Who Likes Public Speaking?

Social Media plays an important part in the lives of the current and upcoming generations. It’s very rare to see people of our generation without cell phones, tablets, and or computers to be able to check social media sites. We are the world of technology, so if there were to ever be a world blackout, I feel like we wouldn’t survive. As a society we rely heavily on social media keeping us up to date on world events, what our friends and family members are up to, what’s new with celebrities and the entertainment world, and also what the hottest trends are. Social media can be a positive thing because of all that but can also be a negative thing.

One of the reasons I believe social media is negative is the fact that it takes away from making face-to-face connections. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 5.3 million people have a social phobia or what’s called social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety order is the “fear of interaction with other people that brings on self-consciousness, feelings of being negatively judged and evaluated, and, as a result, leads to avoidance.” In my opinion, part of the reason for this disorder, is that we are raised in a generation who enjoys texting more then talking on the phone. We rather text or email someone and have a conversation then meeting them one on one to discuss anything. This takes away from forming an intimate and personal relationship with someone. People tend to hide behind social networking. They will write how they feel on different sites instead of saying it out loud to people. Although you can use dating sites to connect on personal levels you still are not able to truly know somebody through that. Our generation can easily lie about who they are or even just act differently then how they would in person when using a social network site. For example, the MTV show Catfish highlights how people can lie through social media and say they are one person when in reality they are totally different.