact with each other online than meeting with them in person
or talking to them over a phone call. This generation claims that they prefer to interact online
rather than in person and the older generations claim they would rather have face-to-face contact
than online contact. Communicating through any virtual way can destroy this generation’s
communication skills. An interesting fact is that many didn’t know that the United States does
not have any data-protection plan for the internet services. This can lead to many issues and can
endanger many lives. Something that is now to start to become big is many databases are starting
to sell their users’ information to others; this is not good because they are selling the information
that the users want to keep private. Data mining endangers long-cherished privacy rights. This
can cause several lawsuits with the companies and trust issues with their website users and
customers. This is how Social Media is hurting society and these are some of the examples that
the article has given us about the bad effects of Social Media.
The benefits are that Social Media helps people stay connected with their loved ones and
friends. For example, Facebook lets people reach out to those who they want to get in touch with
that they haven’t seen in a while. Pintrest is where many share their crafting ideas, recipes,
clothing styles, and many more ideas with the world. Wikipedia is where many go to write
articles on several subjects; it is described as collaboratively written encyclopedia. Amazon is
where many go for online shopping, here people can buy or sell whatever they have throughout

3. the world. People use the user reviews on the website to see how trustworthy the site is and how
their services are doing. The last example is the famous game, World of Warcraft, many go to
there to meet people around the world, compete, collaborate and play adventure games. All of
the examples came from the article we were given to read. All of these examples are how people
find Social Media to be a good reason and how it helps others.
The Democratic Societies use Social Media for promoting whatever they are involved in.
They use what is called Participatory Politics; this is individual efforts to influence public policy
outside the sphere of institutions such as political parties. For example, they mainly encourage
people on Social Media to tweet or share something for a cause, forward an article about an
issue, and they can gain influence from everyday people can change an issues. This is a very big
trend going on now and can be found on the popular site Facebook. Many will either post or
share some issues that they believe are not getting enough attention. They will blow up the
website about these issues and how people need to go out there and fix them; this can cause
several debates and issues that can lead to many people saying or doing something that may later
regret in their life later on.
In an article, that I have read myself, it talks about how Social Media is hurting this
generation with a most talked about topic called Cyberbullying. The article name is
“Cyberbullying by mobile phone among adolescents: The role of gender and peer group status”.
In the article they discuss how the relationship between adolescents’ peer groups interact with
different types of mobile phone cyberbullying. Overall, there were four groups in this study;they
broke them down in the popular controversial, popular liked, average, and rejected adolescents.
This showed that the popular controversial adolescents were the ones to most likely to make or
send threatening and insulting calls and text messages. They also found that this group does the

4. most gossiping; and it is most likely found in the girls. All of this proves that when this happens
it leads to many of the individuals that were being talked about to feel worthless and not wanted
among their peers. If this isn’t stopped soon enough it can lead to major issues where the
individual who is being bullied can do either self-harm or harm to others. Another article I found
interesting is one where it talks about the dark side of Social Media. This article focuses mainly
on the popular website, Facebook. This article talks about a research being done on adult
Facebook users and how they found it easy to find others’ information. They discovered five
themes of Facebook stressors; those are managing inappropriate or annoying content being
threatened, lack of privacy and control, social comparison and jealousy, and relationship tension
and conflict. Even though many receive a negative feeling from these, they claimed that they feel
pressured to keep logging on to the site so they won’t miss anything and keep up with
relationship demands. This study showed that Facebook is not doing their share of keeping the
personal information private from others. The last article that I found talked about how Social
Media is used for rumors and faulty information that can be harmful and hurtful for people that
are involved in difficult situations from assault, rape, and other forms of interpersonal violence in
colleges. The article talks about how these issues that are happening on campuses should always
be taken very serious. If people go to Social Media and start talking, good or bad, about the
people involved, it can lead to both good and bad comments made towards them. This domino
effect can cause several issues that can end either good or bad. Those are the articles and the
interesting facts that I found about the hurtful side of Social Media and how it is growing with
more and more issues. We need to start watching what we say and post and to always make sure
that we post positive things and not try to start anything over the web.

5. Work Cited Page
 Vanden Abeele, Mariek, and Rozane de Cock. "Cyberbullying By Mobile Phone Among
Adolescents: The Role Of Gender And Peer Group Status." Communications: The
European Journal Of Communication Research 38.1 (2013): 107-118.Communication &
Mass Media Complete. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
 Fox, Jesse, and Jennifer J. Moreland. "The Dark Side Of Social Networking Sites: An
Exploration Of The Relational And Psychological Stressors Associated With Facebook
Use And Affordances." Computers In Human Behavior 45.(2015): 168-176. PsycINFO.
Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
 Jones, Dan L. "Collateral Damage Related To Rape And Interpersonal Violence In
Higher Education." Journal Of College Student Psychotherapy 28.3 (2014): 174-
176.ERIC. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.