Social media went from being just printed and accessed by the wealthy to being accessible to everyone in the world just as long as the internet connection is strong. Approximately one billion people in the world have some form of social media. So just to get the hang of how many people use it, for every seven people in the entire world, one of them uses some form of social media. Social media is such a popular form of communication, but is society moving too fast? Is there a dangerous side to social media?

Social media like Instagram and YouTube is credited to discovering some very big names in the entertainment industry like Justin Bieber for example. Social media can give an artist their big break they’ve been working for.

Most people started out with a simple MySpace page or a Facebook around the ages of 11-12. So youngsters are starting to use social media when they are going through the beginning stages of puberty and all the physical and mental changes that come along with it. Children around that age are very impressionable and easily influenced by the media and the entertainment industry. These websites were sometimes easy to hide from parents just by their lack of understanding what social media was. In a few short years, other social media sites have immurged and have tilted the internet world on its axis. With the spike in social media also comes spikes in problems with elements of society. When children are small, parents teach them to properly and safety rodena bike, play baseball, and how to safely make cookies without burning the house down. Social media is another part of their children’s lives, except it is something parents cannot protect their children from. More and more children are being thrown into the lions den and not shown the combat for defense. Young girls see “Instagram models” that they think are regular girls just taking pictures but those are semi-professional photo shoots. Girls are feeling more inadequate with their bodies more than ever. Online child predators are also a source of fear with social media. It’s easy for a predator to catfish or deceive a young unassuming child into doing things.

Social media has a responsibility to give the users news and entertainment and keep everyone in the loop as to what is going on in the world. It also has a responsibility to protect its users.

Criminals  are now taking to social media to document their acts of violence. In 2014 two teenagers in Hartlepool beat and tortured 39 year old Angela Wrightson to death over a 17 hour period and posted it to Snapchat.

Social media in the future will advance as we have seen, but hopefully with the growth of the industry comes more education about the dangers of social media and the lasting effect on those who uses it.

Social media needs a more positive presentation and people need to be much more educated on the dangers