Social Media: its negative effects

Informative Presentation

By: María Sol Torres

General Purpose: To inform

Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about the negative effects of social media in our lives.

Introduction

Attention Getter: It is late and dark at night. There is a bright light keeping you awake. You

can’t stop looking at it. You are hypnotized. Only do you realize you are deep in this trance when

your phone falls to your face accidentally. You had said you would go to bed early but you ended

up scrolling down Instagram. How many of you have found yourselves in this situation?

Credibility Statement: I have, multiple times. Therefore, based on my own experience and

online research I concluded that

Thesis Statement: There are many negative effects of overusing social media in our lives.

Preview Main Points: Having said that, I will mainly focus on the

I. Negative emotional effects due to social media overuse.

II. Negative social effects due to social media overuse.

III. Negative physical effects from social media overuse.

Transition Statement: To begin with,

Body

I. Main Point I: Overuse of social media can lead to negative emotional states.

A. One of these consequences is low self-esteem.

 i. Many people constantly compare themselves with others’ “online personas". Online

personas refer to the ideal virtual identities created on social media platforms (Ünal,

2018).

ii. Accordingly, social media networks offer opportunities to display only the most

positive aspects or “highlight reels” as Dr. in Experimental Psychology, Erin Vogel

calls them in her article Perceptions of perfection.

iii. In these highlight reels users post photos, descriptions and conversations, which other

users consider when making a judgement. However, such judgments are not based on

complete snapshots (Vogel and Rose, 2017).

iv. As a result, viewing such content may be devastating for people who are experiencing

tough times even though they may know that users only want to highlight happy

times.

B. Along with low self-esteem comes anxiety as another consequence of social media

overuse.

i. Canadian media producer Bailey Parnell compares social media to drugs addiction in

her Ted Talk from 2017 by explaining that “we are already experiencing impairment

similar to substance dependence… you feel dopamine with every like and post.”

ii. Just as withdrawals from the casino or drugs, not being able to check your

notifications or update the news feed may result in anxiety.

Transition: Low self-esteem and anxiety may cause people to isolate themselves to seek

approval and positive feedback in social media. This is why using social media improperly may

result in social consequences as well as emotional ones.

I. Main Point II: Overuse of social media can lead to negative social behaviors.
A. One of these consequences is loss of face-to-face communication.

i. The article Social Media and Teens reports the results a survey conducted in 2018 in the U.S. by

non-profit organization Common Sense Media (CSM) as regards the role of social media in

teenager’s lives.

ii. They found that out of 1000 teenagers, only 30% preferred communicating with friends in

person rather than texting.

iii. The survey results also display that 50% of the respondents admitted being distracted by social

media when in company of other people.

iv. Essentially, face-to-face communication is important to spend quality time with family and

friends but if such communication is not taking place due to social media addiction, then

interpersonal problems cannot be solved.

B. Loss of face-to-face communication leads us to another social consequence, isolation.

i. People may isolate themselves to continue checking their social media networks since

their receive approval from others’ likes and seek acceptance there. People believe they are

actually interacting with others when in fact, they are just isolating themselves.

ii. According to a 2018 article published by San Francisco’s Public Library of Science, users

of social media, especially those with high levels of depression and anxiety, constantly

seek for social media interaction to escape from their daily problems by means of positive

experiences often missed in real life. Nevertheless, this is just a smokescreen.

Transition: So far, I have described the emotional and social consequences of spending too

much time in social media. Any emotional changes will result in changes in our social behavior

which in turn will affect our physical well-being.

I. Main Point III: Overuse of social media can lead to negative physical consequences.
 A. One of these consequences are eating disorders.

i. People may compare themselves with models and athletes’ bodies on social media and this

may result in them feeling insecure about theirs.

ii. Even though some people may view this as encouragement to work out and eat healthy, a

study carried out by peer-reviewed journal BioMed Central Public Health in 2018 found

that acute exposure to such images may increase body dissatisfaction among female

undergraduates, which in turn can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and

binge-eating.

B. Apart from encouraging eating disorders, social media improper use can lead to self-harm.

i. A literature review on The Indian Journal of Psychiatry cites an exploratory study

conducted in 2017 by the Department of Psychiatry of Washington University that found

that 80% of randomly selected posts on Tumblr -another social media network- were

related to depression, suicide and self-harm.

ii. These posts were shared and liked over a million times in a month time. This is to say that

anyone can have access to that type of dangerous content, either out of curiosity or to find

a way to do it themselves, even kids and teenagers.

Transition: Overall,

Conclusion

Re-statement of thesis: There are many negative effects related to the misuse of social media.

Review Main Points: Some of the negative effects I mentioned today are related to people’s

I. Emotional state

II. Social life

III. Physical well-being

Tie back to Introduction: The anecdote I told you at the beginning is about me. I am the one

not getting enough sleep because of spending too much time on Instagram comparing myself to

others. However, it is not social media what is doing this to me, it is me who chooses how social

media can affect me. More importantly, I realized that it is comparison the basis of all social

media addictions. Whenever I feel like comparing myself, I just think of author Steven Furlick’s

quote “we struggle with insecurity because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone

else’s highlighted reels”.

 References

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