"Social Media: The Benefits and Risks"

1. Social Media : Introduction

I did not know the word Apraxia. So I look it up in a few moments. . .

This is what I found surprisingly and timely, I might say. . .MAY IS APRAXIA AWARENESS MONTH!

As we celebrate the month of May, we define https://reallifedinner.com/apraxia-awareness-day-random-acts-kindness/

Apraxia is a random act of kindness.

In the link above you will see how people helped Thatcher to wear blue with pride, and joy came that so many people did random acts of kindness in 2016 to help him. They felt his struggles.

All this information I found in social media, but what is social media? As I understand it. . .

Social Media is a means of allowing teenagers and young adults upto the age of 30, to connect through means not known to society before. It is the connection through music clips, videos, and exchange of thoughts, and words, through different platforms. There are commonly, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok..

An individual can use these platforms to connect across countries and continents; through the whole world, with the punch with their thumbs on a cell phone or on use of a laptop.


2. Impact of Social Media

What makes it more welcoming is that the individuals can connect.

Social Media can make us laugh, cry, smile, hate, loath, be vindictive, happy, peaceful, etc. It is a range of emotions that is felt by the individual.


2.1 Positive impacts of Social Media

What makes it more welcoming is the fact that we can connect with friends and family, in a distance or in the same city.

Family bond on social media. If a family member was going through hardship, another family member can offer instant support at that instance in time or often within an hour or two. If a family member is happy and celebrating an event, the sentiments and joy can be felt through media - videos, pictures and words of encouragement and support.

Similarly, friends can bond on social media. An introvert or an extrovert or one that are both, can express their feelings and thoughts. Also, day to day journals seem to be the trend, to tell friends of their time spent hour to hour, and possibly minute to minute.

Social Media can invoke emotions and call to action, of kindness, compassion and goodness.

Moreover, individuals develop a talent of cropping/editing videos and pictures, for their platform experience to the world. Furthermore, these talents when practicing through trial and error often bring in a form of income. YouTubers are often a good example.


In essence, Social Media can help right the wrongs in the lives of others.

Social Media is used also to spread widely across continents information like 5 Ways to Spread Kindness online and Be Likeable Day, a global online movement dedicated to spreading positivity and fostering kindness to combat the toxicity of social media.


2.2 Negative impacts of Social Media

Social Media is sometimes used for disadvantageous efforts, which are not fruitful in life.

Individuals primarily can spend a lot of time on Social Media because it is known to be addictive. In this type of lifestyle, it can exhaust the individual’s intellect; isolate the individual from important relationships; and, individuals’ uses of some of the natural abilities to interact without social media, diminishes.

Instead Social Media sometimes allow individuals to exhibit rage and anger at a relationship gone wrong, a business venture gone wrong, a job not going the right way.

Individuals exhibit libel and menace and the plan to corrupt and destroy society.

Social Media with anger, is used to conglomerate the mass majority into hate and disrespect for others and individuals who think differently. Sometimes this type of publicity has the purpose of inciting drastic change. And this change often is at the expense of others. It may be a game.

Anger is an unwelcoming interaction that can cause other individuals to be angry. Both the perpetrator and the victim go into depression, get anxious, and commit unthinking wrongs in life.

Note that Be Likeable Day is no longer online. For reasons, like Social Media loses resources important in every day life, daily. (The resource are now PDF file resource to partnering in Social Media and Likeable.com)


3. Social Media and bullying

Social Media bullying is also incited/formed by anger in individuals who are not happy with themselves. The person’s intent is to make the other suffer as they are suffering, by controlling others. The person contains the victim’s environment because the victim is aped to being on social media constantly. It is almost like second nature nowadays to be on social media because without being away from it will form anxiety.

Bullying, without social media, already exists in the community, whether at school or at work. Such criminal activity diminishes the confidence in the victim, often in many cases ending in suicide or mental illness (often resulting in the victim diagnosed to need medication and counseling).

Social media increases the extent of bullying to more people, if unchecked.

4. Social Networking Cat-fishing

There is such a thing as Cat-Fishing where there is a deceptive activity in which a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service. This is criminal activity because the gain is all for selfish intent to get what that person cannot get in life. One thing can lead into another as in a chain reaction, leading to someone being hurt financially and emotionally. The intent of Cat-Fishing results in harm to the whole community circle of friends and families.


5. Mitigating the negative effects of Social Media

To mitigate the negative effects of Social Media, individuals must be careful and check themselves how they use social media. The regular checks are:

Keep only necessary information available to the social media.
Keep aware of how predators use social media.

Other utilized checks are:

Keep friends and family listening to the warnings of parents and guardians - to use social media with limited screen time; spend time with friends and cousins (relatives) at social gatherings; and, join a sports team or training - physical activity.
Try not to subside and encourage individuals to turn to social media for the source of happiness, when tired and depressed.
Regulate the amount of information obtained from social media by trying to read a book, or spend physical time at the local community centers (free of charge), or go to the gym, or (without a car) do some cooking at home, some gardening, some woodwork or some television. Do a project that you have never finished and that you wanted to do.
Check the use of social media by asking, what is the message that is being conveyed in the post?

Call to Action

Individuals act to be in a safe place, use Social Media to enhance their environment, making it a better place - visiting websites like Likeable.com and investing in resources and workshops, with interactive Q&As online; Social Strategy; Content Production; Social Media Management; and, Paid Media & Influencer.


6. Conclusion

Social media can right the wrongs in other people’s lives. It can offer solutions to families and friends in life, that will last and are imprinted in media history.

This is what Black Eyed Peas sang:

What's wrong with the world, mama?
People livin' like they ain't got no mamas
I think the whole world's addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma
Overseas, yeah, we tryna stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin'
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate, then you're bound to get irate, yeah
Madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all
People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt, hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
Or would you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love, the love, the love?
It just ain't the same, old ways have changed
New days are strange, is the world insane?
If love and peace are so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong?
Nations droppin' bombs
Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones
With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young
So ask yourself, is the lovin' really gone?
So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong
In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin' in
Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover
The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love, y'all, come on? (I don't know)
Where's the truth, y'all, come on? (I don't know)
Where's the love, y'all?
People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt, hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
Or would you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love, the love, the love?
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us followin' the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema, yo'
Whatever happened to the values of humanity?
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality?
Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive 'til love is found
Now ask yourself
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Father, Father, Father, help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love?
Sing with me y'all (one world, one world)
We only got (one world, one world)
That's all we got (one world, one world)
And something's wrong with it (yeah)
Something's wrong with it (yeah)
Something's wrong with the wo-wo-world, yeah
We only got (one world, one world)
That's all we got (one world, one world)
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Justin Timberlake / Will Adams / Jaime Gomez / Allan Apll Pineda / Printz Board / Michael Fratantuno / George Pajon

These are recommendations of many who like and listen to this song. Perhaps Social Media should be use to spread LOVE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, COMPASSION, KINDNESS, AND anything else that will help your friends and family.

Individuals should choose to make their life with social media meaningful and checked, which falls in line with being virtuous. . . Leading back to the acts of kindness in the introduction. Social media will help people become better people and the world will get better. [pause] Think for a moment what you have read, thus far, and absorb and choose how you want Social Media to be in your lives. ~ Does it benefit my life with the way I am using it?

~ Am I forming good relationships?

Bonds of good relationships form memories in soft print. And this can be carried through generations as the world is working its way into the CLOUD era.