Social Media: The Pros and Cons

CEBU, Philippines – The internet has continued to change the way people communicate and interact with one another, in ways that were unimaginable just a few years back. The technology has since taken on so many levels that it captivates people from a cross-section of society. For instance, both young and old, rich and poor are now hooked to the social media.

And there has also emerged two main factions on the issue of social media such that it has become necessary to explore the pros and cons of the matter and its effects on society. The website www.toptensocialmedia.com points out the contrasting values of social media. While the website's cited cases are foreign, these have relevance to the local experience.

The Positives

Social media helps increase criminal prosecution.

The New York City police department began using Twitter back in 2011 to track criminals foolish enough to brag about their crimes online. When the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup in 2011, their Vancouver fans took to the streets and rioted, but local authorities used social media to track and tag the people involved, and they caught people who were stealing during the riot.

Social networking creates new social connections.

Statistics show that 70 percent of adults have used social media sites to connect with relatives in other states, and 57 percent of teens have reported making new friendships on social media sites.

The Internet helps students do better in school.

There is an interesting statistic about the social media and its positive effect of students doing well in school. Students with internet access at a rate of 50 percent have reported using social networking sites to discuss school work, and another 59 percent talk about instructive topics.

Social media promotes a better quality of life.

If you want to talk about the pros and cons of social media, take a close look at all the support groups on Facebook. Members of these groups discuss their health conditions, share important information, and resources relevant to their conditions while creating strong support networks.

Social media is a source of employment.

Job sourcing has gone modern, thanks to social media. Sites such as LinkedIn are a major resource that 89 percent of job recruiters take advantage of when looking to hire potential employees.

Yet, as the saying goes: "There are two sides to a coin." The social media has its downsides too.

The Negatives

Social media encroaches into the legitimate news.

Nowadays much of the news that people read about comes from social media websites, and the estimate is around 27.8 percent. This figure ranks just slightly under newspapers at 28.8 percent, greater than radio's figure of 18.8 percent and far outpaces the figure for other print publications at just 6 percent. In other words, social media may be a threat to the mainstream new industry, but to a large degree without the stringent discipline of the news professionals.

There's too much misinformation in the social media.

With the advent of the web, people started to create their own websites and blogs. While many of those blogs were just basic diaries, a few of them were about topics like health and politics while others were how-to blogs. Again, blogs may be taken as authoritative articles on certain specialized topics, when in reality they may just be plain personal opinions of the bloggers.

Many blogs have turned into rumor mills, spreading misinformation that people tend to believe just because it's published on the web. Rumors about hurricane Sandy and gunfights in other countries like Mexico, for examples, have been picked up by reliable news services, and this misinformation has been shared without the proper vetting of the sources providing the information.

Pupils spending too much time on social media have lower academic grades.

Here is another argument about the pros and cons of social media as it pertains to students. Statistics show that pupils using social media too often tend to have general performance average of 3.06 compared to 3.82 of pupils who don't use social media.

An even scarier fact is that students who use social media tend to score 20 percent lower on their test scores than their counterparts.

Social media sites are often to blame for lost productivity.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are a direct cause for lost productivity at the workplace. In a survey 36 % of people said that social networking was the biggest waste of time in comparison to activities like fantasy football, shopping, and watching television.

Social media is the cause for less face-to-face communication.

One last discussion about the pros and cons of social media is a lack of one-on-one communication. In a 2012 study, families who reported spending less time with one another rose from a level of 8 percent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2011.

The study also reported that 32 percent of the people in the survey either were texting or were on social media sites instead of communicating with each other during family gatherings.

Like anything in life, there is hardly such a thing as a complete boon or a complete bane. Life is a dichotomy that calls for prudence and good sense. In most undertakings, restraint is as necessary as passion.