Social Media has come a long way and has changed the way we live our lives. You can now use different Social Media platforms to create personal and business profiles, share photos, videos, text with family and friends from all over the world using your phone, PC, or tablet. However, everything has two sides, the good and the bad. Although social media has brought a lot of benefits to society, it has also affected society in a negative way. How we use social media determines how it affects our lives.

These are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using social media.

Advantages

Great source of information and updates

You can use social media to get the latest updates from around the world. It can also help to reunite families and people who have been separated by a tragedy or help in raising funds for people in need. Parents use it to keep in touch with their children who are in college or live far away from them.

It’s educational

Teachers and students benefit a lot from social media. You can follow people who are experts in a particular field you want to learn from to gain more knowledge in that field through podcasts, webinars or posts published on their page. It doesn’t matter where you are or your educational background, you can learn for free.

Increase your website traffic

Social media can increase the traffic to your website which can lead to more online sales of your brand, products or services, and lead conversions. You can also buy 50 instagram followers daily to increase traffic to your Instagram account which will draw readers to your page.

Promoting your business

You can use social media to promote your brand to a larger target audience. Advertising on social media is less expensive which makes your business more profitable. Most social media platforms allow users to advertise their products at no cost but also provide paid advertising for a small fee if you want to reach a wider target audience.

Create awareness

Social media creates awareness of new and innovative ways of improving your life. Business people, students, lawyers, farmers, etc. can discover things that can help them in their different fields of expertise.

Connects people together

Nowadays, people use social media to form relationships around the world that can end up bringing them together. Young people use it to create friendships and network with different people from all over the world to learn and share ideas.

Improve brand reputation

Your swift and enlightening response to your reader’s questions and comments concerning your brand and related developments in your field will make you be seen as an expert in your field. This can improve how your audience sees your business.

Easier customer interaction

Social media allows you to easily respond and get feedback from your customers. You can attract more customers to your page by showing your expertise in how you handle positive or negative feedback.

Disadvantages

Cyber bullying

Social media has made it easy to pryinto other people’s lives and this is especially true with many children becoming victims to cyberbullying. It’s very easy to create an untraceable fake account and use it to bully anyone on the internet with threats, intimidations or posting slanderous things about them to hurt them. Many teenagers have committed suicide because of being cyber bullied.

Decreased face-to-face communication skills

Due to overreliance on computers and phone as a way to communicate, most people lack the skills to hold a face-to-face conversation. You feel awkward and exposed unable to conduct a meaningful conversation because you’re used to hiding behind a keyboard.

Lack of understanding and thoughtfulness

Spending so much time on social media platforms has reduced the quality of conversations to a point where people don’t always understand the emotions or feelings of the person they’re talking to. Talking to someone in person isn’t the same as texting, you are able to know and feel them through their voice and expressions.

 Encourages laziness

This socially active era is very lazy. Instead of going out shopping, you can just shop online and everything will be brought right at your doorstep. Or instead of going to visit your friends, you just text or video call them. It has become very easy to just sit and do nothing.

Reduced family closeness

In the olden days, people cherished and looked forward to having dinner together as a family where they talked, laughed, and enjoyed each other company which brought them closer. Nowadays, you will hardly see a family eating together let alone sitting in the same room having a conversation without getting interrupted by their phones.

Caused security issues

Your personal information is no longer private. Anyone can access that information without your consent. Since almost all government functions have gone online, you’re required to enter your personal details to access services. Your private information is now public record that can be accessed from anywhere by anyone.

Increased cheating in relationships

Just like relationships are sometimes formed through social media, they are being destroyed because of social media. Married couples are cheating on each other and forming other relationships online which is causing a lot of conflict in the marriage.

Used to promote vices

Since you can use social media to advertise anything, young people are being lured into drugs, alcoholism, and prostitution because social media is glamorizing that kind of lifestyle by making it look flashy and trendy. Teenagers are following and emulating celebrities with questionable lifestyles and character because they like them.

Hacking

Many people and businesses have been hacked and all their sensitive and private information shared on the internet which may have led to huge financial losses and privacy. The worst part is it’s very hard to know your hacker. There is also identity theft where someone steals your personal data and accounts info and uses it to defraud others.

Conclusion

These pros and cons of social media will help you to be responsible when using social media. As long as you use social media in moderation, you have nothing to be worried about.

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