It’s crazy how far social media technology has come in recent years. I can’t even comprehend how much it adds to our world. Social media AI, for example, can make stunning videos with a prompt. I could text someone across the country. I could see all the amazing content people have made and the hundreds of thousands of likes they have. And yet, I think we take for granted just how much social media truly affects people. So I began researching how social media affects people, both good and bad.

Social media and its Impact on Everyday living 

I first started looking at the social impact on people’s everyday lives. The University of Maine provided a 2023 statistic of how many people use social media and what type is most used. They listed the following statistics:

• There are 4.8 billion social media users worldwide, representing 59.9% of the global population and 92.7% of all internet users.
• People use an average of 6.6 different social networks each month.
• The average time spent on social media daily is 2 hours and 24 minutes.
• As of April 2023, the top most used social media platforms, ranked by global active users, were Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and WeChat.

Social media is also useful for different reasons including communicating with people over long distances, keeping up to date with other people, being able to post your work, finding people who can relate to you through their content, and being able to see news you may not be able to see otherwise (these news can be related to countries, politics, or other news that may not be actively talked about by other sources like news channels). 

Working in the Digital Era

Any industry can use social media. From business to media to advertising, social media provides many advantages for companies including a great way to reach audiences, trends to make people a part of, and staying relevant to what people want. It’s not just a business that can impact people either, people can also influence a company’s business. Top 7 Impacts of Social Media on Business in 2024 lists a couple of ways on social medias impact a company’s business. Their 3rd choice: Customers Have More Influences says it best though:

“It’s the customers who hold more sway over brands. They can voice their opinions loud and clear for everyone to hear. Social media allows them to openly express their thoughts on a product without worrying about being judged. This shift takes away some control from businesses and puts it into the hands of customers.”

Beware of the Cost of Social Media

However, not all of the social media’s impact is good. I came across a site by the Center for Humane Technology called MySocialTruth. This is a site where people can post their social media experience and its impact on their lives. I remember reading some of the people’s posts and realizing just how badly it impacted their lives. One of them got to me. There was an anonymous 13-year-old who discussed their experience with social media, talking about how social media got their health down so badly that they almost had to go to the hospital. The idea that someone can be so deeply affected to the point of having to get professional help was crazy to me.

There are also just many underlying issues that social media causes to a person the longer they use it. I watched The Social Dilemma, a 2020 documentary explaining how social media has been designed in ways that give us bad habits. For example, the interviewers talked to former workers from Facebook and TikTok about how companies use our attention to keep us on their content to the point where it can have damaging effects on both people’s physical and mental health, similar to the last paragraph with the 13-year-old. This was due to the fact that social media is replicating the viewer’s attention and focus in ways similar to how people focus on writing a paper or working on an assignment/project. This leads to damage to your work and your attention on a subject. The documentary shocked and horrified me about just how much content is designed to keep you on social media and not even realize the amount of effects social media will have on you.

Conclusion 

Social media is so impactful on every part of life that people don’t even realize how much of our lives it affects. Society relies on social media and people must be aware that yes, social media has many good qualities and contributes to society, but it also has lasting impacts on us and will continue to if people use it too much. Understanding social media and its impact shows what we may be able to do to either improve it or regulate it.