The children and teenagers of today are growing up in a world unlike anything that has been experienced by previous generations. This new experience is the rapidly industrializing technological world that has created the social media era. Children as young as five years old are seen with powerful devices such as iPhones and iPads which can easily connect them to media. Millions of people throughout the world are using various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat to communicate to each other. As with anything, there are certain advantages and disadvantages that go along with the new existence of social media.

The advantages that social media brings is that it has transformed the world into being an even more globally connected place. It makes the world one big community in which thoughts, ideas, pictures, videos, and comments can be shared instantly with the click of a button. I can easily send my cousin that lives a few states away in Michigan a photo via Snapchat. She will receive that photo the second I press send. Social media makes communication so easy and the response time immediate. It compresses time because we no longer have to communicate through letters which can take days or weeks to receive a response. Platforms like Facebook can keep you connected to old friends and family members effortlessly. They will be able to see your life updated to the second and vice versa.

Along with keeping in touch, social media can allow you to form new connections and friendships with people that can be hundreds of thousands of miles away. It helps people connect with others that have similar interests. For example, different social media accounts could be dedicated to a common interest such as a certain TV show or movie. Pages like this form a sense of community among users. If someone feels alone in real life, they can easily talk to many of people online. Also, social media has allowed romantic relationships to formulate. Many social media dating websites and applications that have been established which can set people up on dates. These matches could possibly lead to marriage and happiness.

Another advantage of social media is that it allows for civic engagement. Certain pages for a community or town can be established on a platform such as Facebook. On this page, people can voice their concerns, problems, and ideas that could work towards bettering their community in real life. Since mostly everyone has a busy life, a community page allows for easy organization to happen and allows for anyone to get involved anywhere. Most people carry their smartphones with them.

Media entrepreneurship is another advantage of social media in this day and age. Anyone can easily promote their business and create one all through social media. Many people even get paid for promoting products by just posting pictures with the certain products on their social media page. Technology can open opportunities for anyone to be an entrepreneur just behind a screen.

Even though there are many advantages of social media, there are also disadvantages. Since everyone around the world is connected and able to respond to any public post, this makes negativity and cyber-attacks easy to occur. Cyber bullying still is a thing. Many nasty comments are seen all over different social media platforms. Also, this connectivity can make it easy for many online fights and disputes to occur. Sometimes these fights can escalate into real life.
Another disadvantage is that social media can be extremely addicting and detrimental to one’s confidence. Everyone appears to be addicted to showing off their life and making it look better than it is. The amount of “likes” you get on a post is immediately tied to a person’s self-confidence. Social media also causes people to compare themselves to others who seem to look better or being living a “nicer” life. This addiction to social media platforms causes people to forget to live in the moment instead of taking a picture of the moment. It is one of the main reasons the younger generations cannot seem to put their phone down. Another disadvantage related to this is that some people publicize everything in their life when certain things should be kept private. There is a lot less privacy now than there used to be.
Social media is a revolutionizing tool in the modern world that can be used for many positive things. However, there can also be negative things that go along with this huge social participation online. Just like there is two sides to every story, there is two sides to social media.