IS SOCIAL MEDIA...
www.icenimagazine.co.uk
Issue 82 2020
Is Social Media Good Or Bad For You? Love it or hate it, social media now makes its presence felt in many areas of modern life. For some, it's a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, to keep connected and establish their own community. For others, they view it as a free, effective way of building an online profile, developing business contacts and promoting their goods or services. We cannot completely ignore it, even if we do get exasperated with the numerous selfies, pictures of restaurant meals and cat videos! Social media is an established part of everyday life for many of us. Statistics report that we check our devices every 12 minutes and spend an average of 3 hours 15 minutes every day online, often on sites owned by Google and Facebook. Whilst there's merit in being aware of what's happening in the world at large, we can't ignore some worrying aspects of the internet and social media. Concern is frequently expressed about its impact on our lives and our relationships with others.
Social media can be seen as both good or bad. Certainly chat rooms and forums can be a great place to find company if we're feeling friendless and isolated, with no one to talk to about how we're feeling. Finding reassurance, answers to questions from people experiencing similar issues can help us feel connected, supported and less alone. It can also help us reach people we would never have been able to meet otherwise and, consequently, their friends too. Using social media we have the potential to speak to a vast audience, to a community of like-minded people. But there are others aspects of social media which are not so rosy. How many of us see groups of people not talking to each other, sharing a meal whilst preoccupied with their phones? Or parents on their devices, ignoring their children, or even using them as a babysitter for their children? Living in a virtual world where we're constantly checking our phones can have us believing that online is the real world, where the things we see and hear are the truth.
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