The Dark Side of Social Media

In the recent economic times, social media has played a great role in expanding businesses, growing clientele, enhancing the quality of the services provided as the purchase and the delivery of products and services has been made simpler and convenient for both buyers and sellers. Social media has also enhanced relationships because keeping in touch is made convenient and achievable in a century where life moves very fast. However, social media has not been without its dark side and this paper seeks to explore the dark side of social media. Digital Drama Social media includes social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Snapchat, among others. Most of the social media sites involve the users adding images of themselves or their surroundings and the fellow users connected to these users reacting and commenting on these images.

In the social media arena, privacy is what everyone seeks in a public space. Social media users engage strangers online without exposing their private information. However, most social media sites collect and store information about their users and sometimes this information may be obtained by some organizations for research purposes. Earlier in 2018, Facebook users were full of rage when they learned that Facebook had obtained and given information of 50 million users to predict the United States of America presidential elections in 2016 (Muller, 2018). Social medial has made exploitation and spread of pornography and violent images, rampant. Teenagers have been pushed to spend money and take photos while at it just to match their online friends. Social media users easily hide behind screens and allow other users to judge them according to the lives they want them to think they have (Bolton,2013) Over the period of 2007 to 2015, suicide levels among teens, both boys and girls doubled.

The causes, such as homework burden and economic hardships did not seem to change but for the smartphone usage, it seemed to be disturbingly high (Fox, J, 2015). Teenagers are constantly in a cycle to discover their identity. Social media becomes a mirror where they measure how well they are doing compared to their friends. , however, the negative reviews are not treated the same. The average of the reviews may be adverse and may lead to the ruining a business reputation due to a malicious post on Yelp. In some cases, businesses may be manipulated and extorted by internet users in order to give positive reviews. Mitigating Social Media’s Dark Side Technology is ever changing in the 20th Century. Even with the data security risks inherent in social media, these risks can be mitigated and the space made safer.

Also, in some cases the consumer may blackmail the service providers with unethical and unrealistic demands and blackmail with negative reviews. To mitigate this, some of the websites that post online reviews like TripAdvisor have come up with ways to report customers that posted negative reviews out of malice and also businesses that strong arm consumers for positive reviews. This is key in ensuring businesses do not suffer due to unfounded reasons or bad services are not unfairly applauded. For businesses that are transitioning to social media marketing, it is critical for the management to train its employees on how to navigate the internet for the best outcome. Most employers assume that social media is basic knowledge to everyone. , Kanuparthy, P.