Whether Social Media Improves or Damages Communication

Social media refers to a collection of online platforms involved in collaborating and sharing information with an online community through posting, interacting, and commenting on one another’s posts. These platforms have become invaluable for communicating and connecting with across the globe, building personal and professional relationships. Additionally, social media have resulted in rising addiction and anxiety issues in which the sites seem to prioritize communication forms that people are naturally not inclined to embrace. As it is undeniable that personal communications with people allow the development of a deeper and more meaningful connection, the evolving digital profiles have complicated the formation of personable connections with others. Social media appears to have both positive and negative impacts. Thus, this essay will discuss whether social media improves or damages communication by considering how it leads to weaker social connections and decreased communication skills. Correspondingly, the discussion will highlight how social media increases the speed of communication and enhanced interactions.

Negative Impacts

Weaker Social Connections

Online communication occurring through social media is believed to have adverse effects on many individuals’ communication and social skills. The era of social media has caused conversions to shift to both online and offline platforms, and society has adopted the norm of oversharing and interacting with family and friends through electronic devices instead of face-to-face. As there is a decrease in communication quality, the quantity of face-to-face interactions has negatively been affected because people no longer consider having personal interactions and intimate conversations anymore (Siddiqui & Singh, 2016). Instead, individuals have turned to internet platforms to relieve their nervousness that some may suffer when trying to start relationships with other people. As a result, this trend leads to people lacking the interest of talking while in person, even when dealing with workplace matters. The majority of social media generation would prefer solving these matters via instant email services or messaging instead of meeting in person and discuss a scenario that can potentially lead to the emergence of other serious issues. The use of nonverbal communication without the involvement of cues that people use in deciphering their message is a critical problem because people will not properly understand what the other worker is trying to pass across when not in person.

Decreased Communication Skills

Social media platforms cause the impairment of communication skills and language degradation due to the extensive use of shortened versions of words to deliver short messages quickly. Shortened versions of words completely ruin grammar, and the development of slang terms lead people to neglect the language’s beauty when online and busy with social media communication. The use of shortened words does not necessarily negatively impact communication because while writing, the language tends to be easier to interpret. Nevertheless, an issue that people may suffer is when they attempt to integrate and use this form of language communication in their everyday life. This type of language lowers social skills when individuals use those kinds of phrases because they cannot convey what they intend to pass across properly without using informal speech. McCabe (2016) argues that social media profiles and interactions compliments what is being done on other branding platforms and offline. As a result, applying colloquial metaphors into personal conversations and using slang terms developed and popularized by social media shapes the society into no longer functioning healthily in social situations. People will often seem awkward in such situations, and society becomes negatively affected due to people losing the significant efficacy portion of their speech. According to Aggerholm and Andersen (2018), social media can make a difference in recruitment contexts and may affect the process and its outcome. Consequently, most college students have been powerfully affected to the extent that their ability and focus toward engaging in face-to-face conversations have been drastically reduced. The excessive use of social media has led to severe interpersonal communication issues among coworkers due to a lack of professionalism that most students do not experience other than dealing with social media platforms. As Hood et al. (2014) suggest, an individual’s branding message to the intended audience should evolve to meet both employment and promotion needs. However, people have begun losing manners and etiquette when interacting and have started incorporating the same lack of manners and politeness that they use in social media services to the workplace environment.

Positive Impacts

Increased Communication Speed

Social media has significantly become beneficial to communication due to an increase in the speed of information delivery. Important messages and notifications are conveyed to multiple individuals and delivered within seconds as people with common interests come together and form groups. Social media has shortened communication and made it more frequent by greatly diminishing the response time. Broadcast technologies, for instance, Twitter, have transformed short communication bursts from online conversations to news programs that reach many people at once (Baruah, 2015). Twitter has improved online communication by offering updates on things that happen simultaneously, therefore providing increased awareness and a sense of connectedness without direct contact.

Enhanced Interactions

Social media platforms offer people the opportunity to interact with peers and even make new friends regardless of the location in a safe environment. Most individuals have problems communicating face-to-face and often consider social media as a platform that can help them cope with their nervousness and enhance t. Introverts use social media to boost their confidence in which by engaging in informative conversations and discussions concerning different topics affecting them, they may find safe places and people with shared interests with whom they can hang out without fearing rejection. Social media helps develop open communication by creating an advocacy voice through reactions and comments on online posts, giving people a sense of belonging. Exposure to correct information makes social media a positive influence in making people understand themselves better and open up communication. By providing access to connecting with other people and sharing content, online platforms encourage exercising creativity when engaging with friends and solving problems. As McCabe (2016) ascertains, it is not only students who need social networking assistance. Social media professionals also benefit from leveraging connections leading to career progression. Thus, these interactions occurring on social media form the reasons people choose it because of benefiting both socially and professionally.

Conclusion

To sum up, social media can improve or damage communication depending on how it is used. The discussion above has explained the negative impacts of social media and established that it results in weaker social connections due to lack of face-to-face interaction and decreased communication skills caused by shortening of words together using slang terms. On the other hand, the positive impacts include social media increasing communication speed and enhancing the level of interaction among individuals. Nevertheless, social media has severe negative effects despite the provided benefits, which necessitates society to limit its use to a manageable amount.

References

Aggerholm, H. K., & Andersen, S. E. (2018). Social media recruitment 3.0. Journal of Communication Management.

Baruah, T. D. (2015). Effectiveness of Social Media as a tool of communication and its potential for technology enabled connections: A micro-level study. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 2(5), 1-10.

Hood, K. M., Robles, M., & Hopkins, C. D. (2014). Personal branding and social media for students in today’s competitive job market. The journal of research in business education, 56(2), 33.

McCabe, M. B. (2016). SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES FOR CAREER PROGRESSION. ASBBS Proceedings, 23(1), 398.

Siddiqui, S., & Singh, T. (2016). Social media its impact with positive and negative aspects. International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research, 5(2), 71-75.

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