Nur Hayati

230210180067
Marine Science
Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science

Essay about Positive and Negative Effects of Using Social Media

in the Community

In this modern age, the process of disseminating information in the world has grown
rapidly. The time needed for the process is relatively short and practical. One example is in the
world of Science and Technology, social media has managed to penetrate the daily life of the
community and can make everything instant.

Social networking or also called social media is online media that is used to describe
interactions that occur between groups or individuals, such as sharing, and exchanging ideas,
data, information through the internet or other applications. Social media has a significant
impact on people's lives. This is because currently, adults to children even grow up surrounded
by mobile devices and interactive social networking sites, such as Twitter, Instagram and
Whatsapp.

As a result, social media has become an important aspect of our lives. Social media has
changed the way you interact with parents and peers. It cannot be denied, this has an effect on
society, both positive and negative.

On the positive side, social media can act as a very valuable tool and beneficial to
society. Social media can help people to market their skills and seek for business opportunities
on the internet. Today there are many entrepreneurs who are turning to social media in
marketing their products both goods and services. The change of business people to this media
because social networking has enormous benefits for businesses, for example, is cost-free to
market their products.

In one example of the positive impact of the use of social media, the study entitled
"Security Use of Digital Media in Children and Adolescents in Indonesia" which made the UN
agency for children, UNICEF, with its partners, including the Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology and Harvard University, USA. These studies explore the online
activity of a sample of children and adolescents involved 400 respondents aged 10 to 19 years
in Indonesia and represents the urban and rural areas.
There are three motivations for children and young people to access the internet, which
is to search for information, to connect with friends (old and new) and for entertainment. A
search for information that do often driven by school assignments, while the use of social media
and entertainment content by personal needs.
 We can see that from the data social media is positively welcomed by the community,
they are also helped by the existence of social media as a medium of communication. By using
social networks, we can communicate and expand friendship with anyone, even with people
we do not yet know though from different corners of the world. Because basically social media
sites are also widely used to share positive things with everyone. And much more positive
impacts of social media.

However, the downside is the internet is filled with risks associated with online crime.
An example is cyberbullying, namely all forms of violence experienced by children or
adolescents and made friends their own age through cyberspace or the internet. The
perpetrators of cyberbullying using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook as a place
to hide behind the anonymity provided by the internet to commit such despicable actions.

The latest survey report from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) in the UK in
early 2017, researchers asked nearly 1,500 young English people aged 14 to 24 to share their
thoughts on five popular social media platforms namely Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat,
Twitter and YouTube. The respondents rate that social networking as a cause of depression or
anxiety. Sleep quality is also affected due to late sleep and wake up to check messages on social
media.

In addition, social network users also have the risk of accidentally revealing their
personal information on the internet. The users usually ignore the privacy policy published by
some websites to not read it first. As a result, personal information and even personal photos
can be widely distributed on the internet. This becomes a serious problem because it can
increase the incidence of cyber crimes, such as identity theft, identity fraud, and others.

Based on the explanation, it is becoming increasingly clear that social media has
become one of the most important part in people's lives. Social networking sites have led to a
positive impact for them to be more thoughtful and professional. However, social media can
also have negative effects, which makes people lazy and incompetent. Therefore, as a smart
society it is very important to be careful and restraint when dealing with social media.

The conclusion that we can take is how our way of using social media. If we use it for
good things then he will get a positive impact from social media. But if we use social media
for things that tend not to be good, then negative impacts will be obtained. And all that goes
back again depends on each of our personal selves.
 REFERENCES

Panji, Aditya. 2014. “Hasil Survei Pemakaian Internet Remaja Indonesia”.

https://tekno.kompas.com/read/2014/02/19/1623250/Hasil.Survei.Pemakaian.Internet.Remaja
.Indonesia. Retrieved December 17, 2018.

Antara. 2017. “Survei: penggunaan media sosial bisa ganggu kesehatan mental”.
https://www.antaranews.com/berita/631488/survei-penggunaan-media-sosial-bisa-ganggu-
kesehatan-mental. Retrieved December 17, 2018.