Social Media and its Impacts on Generation- MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theSocial Media and its Impacts on Younger Generation. Answer: There have been several technological advancements taking place for the well being of the young generation and the society as a whole. Specifically, social media records high level of evolvement since the 1900s when radio was introduced. There have been social media avenues such as YouTube, Facebook, snap chat, Twitter and Instagram just to mention a few, that have gained popularity due to negativity they have brought to the young generation all over the world. Several criminal activities continue taking place, and that social media is there to ensure such undertakings become visual to the people. Social media supports vices such as trolling, sexual harassment and cyber bullying to the extent of making the media platform to lose its importance as far as the well-being of the children and young adults are concerned. On the other hand, there exist guidelines pertaining the use of social media. Therefore, positive strides that social media has taken towards reducing criminal activities should be highlighted to better the future of the younger generation. The arguments that social media supports illegal activities such as sexual exploitation, cyberbullying and trolling are correct. In light of this evidence, cyber bullying has significantly thrived among young adults, making it difficult for them to cope with life as expected (Bishop, 2013, 307). This entails sending of insolent emails and texts. In most cases, this scenario is evident during online gaming where the young adults are threatened after failing to reach the expected target of the game. In connection to this, there is the emergence of such a text as No one likes you! I can spoil your life, loser!' which tend to distress children. Furthermore, young adults are susceptible to inappropriate tagging by their peers, and this dictates how dangerous their lives turn to be because many people can view the tagging over the internet. On Facebook, for example, young adults associate their friends jokingly by tagging them alongside adult content such as pornographic video and images ( Halder and Jaishankar, 2014, 128). For sure, this might seem right in as far as their cognitive level is concerned, but the overall impact of the habit is more than severe. Depression comes because of the victimization and mockery that underlie the activity (Srivastava, 2012, 29). In reality, Amanda Todd case talks more about social media support of cyber bullying. The case involved a fifteen years old lady called Amanda who was involved in capping which turned out to be a threat by the offender if she failed to show up. Consequently, her photo featuring bare breast trended don the internet which contributed to her committing suicide. To mend the situation, the social media more so the Facebook management has revised its rules regarding the anti-harassment policy that prohibits sexual harassment, bullying, and sharing of nudity photos. Social media by far promotes trolling which entails posting of hurting comments to get the reaction of the target. This habit is becoming more evident to the younger generation as they seek to receive compliment regarding the picture and videos they post online using Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other communication platforms. The fact underlying trolling is that someone does not have post a nudity photo or video to receive a wrong comment (Cassim, 2013, 7). Some trollers just exercise their animosity because they have got something to say. There are those people who would not congratulate a certain individual irrespective of their positive contribution, and through social media, they get an opportunity to attack them by dropping additional commentaries. To expound on this practice, Lady Gaga, a music artist, participation in 51st NFL award was tied with trolls. During the ceremony, Lady Gaga went on stage to present her performances that moved the crowd. She staged diverse acrobat ics that matched well with the dance. Inevitably trolls flooded the twitter where her stomach was criticized as flabby. Trollers extended their rude comments by stating that lady gaga lacked six packs hence terming her body imperfect. Trolling leads to social media stigma and feeling rejection that might lead to distress (Balaban and ?im?ek, 2013, 43). Recently, Twitter has adopted two significant changes regarding their policies on content regulation. This involves new tools that enable the users to cope with unwanted messages and harassment. The tools are useful in that it is possible for the users to present a sound petition that might see Twitter accounts of the offenders being blocked. The users are also allowed to report offensive and disrespectful cases rendering the platform safe to use. Twitter employs a filtering design that automatically detects unwanted comments, therefore, preventing users from seeing them hence keeping them safe (Thomee et al., 2015, 115). It has ensur ed that no single person is harassed on gender, the age of the account and many other related factors. Sexual exploitation possibly known as grooming continues to gain popularity through social media. Adults are well known to utilize the online social platform to establish contact with young children for the purpose of creating the sexual relationship (Binford, 2015, 71). The fact about sexual exploitation online is that the online sex offenders behave in a manner suggesting being the same age as the victims. In fact, it becomes difficult for the victims to notice the reality due to the complexity of the manipulation undertaken by the offenders. This practice is the crime in itself. This is because young people are not used to sexual behaviors therefore by introducing them to that line is a clear indication of sexual exploitation. Also, young adults feel uncomfortable to do such activities, but the pressure might seem too high to coerce them into participating into those atrocities (Kift, Campbell and Butler, 2009, 63). This paves the way for groomers to exchange of nude images, sexua l conversations through online or text and engaging in sexual activities by the use of Smartphone and webcams. This impact negatively on the children as their exposure to the social media stimulate depression, nightmares, drug abuse, low self-esteem and thoughts about committing suicide. The real life situation of sexual exploitation is about a sixteen years old girl from PYMBLE ladies college who was lured to sex by a convicted criminal Sean price through the use of snap chat. The girl is said to have had a sexual conversation with the offender who bought her ticket to Washington. Luckily, the collaboration of Australian and US police has yielded fruits as the child has been found and deported back to Sydney. To ensure promising future for the young generation and safeguarding the market share, the snap chat management has established restrictions that allow users to use their real names (Thomee et al., 2015, 117). Similarly, users can be traced and their locations recorded through technology to strengthen ways in which offenders can be tracked down. The social media supports sexting criminal behavior that should not be condoned to people under the age of eighteen years. In a nutshell, sexting involves sharing of sexual texts and photos online in the attempt to establish a relationship (Awan, 2014, 143). Because young adults have easier accessibility to the device such as smartphones and laptops, it is hard to regulate their activities on social media. Sexting becomes unworthy due to the fact the offenders might opt to publish shared images and webcam content on the internet without permission of their colleagues. This ends up hurting the victims, and they are exposed to insults and depressions that do not work well with them. To bring balance to the situation, the Google has introduced a firm proposition that restricts revenge porn if at all there is no mutual consent between the players (Mahajan, 2015, 131). The matter is brought by the Google stepping further to destroying and removing such content, therefore, enhancing safety for everyone. Conclusively, facts regarding social media promoting crime specifically among the younger generation with regards to sexual exploitation, sexting, trolling and cyber bullying and trolling have been evaluated. Inevitably, younger adults are bound to experience hardships during growth if some of the activities in social media are not regulated. Fortunately, the social media platforms such as Google, snap chat, Facebook, and Twitter have introduced new rules that ensure that wellbeing of the people is safeguarded. Personally, the information has equipped me with relevant knowledge based on my interaction with strangers online. Ideally, it is important for people to undertake in-depth studies concerning social media and its impact to the atrocities happening in the society to avoid victimization. References Awan, I., 2014. Islamophobia and Twitter: A typology of online hate against muslims on social media.Policy Internet,6(2), pp.133-150. Balaban-Sal?, J. and ?im?ek, E., 2013. ABNORMALITIES IN VIRTUAL WORLD.ICCMTD-2013, p.11. 41-44 Binford, W., 2015. The Digital Child. 69-72 Bishop, J., 2013. The art of trolling law enforcement: a review and model for implementing flame trolling'legislation enacted in Great Britain (19812012).International Review of Law, Computers Technology,27(3), pp.301-318. Cassim, F., 2013. Formulating adequate legislation to address cyber-bullying: Has the law kept pace with advancing technology?.South African Journal of Criminal Justice,26(1), pp.1-20. Halder, D. and Jaishankar, K., 2014. Patterns of Sexual Victimization of Children and Women in the Multipurpose Social Networking Sites.Social Networking as a Criminal Enterprise, 125-137 Kift, S., Campbell, M. and Butler, D., 2009. Cyberbullying in social networking sites and blogs: Legal issues for young people and schools.JL Inf. Sci.,20, .60-66 Mahajan, R., 2015. Use of Social Media as a New Investigative Tool in Marketing Research for Small Business.International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning,5(3), 129-133 Srivastava, S., 2012. Pessimistic side of information communication technology: cyber bullying legislature laws.International Journal,1(1). 25-31 Thomee, B., Shamma, D.A., Friedland, G., Elizalde, B., Ni, K., Poland, D., Borth, D. and Li, L.J., 2015. 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