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Victor Kalei Groberg

Comm 1500

Professor Cancio

February 24, 2019

Social Media and its Universal Impact

Social media has become a staple of many Americans’ everyday life by providing a

platform to expand businesses, share memories with longtime friends and create famous

personas to display for the world. But, to what is extent is social media beneficial and to what

extent is social media hurtful? This essay will evaluate the positives and negatives of social

media for the professional platform, how it affects people personally and how it changes societal

expectations.

Social media has completely overtaken the world by storm with almost as many users of

Facebook as there is people on the planet. An article from CNN quotes, “Facebook, the world’s

largest online social network, had over 1 billion active users by the end of 2012, with over 80%

from outside the United States.” (Smith, Segall, and Cowley 2012) With that amount of outreach,

the possibilities that open from joining the bandwagon of social media becomes an incentive in

almost every aspect of life. A specific benefit from social media is in the business landscape, that

has now incorporated and converged itself with social media through the abilities of sharing

content, having a platform for advertisements and being able to receive feedback from the

consumer. NBC News reports that in 2017 Facebook made $39.9 billion in ad revenue (Atkinson

2018), which speaks volumes towards the impact of Facebook as an economy, but also shows its

prevalence on businesses as well. A business creates a profile for itself on social media then pays

the platform to share and advertise the company’s goods and services. The company gets more
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outreach towards customers and Facebook gets revenue per advertisement sold, it’s a mutualistic

and beneficial relationship for both parties. If you’re ever questioned about the significance of

social media for companies ask yourself this, “What companies do I know of that aren’t found on

Facebook?”

Now that it’s established that businesses and social media are intertwined in a mutualistic

form, is there a possibility that it could be negative? To steal from Uncle Ben in Spiderman,

“With great power comes great responsibility,” a cliche that has actual depth (surprising right?).

With the integration of business life and personal life through social media, the lines become

vaguer and smaller between what is meant to be shared with friends and what is meant to be

shared with coworkers. Photos of someone yacking from drinking too much Kettle One is

hilarious to your friends from high school, but is unappealing to your boss at Chase Bank. In the

blink of an eye, the fortune and empire built in cooperation with social media could be the spark

of an avalanche that steals it all away. One example of this is when Youtube influencer

PewDiePie was caught yelling the N-word on camera that was then quickly shared and reposted

across all social media platforms, forcing the content creator to make a formal public apology,

branding him with a scarlet letter for the rest of his career. A second and major example of this

was in early 2018 when vlogger Logan Paul uploaded a video of him and his castmates

wandering through Japan’s famous “Suicide Forest” only to find a man hanging from a tree. Paul

continued to videotape the corpse and broadcasted it on Youtube, which got extreme backlash

from society. An article quotes, “Logan Paul has revealed he lost $5 million following the fallout

over his “suicide forest” scandal.” (Fernando, 2018) This proves that social media and

technology as a whole demands conscious awareness and it will not hesitate to remind and check

someone if they overstep their boundaries.

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Social media allows whoever is behind the screen to create and manifest themselves into

whatever kind of persona they imagine with endless variety of choice between the colors of their

background page on their profile, to the content that is posted on that page. With this much

availability for creation at anyone’s disposal, what do you do with it? The beginning is to create

your own profile, post all the photos of you and your golden labrador, then after that, you post

pictures of you and your best friend. After that you search your friend’s name and add them and

tag them. After getting all of the mundane and immediate out of the way, it is up to you to decide

what you want to create. The importance of creating online friend groups with people that are

essential to someone’s real life behind the screen seems simple, but a study proves the significant

correlation between close online connections and self-image. The article states, “Results show

that browsing a social network enhances self-esteem for participants focused on strong ties while

browsing Facebook. Social network use did not significantly affect self-esteem for those focused

on weak ties while browsing Facebook.” (Wilcox and Stephen 2013) This states that by creating

a close connection with people and things that are influential to the user increases their self-

esteem opposed to doing the opposite. Along the lines of self-esteem, is there a way for social

media to belittle someone’s view of themselves? Child’s Mind Institute posted an article on the

question claiming, “Teens who have created idealized online personas may feel frustrated and

depressed at the gap between who they pretend to be online and who they truly are.” (Jacobson

and Child Mind Institute) This quote claims that adolescents and young adults aren’t able to

differentiate reality from what is seen online and what is really there. This problem has sparked

large epidemics in society for slimmer wastes, larger biceps and fuller lips and when the

photoshop is edited too perfectly, the consumer begins to degrade themselves and their self-

worth. MD, Katherine Phillips reports on this phenomena, stating, “Body Dysmorphic Disorder
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affects 1.7% to 2.9% of the general population — about 1 in 50 people. This means that more

than 5 million people to nearly 10 million people in the United States alone have BDD.”

(Phillips) This states that one in every fifty people suffer from body dysmorphia and with the

prevalence of social media, the ability to relinquish this epidemic becomes harder to achieve.

Social media’s large outreach creates high saturation towards content and when that is

paired in connection with supply and demand, the content becomes more extreme and fantastical.

When there’s a large expectation for demand the supply is forced to be more appealing and awe-

inspiring, segueing the introduction and impact of photoshop on social media. With the need for

slim thighs and fat butts, the motives to download body tuning apps skyrocket. The beautifying

tuner app, FaceTune has become a staple for Instagram as it helps contourt body frames, remove

blemishes and whiten smiles. The first version has sold more than 10 million copies (at between

$3.99 and $5.99 each) and was Apple’s most popular paid app of 2017. (Solon 2018) This not

only proves that beauty and youth can be achieved at a cheap price of $6, but that almost

everything portrayed on social media is a facade. When you comment on your friend Sarah’s

photo saying, “You’re a work of art!!” you’re realistically and grammatically right, because she

painted herself a million times over with the wrinkle remover.

Finally, the prevalence of social media proves to have mutual benefits for both companies

and social media platforms equally, but it is important to be wary of what is posted because your

boss is one share away and so could be your career. Along the lines of awareness, it is important

to be social media literate and recognize what is a real portrayal of reality and what is a saturated

tint of the truth. The demand to be perfect is prevalent and always will be, but it’s important to

realize that perfection is boring and $6 too expensive. Use social media as a tool to achieve
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success and maintain close connections, but don’t let it be your sole reason for success, because

if you do and the day comes that you lose all of your followers, what would you have left?
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Work Cited

Atkinson, Claire. “Facebook Made $39.9 Billion in Ad Revenue in 2017.”

NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 10 Apr. 2018,

nbcnews.com/card/facebook-made-39-9-billion-ad-revenue-2017-n864576.

Fernando, Gavin. “Logan Paul Has Finally Addressed His Rise and Fall.” News.Com.Au,

2 Nov. 2018, news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/celebrities-gone-bad/how-

logan-paul-went-from-one-of-the-worlds-most-famous-youtube-stars-to-

universally-hated/news-story/5ba9df3077d1d9bcb203641e1ccdf1b9.

Jacobson, Rae, and Child Mind Institute. “Social Media and Self-Esteem | Impact of

Social Media on Youth.” Child Mind Institute, Child Mind Institute,

childmind.org/article/social-media-and-self-doubt/.

Phillips, Katharine. “Prevalence of BDD.” BDD, bdd.iocdf.org/professionals/prevalence/.

Smith, Aaron, Laurie Segall, and Stacy Cowley (2012), “Facebook Reaches One Billion

Users,” CNN Money, money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/technology/facebook-billion-

users/index .html.
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Solon, Olivia. “FaceTune Is Conquering Instagram – but Does It Take Airbrushing Too

Far?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Mar. 2018,

www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/09/facetune-photoshopping-app-

instagram-body-image-debate.

Wilcox, Keith, and Andrew T. Stephen. “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social

Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol.

40, no. 1, 2013, pp. 90–103., doi:10.1086/668794.