Negative Effects of Internet Use

Have you ever felt pressure from society to conform to a particular social standard? If not, have you ever noticed anyone adapt to/change their way of life to achieve these particular standards? In the article, “An Introduction: At the Root of Identity, from Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us”, writer Claude M. Steele states, “We don’t like to think that conditions tied to our social identities have much to say in our lives…” In today’s society, some people refuse to accept the fact that they have conformed to the rest of the general population’s standards in hopes to keep their pride and maintain their hide feelings tontities.

Regardless of this, technology continues to play a prominent role in society by forcing stereotypes upon people of every race, gender, and sexuality. Moreover, the media combines real life with fiction to portray “acceptable” (unreasonable) standards for people of all types, and has in the end caused a great deal of body negativity, pressure to conform to the “societal norm”, and mental illness, and addiction.

In most cases, people assume that women are the only ones who experience body negativity due to media influence. That idea couldn’t be farther from the truth. People of all types experience self-hatred and insecurities after being consistently shown society’s perception of “normal.” All people, including women, men, people of different colors/races, and even people with disabilities have experienced pressure from the media to conform to a particular stereotype.

Get quality help now

RhizMan

Verified

Proficient in: Internet Addiction

4.9 (247)

“ Rhizman is absolutely amazing at what he does . I highly recommend him if you need an assignment done ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

I decided to survey what my friends, family, and peers have noticed in regards to the topic of stereotypes in media to get a general idea of how aware society is of the problem. Out of thirty-five participants, 65.7% of them voted “yes” when asked if they regularly watched TV while 11.4% claimed to be on social media nearly 24/7. Seventy-one percent of the participants claimed to access social media several times a day while 14.3% access it a couple of times a week and 2.9% rarely open it. These numbers prove that the majority of the population is scrolling through social media daily, but the real question is how does this affect them?

In the same survey, 88.6% of the participants claimed that they have taken notice of the stereotypes that are portrayed in the modern-day media. When asked which stereotypes they have noticed, 96.8% voted for women while 61.3% voted for men. Almost everyone has noticed the way women are shown in the media, while over half have claimed to notice that men face stereotypes too. So what kinds of stereotypes do these people face?

From the research done, it is clear that people believe women are the biggest victims when it comes to social media stereotyping, but why is this? In the article, “The Time is Now for Media to Make the Future– On-Screen and Off-Screen,” Geena Davis claims, “Less than a quarter of the on-screen global workforce is female—much lower than in the real world. Women are far less likely to be a judge or doctor or in any other professional or leadership position, and women and girls are twice as likely as men and boys to appear in sexualized attire or nude.” This is true when you take into consideration the number of lingerie, perfume, and swimsuit commercials that are aired each day. Women are often shown in their underwear/swimming attire, but that isn’t necessarily the problem. The problem is the women who are shown in the underwear/swimsuits. Rachel Simmons of Time Magazine begins the article “How Social Media Is a Toxic Mirror,” with the sentence “We’ve long understood that movies, magazines, and television damage teens’ body image by enforcing a “thin ideal.” This “thin ideal” that Simmons mentions also leads to the body negativity and mental illness that multiple women and even adolescents face today. At the end of the article Simmons argues:

Visual platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat deliver the tools that allow teens to earn approval for their appearance and compare themselves to others. The most vulnerable users, researchers say, are the ones who spend most of their time posting, commenting on, and comparing themselves to photos. One study found that female college students who did this on Facebook were more likely to link their self-worth to their looks. Interestingly, while girls report more body image disturbance and disordered eating than boys—studies have shown both can be equally damaged by social media.

The end of the article brings up an interesting argument: men face just as much harm from the media that women do. What kinds of harm do men face? Although the body images boys face may not be the same as the ones girls face, boys are still influenced by images and ideas that are presented in the media.

In the article, “Social Media and Its Effect on Boys,” Jamie Santa Cruz claims that the amount of boys who care about their weight is continually increasing. He then goes on to discuss how men are portrayed on the covers of magazines, in movies, and through toys by suggesting that the most sought-after body form by men is the muscular/athletic body type. When men are constantly exposed to the world’s ideal type of men, it makes a lot of them want to be like those men that they see in the commercials.

Although the media does play a large role in the body negativity of the population and the creation of stereotypes in the past decade or so, it also contributes a positive influence on some of its viewers. In the article “Social Media and Young People- Preventing Negative Effects,” Austin Northerner suggests that social media has also played the role of influencing people to live healthier lifestyles. Nowadays, there are easily accessible apps and websites that promote healthy behavior and provide workout plans and healthy diet plans for people of all types. So, while social media does create negative body images, it also motivates people to start living healthy and helpful lifestyles.

Not only does social media create bodily dissatisfaction, but it is also considered to be one of the leading causes of mental illness. Why is this? Multiple things can be found through social media that can lead to mental illness. Some of these things include cyberbullying, the creation of anti-social tendencies, and eating disorders.

Ever since social media has advanced to the level of global communication, cyberbullying has become an international problem and causes chaos all around the globe. Cyberbullying has become an outlet for people with anti-social tendencies to hurt people who may seem different than them. Cyberbullying has also become the result of people who have been hurt or even bullied themselves online or in the real world, and it spreads like wildfire. According to Gabe Duverge in the article “Digital Threats: The Impact of Cyberbullying,” victims of cyberbullying have higher tendencies to over-use alcohol and drugs. Some of the symptoms that result from cyberbullying include depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, etc. Cyberbullying creates a negative online atmosphere, where teens, adolescents, and even some adults, spend a significant amount of their time. That same negative atmosphere will often translate over into real life and affect the people who are associated with the victims.

When adapting to social media, one could say that real-life interactions become even more uncomfortable than they already are. Over the years, society has become accustomed to simplified communication through the click of a (send) button. Why take the time out of your day to meet someone in person when you can share your thoughts/ideas with them in seconds? As nice as the concept is, the lack of face-to-face communication has led to increased risks of mental illness. This is because online communication has made it way too easy for us. The world has become so well-adapted to this idea of online communication that people feel more anxious when they have to confront someone face-to-face. When you are using an electronic device to communicate, you have more time to respond to your peers with a more “intellectual” or “sophisticated” answer. Personal interactions require split-second thinking and impulse responses that don’t seem nearly as attractive or appealing to the other party involved in the conversation.

Social media can also lead to self-esteem issues through the viewing of other people’s content. The tendency on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat is for someone to show the world only the good/exciting things that happen in their life. Half the time the things people post aren’t even what they seem. It is extremely common for someone to slap a filter on a picture, throw in a few edits here and there, and then post it out there for everyone to see. Often the pictures you see on Instagram aren’t even real. For example, a fitness blogger may post a progress picture on Instagram to show the world how “big” their bottom has gotten and how “flat” their abs have become. In reality, they aren’t as perfect as they appear to be. All you need to take a “good” picture is to suck your stomach in, stick your bottom out, and flex as hard as you can. The pictures may look nice, but they won’t demonstrate what you look like on any ordinary day. What does this have to do with mental illness? The positive content that people post about themselves hurts some people who see their posts and automatically start comparing themselves to the person in the picture. People feel pressure to “fit in” and look like the people in the pictures or try to live their life to the same standard. When they can’t “live up” to these people they start to feel unhappy with themselves and anxious about the way they appear feelingsto these people on Instagram. The constant pressure and anxiety that they feel can lead to other mental illnesses such as eating disorders.

Eating disorders are a large problem in America today and they can stem from a lot of different things. Claire Kearns shares though the article “Social Media and Eating Disorders” how damaging the web can be when it comes to eating disorders by stating:

In addition to being a general source of distress due to comparisons, social media outlets can also be home to toxic communities that may advocate unhealthy eating and disordered eating behavior. Pro-anorexia (“pro-ana”) and pro-bulimia websites and online forums are publicly available; they are interactive and promote starvation. Users can swap “thinspiration” (“inspirational” pictures of extremely thin bodies) and compare body measurements and stats. It is all too easy to pick up [sic] ‘tips and tricks and additional harmful ideas while making connections with people that share the same unhealthy obsessions and behaviors. While social media outlets, or even pro-ana sites and content do not directly cause eating disorders, they may normalize disordered eating behaviors and discourage recovery.

Although social media may not be the direct cause of, eating disorders, it can still be used as an outlet by helping to make an already bad problem worse.

Internet addiction disorder is an incredibly serious problem among millennials and young adults today. According to the article “Internet Addiction Disorder” by Christina Gregory, if you answer yes to any of the questions “Do you play video games on the Internet in excess? Are you compulsively shopping online? Can’t physically stop checking Facebook? Is your excessive computer use interfering with your daily life – relationships, work, school?” you are at risk for internet addiction disorder. It is so easy to develop internet addiction nowadays because of all of the recourses we have right at the tip of our fingers. As the world goes on, the amount of technology continues to increase. Nowadays we have tools such as smartphones, apple-watches, tablets, television, laptops, etc. These recourses can be found almost everywhere in America and with all of the options, and expectations unrealistic Americans are at a high risk of developing this disorder. So what is so addicting about the internet? Gregory informs her audience that the leading cause behind addiction is the rewarding feeling people obtain from online successes. These “successes” include things such as receiving multiple likes on a post, obtaining good news, or even winning a competition and feeling the satisfaction of being the “best” at something.

One of the many types of internet addiction is pornography addiction. According to Julia Cottle in “The Brainsthe  Of Porn Addicts,” almost half of the men and a fifth of women from the ages of 18 to 39 research pornography every week. According to the article, porn can be both good and bad for people. Porn can create an expectations unrealisticexpectationsunrealistic expectations and sexual expectationsand feelings for both men and women and lead to dissatisfaction while having sexual relations. This leads to unhappiness which in turn leads to depression and anxiety.

In the editorial “Social Networking Addiction: Emerging Themes and Issues,” by Mark D. Griffiths, there are three perspectives on internet addictions. This includes the cognitive-behavioral model, the social-skill model, and the socio-cognitive model.

The cognitive-behavioral model is used to describe when a person has trouble adapting to particular social situations so he/she becomes obsessed or addicted to the ability to socialize online and create connections.

The social-skill model is similar to the cognitive-behavioral model in the idea that a person lacks particular social-skillssocialskillsentitiesskills social skills and behaviors and uses social media as a primary way to communicate with people.

The socio-cognitive model is represented by people who turn to social media in hopes to obtain a reward or mental satisfaction.

According to the creators of these models, Xu and Tan, people become addicted to social networking in hopes to relieve stress or solve problems. The use of social media is a way for these people to escape the real world and create another life.

There are plenty of studies that will argue that social media has more of a positive effect on people than a negative, but when you compare the similarities and differences it is a relatively close call. Some of the positive effects that social media presents include health benefits, social benefits, and informative benefits when used to the right degree. The internet is very useful when used for research and educational purposes. The internet is also a useful tool when it comes to job searches and meeting new people alike. In totality, the internet is a good place when used for the right reasons.

Overall, social media produces stereotypes that create multiple societal problems all over the world. People suffer from bodily image dissatisfaction which in turn leads to mental illness and internal dysfunction. A lot of society feels pressure to conform to a particular “norm” that is presented in the media and used as a tool for advertisement. Addiction is the result of excessive internet access and impulsive/obsessive internet use. As social media continues to create problems for people, the need for awareness continues to increase.