By Catherine Waddell 
With the growth of the world, social networks have become one of the best things in this century. Social networks have changed the world; whether it’s good or bad, it has enhanced people’s lives and impacted the human ecosystem. Everything in this world comes with advantages and disadvantages, and social networks have pushed Human beings into other dimensions. There’s no doubt it has tremendous potential and excellent benefits, but the human reaction plays the ultimate part.
Social networks are a part of our lifestyle and dictate a lot of things, and as we, we’re witnessing the drastic change in people’s life due to social networks. Technology contributes to global growth, including social networks as a significant component. In this post, we’ll further dig into the advantages and disadvantages of social media and try to understand everything about social networks.
Table of Contents
What are Social Networks?
Social networks mean Internet-based websites or applications to connect and communicate with people. The use of websites and various applications to communicate with like-minded people social networks are used. By the time it represents and dictates different things as it is used for business, work, connections, content and many more things.
As we’ve told you, social networks have changed the world and helped people connect virtually. In older times, people used to write letters, and then it moved onto using the telephone, and by the time it was replaced with smartphones, understanding a person’s life wasn’t easy, though. So the networking websites and platforms came into the game, and now we’re using them daily. As per the research, 4.65 billion people use social media platforms daily. An average person spends 2 hours daily on social media.
We need to understand that social media was created to help users connect digitally with the end person. Connecting with your friends, family, partners, and colleagues should be easy. Along with it, meeting on the Internet sounded terrific, and by the time it got advantageous for people who started using it for business and work. When we talk about social networks, there are some mainstream and amazing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and WhatsApp.
What are the Advantages of Social Media?
Social media is very advantageous for people who know how to use it.
1. Learning Every Day
Social networks aren’t just about entertainment and business, and it’s more towards learning and creating content. The best part about social networks is you get to know new things. Also, many creators are creating content by which you can learn something.
2. Building a Personal Brand
Creating a personal brand means presenting your skills, talent and experience. Making a personal brand for good can be quickly done through using social media as it has a massive audience and people you can reach.
3. Advertisement Running Services
If you’re a business person or a creator, you can run Ads on them and reach your target audience. Running ads helps your business grow, letting people know about your business or services.
Social networks are a free place where you can be yourself and share anything you want. Social media gives you freedom where you can post, share and create whatever you want.
5. It Gives You More Opportunities
If you’re a person who’s looking for work, then social media platforms can help you with it. If you’re into freelancing or some work, then social media makes it easy to network with people and find or create opportunities.
6. Build Your Business
Because of social media platforms, you can quickly build your business at your fingertips, and it does not require a lot of effort compared to building an online business. Having an online presence is necessary for every business, and social networks help you get it.
7. Brand Recognition
The best way to use social networks is to use them for the transparency of your business. Having an online presence plays an important role, and social networks offer you tons of services to promote and sell your business on these platforms. It helps you to control and communicate with your customer.
What are the Disadvantages of Social Media?
1. Acts Like Digital Cocaine
The digital cocaine here means the second half, available on this platform. These applications keep you hooked with the exposure, and by scrolling through them, you waste your valuable time. It plays with your hormones and releases particular dopamine, craving more. Also, using them, you seek validation and appreciation and get frustrated when it doesn’t work in your favor.
2. Make People Feel Bad About Themselves
It’s in your control how you want to use it, but it has changed people’s perception to see the good things they share. It eventually creates jealousy and envy and lets people think that everyone is happy except themselves. Using social networks, you feel everyone is Happy around you, and that person is more prosperous and more joyful than you.
3. A Time Wasting Dimension
As per the research, 40% of people use social media to scroll through, which doesn’t provide them with any value. It keeps you hooked on the application and pushes you to scroll more. You are more likely to procrastinate on things that are important to you. It plays with your time, and you’re unaware of it.
4. Leads to Cyberbullying
Social networks lead to a place where everyone is opinion based, and people spread hate and abuse. There’s no way you can catch them, which leads to cyberbullying. This also makes it difficult for people to post their stuff and get hate for it.
5. You Lack Connection
People are less likely to meet each other, communicate and spend time with each other because it has been substituted by these platforms, which makes it hard for a person to make an emotional connection and, at the same time, diminishes understanding and thoughtfulness.
6. Plays With Your Health
An average person uses social media platforms for 2 to 4 hours, and the excessive work is mainly done on smartphones which makes them less active in real life. Encountering something inappropriate or hurtful can ruin your day. Thinking negatively and being jealous will keep you mentally disturbed, which targets your mental health.
7. Becomes an Addiction
The worst part about using social networks is addiction. People are more obsessed with their favorite person on social networks and more likely to hate themselves for not being that good. Social networks keep you hooked and hack your hormones, due to which you spend your time on it and become addicted.
It gives instant gratification and validation, which makes you addicted, and you tend to think more about people’s perceptions of you. People do inappropriate stuff to get likes and comments, making social networks vulnerable.
Conclusion
It all depends on how you use these platforms and how you make them work in your favor. We hope you like this post and receive valuable information from it. Make sure you’re using social media and not letting the platform use you.