The Negative Effects of Social Networking Services

Sakura Ishadoh, OCJC

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LINE, and many other Social Networking Services exist nowadays in almost every nook and cranny of our lives. These services are very useful tools to help us contact many different people from all over the world. They can show us about what our friends are up to now, the fashion trends they follow, the shocking news about insane celebrities, and even tell us about people we don't know. Even though we have come to believe that Social Networking Services have made modern life more conducive for us to live and have made our lives more interesting, we must understand that there are some serious negative effects that come along with our uses of these powerful tools. 

One of the negative effects seen in the world of Social Networking Services, is the lack of important information we see. According to Yuichi Sasaki, the professor of the Communication Department in Tokyo Keizai University, when a person clicks on a content or an advertisement, the computer keeps track of that data, which makes web pages show contents that the user has interest in. Everything we see is what we like, which makes it hard for us to get out of that pleasant pit. People end up in a “filter bubble,” notes Sakitani, where you only see information that is comfortable for you. The search engines and social media algorithms make users wrapped in bubbles made from their own cultural and ideological filters and gets them isolated from opinions which differs from their own. In an example made by Yuichi Sasaki, during an election, the Republican supporter will retweet another supporter’s information, then the same thing happens to the Democrat supporter. This ends up with the Republicans only seeing the Republican posts, and the Democrat’s only seeing the Democratic posts. This is what happens behind polarization. 

Another point that citizens across the world should be much more aware of is the practice of leaking our personal information to government agencies and to other huge corporations wanting to sell us their products and points of view. In “Chomsky and Herman’s Propaganda Model Foretells a Weaponized Facebook,” Broudy and Klaehn remind us that “the personal is now public” with regards to what we use and say on Facebook. No matter what our privacy settings say, our words are open to sale to these agencies and organizations. The authors essentially want us that the world’s leading Social Networking Service is using our personal information as a commodity and, therefore, us as products. Who wants to be sold like a pet? 

Other negative effects happening because of the Social Networking Services is Cyberbullying and Cyberharassment. “59 percent of U.S. teens have been bullied or harassed online,” says Monica Anderson a researcher from the Pew Research Center. Research shows that 42 percent of teens have been called offensive names online and on their phones, 32 percent of teens say that false rumors were spread on the internet, 21 percent say that their parents were continuously questioning them about where they are, what  hey are doing, and who they are with. 16 percent say that they have been blackmailed to physically be abused. In the same article, Anderson reports that ¼ of the teens say that people sent them explicit images they didn’t ask for, and 7 percent say that “someone shared explicit images of them without their permission.” Also, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology announced that in the research made by the ministry showed that the number of students in Japan who has experienced cyberbullying has increased from 9,187 students to 10,783 students, an increase of 1596 people. Social Networking Services is also affecting the children. 

The Cyber Crime Prevention Project of the National Police Agency released materials that compiled the current situation and countermeasures of victimized children caused by the Social Networking Services. Along with the increase in ownership and use of smartphones among young people, the number of victimized children has also increased, and it became clear that in the year 2017  record has been updated again. The data have shown that 38.7 percent of the crimes were related to the violation of the Youth Protection Act, 31.4 percent related to child porn, 24.7 percent related with child prostitution, 3.4 percent related with essential crime, and 1.8 percent with the Child Welfare Act. One of the main reasons why this is happening is because of the lack of education related to Social Networking Services and the Internet to the younger children. In the research made by the Cyber Crime Prevention Project of the National Police Agency, showed that 40.8 percent of the children do not remember being informed about the dangers behind the usefulness of the Social Networking Services, and 6.8 percent of the children did not get the education at all. 

The last but not the least is the negative effects made to the mental health of  a person. In a study published in the Computers and Human Behaviour, it says that people who use seven or more Social Networking Services have high levels of anxiety symptoms three times more than the people using zero to two Social Networking Services. According to Brown, the levels of anxiety shown in this research refer to feelings of restlessness and worry, and sleep/concentration problems. It also has an effect on the self-esteem of people. Since we can see what other people are posting, we start to compare our lives to it, but you are not necessarily seeing how that person or a thing you’re looking at truly looks like but might be seeing something “made-up with its filters and lighting and clever angles. In a survey of 1,500 people made by a disability charity Scope, 1/2 of the people aged 18 to 34 who used Social Networking Services feels unattractive. Much other research showed a similar conclusion such as the research made by the Penn State University, people who view other people’s selfies have low self-esteem because they tend to compare themselves to photos of other people who look satisfied. Research from the University of Strathclyde, Ohio University and the University of Iowa also found that women compare themselves negatively to selfies of other women, and gets a negative feeling about it. 

Being born in a generation where Social Networking Services takes a large part in our lives, I personally feel the dangers close to me. I have a Facebook, Twitter, and an Instagram account, and I do post at least once a day on one of these Social Networking Services. I went from Okinawa to Portland to study abroad, but I never really told anyone where I would be. I only posted that I am in one of the states. One day I posted about a “Bee in a club Day” hosted by the student council there and wrote about how I am helping with a club right now. I took a picture of a cupcake with a bee-shaped gummy on it and posted it on Instagram. After a while, I got a comment saying, “You are in Portland Community College right? That's the only college that has a Bee related club day today.” I was terrified. I wasn't hiding it or anything but still, it was very intimidating. One picture of a cupcake is enough for people to find out where you are from a place far away. I’ve always thought that Social Networking Services is not a great deal, but from this situation, I felt the alarm ringing in my head. I deleted that picture and am very careful now about what I post.  

Social Networking Services has made our lives much easier by being able to contact people in an instant instead of waiting for days for a letter to come and arrive, and to know what is happening in the current world , but there is always a negative side effects such as the lack of information, information leakage, cyber-related bullying, effects to children, and the effecting of mental health. As users, we have to always be aware of those effects and be very careful when we post in them.