In today’s day and age, social media is truly the basis of communication, entertainment, information, and networking for the younger generations. Britannica describes “social media” as “a term [that] refers to technologies, platforms, and services that enable individuals to engage in communication from one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many” (“Media Convergence”). Social media is advancing every day and is most prominent among Millennials and Generation Z. Millennials include anyone born between 1981 and 1996, and anyone born in 1997 or later is part of Generation Z (Dimock). In an article for The Odyssey, Katherine Aguilar investigates social media and demonstrates its specific impact on Millennials: “Known for their blend of idealism and entitlement, the Millennials were born between 1980 and the 2000s. Unlike previous generations, the advent of technological advances had a huge impact on this generation's upbringing” (Aguilar).

Although social media has revolutionized the way that people go about their lives, the potential negative effects are very dangerous and are much more profound among Millennials and Generation Z because of their constant use and dependence on it. Through the rapid advancement of technology, social media is evolving from a platform dedicated to improving communication and spreading knowledge to a manifestation of some of the most prevalent issues being faced by the generations of the future. The frequent use of social media has limited the social skills of young people in addition to increasing their risk for psychological problems and opening the door for a new form of deviant behavior. It is not as if these issues had never been existent before, however, social media has amplified them and transformed the possibilities of influence among young people.

As social media is becoming increasingly more prevalent in the daily lives of young people, Millennials and Generation Z are gradually losing many of the interactive social skills that the older generations possess. In a 2017 article for Forbes Magazine, AJ Agrawal claims: “Millennials struggle with face-to-face communication because they’ve always had the ability to edit a message” (Agrawal). Not only does this entail a tool that is not present in reality, but it also removes a sense of vulnerability and raw emotion from communication. With everything becoming digital, human emotion has escaped from regular interaction among young people. With this lack of sincerity, interactions have become much less meaningful and young people have lost touch with their emotions. Additionally, in her article about the impacts of social media, Katherine Aguilar writes: “We hate personal communication so we use social media as our new form of communicating that can disguise our behaviors leading to the withdrawal of human contact” (Aguilar). As a result of constant communication through social media, people develop a reliance on their screens in order to avoid interactive communication, and with that, their real-life social skills are sacrificed.

With this lack of face-to-face communication, the upcoming generations have also lost the sensibility of how their self-portrayal through social media can impact their lives as a whole. Since social media is fairly new, this is not a hurdle that the older generations face, however, the new technology combined with the irresponsibility of younger generations can lead young people to not be as careful with how they choose to portray themselves online. Unlike communication for older people, everything on the internet stays there forever, so the younger generations have a much higher risk of being negatively affected by their actions online. These consequences came into effect in June of 2017 when 10 students that were admitted into Harvard’s Class of 2021 had their admissions repealed due to a newfound report of racist and offensive messages that were sent on their Facebook group chat (Kamenetz). This is a very common occurrence among young people that is not thought out to have major impacts, however, as soon as someone has liked, commented, or posted anything on social media, it is out in the world forever and can lead to negative consequences. In this instance, the students were majorly affected by their actions, which helped other students to better understand the importance of their digital footprint. Digital footprints can consist of recent social media use for new users, however, for people who have been involved in social media for longer, their footprint will be comprised of much more. In 2018, 29-year-old Garrett Yrigoyen participated in Season 14 of ‘The Bachelorette’ on his quest to find love. At the end of the season, the Bachelorette, Becca Kufrin, picked Garrett as the last man standing, and they got engaged. All of a sudden, Garrett, with his newfound publicity, found himself in the midst of a scandal. According to The Washington Post, it had been reported that “Garrett had ‘liked’ posts on Instagram that made fun of transgender people; mocked feminists; claimed Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor David Hogg was a crisis actor; and joked about throwing an immigrant child over the border” (Yahr). The choices that are made on social media do not go away, and the digital footprints that people create for themselves have the potential to result in consequences in the future.

In addition to social media’s impact on social skills, it also carries the possibility for increased psychological problems among users and targets their vulnerability during significant developmental years. One of the most common psychological issues linked to social media use among Millennials and Generation Z is low self-esteem and insecurity. In a 2017 article for The Huffington Post, Clarissa Silva describes the burdens that social media has on self-esteem, which expand beyond regular issues of insecurity: “Social media and texting have made it all too easy to default to one’s own perception rather than remain curious about what may actually be going on” (Silva). Social media has the ability to consume people’s self-perception and leads them to regard themselves in a harsher way. Silva also reiterates that, because of social media, people have become much less emotionally secure and are referring to social media for validation instead of seeking it within their own lives.

On behalf of social media linked psychological problems, cyberbullying is another major problem that has risen through the presence of social media for younger generations. In 2016, Texas high school student Brandy Vela committed suicide due to continuous abusive messages over social media. Additionally, teens created a fake Facebook page of her, which only increased the bullying and led her to self-harm. Brandy’s mom filed many incident reports about her daughter and voiced her frustration with the lack of action being taken against cyberbullying, but she says that officials always responded in the same way by not being able to take action (“Cyberbullying Pushed Texas Teen”). The lack of laws against cyberbullying is normalizing this behavior and causing many forms of increased emotional distress along with harmful habits.

Another psychological effect that has stemmed from social media becoming increasingly more prevalent in society is narcissism. To corroborate this, Psychology Today interviewed Professor Jean M. Twenge to elaborate on the research she conducted for her most recent piece: "In data from 37,000 college students, narcissistic personality traits rose just as fast as obesity from the 1980s to the present” (Firestone). Additionally, while showing the contrast between older and younger generations regarding their values, Firestone explains:

A handful of new studies comparing traits and life goals of young people in high school and college today with those of Gen-Xers and baby boomers at the same age, show an increase in extrinsic values rather than intrinsic values. Millennials are more likely to value money, image, and fame over community, affiliation, and self-acceptance. (Firestone)

The latency of social media has corrupted the minds of younger generations and is causing them to stray further away from the values of Gen-Xers and baby boomers. This rising narcissism in social media has caused Millennials to be further geared toward materialistic values than the more modest values of older generations.

Social Media has revolutionized many aspects of daily life and, with that, has opened up the door for many new types of deviant behavior. Social media has allowed people to make advancements in all forms; however, some people take advantage of this technology and go forth with immoral intentions. Cyberstalking is a relatively new form of stalking that has become much more common among social media users. According to Britannica, one-fourth of all people targeted by stalking in the United States claim to be victims of cyberstalking (Best). Considering social media is fairly new, these numbers are only expected to increase and can lead to many more consequences in the future if there is no action taken. Additionally, in a 2018 article about how social media users can approach a response to cyberstalking, the Data and Society Research Institute and the Center for Innovative Public Health Research deliver shocking results: “findings from a 2016 nationally-representative study of 3,002 persons 15 and older found that  8% of American internet users have been cyberstalked to the point of feeling unsafe or afraid” (Hinduja). As a result of the fast accessibility that is associated with social media, it is much easier for people to be involved in cyberstalking, and, since it is through a screen and can’t always be traced back, the consequences are much less severe. In an effort to control the concerns that cyberstalking is raising, several countries including the United States, Japan, and Australia introduced legislation to consider cyberstalking to be a crime (Best). Although this does not solve the ongoing troubles that are caused by cyberstalking, it is a step in the right direction for proper justice.

Another form of deviant behavior that has been popularized through social media is sexting. According to Britannica, sexting can be defined as “the sending or receiving of sexual words, pictures, or videos via technology” (Drouin). Sexting is a fairly new concept within the social media realm and is a large concern for parents of teens that are participating in it. According to the 2011 Mott’s Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, sexting was ranked #10 for the top health concerns among children (“Cause for Concern”). Additionally, a new study that investigated 39 previous studies of minors being involved in the sending or receiving of sexual content uncovered data on a total of 110,000 minors, whose ages ranged from 12 to 17 (Klass). Children and teens are the most susceptible to being involved in sexting because of their naiveness, which has created a whole new domain for criminal offenses against minors.

Although social media has hindered many aspects of the lives of Millennials and Generation Z, progressive technology has revolutionized the movement of ideas. In a 2011 report from the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, researchers found that the “proliferation of information also shapes religious identity” (Kessler). Many religious activists have used social media to their advantage in order to inform others about their ideologies and spread their faith through online communities. Research conducted by Peter Mandaville, of the Center for Global Studies at George Mason University, has demonstrated that young Muslims refer to social media to find varying perspectives on their faith, which helps them to find their own interpretations and identities (Kessler). This proves how revolutionary social media has been for today’s modern society and its distribution of information. People are able to send and receive information through mediums that were never previously available to them, and that has allowed for new forms of expression and communication. There are many positives that have come out of social media; however, the negative impacts that it has fostered among the younger generations are much too harmful to ignore.

There is not a clear cut solution to the negative effects that social media presents; however, there are ways to approach them in order to improve the lives of upcoming generations. The traditional media companies themselves have a lot of power to enforce change for the benefit of users. For example, Instagram, one of the most popular social media networks, is developing an anti-bullying initiative to control the negative effects that it has among users. In 2018, Kevin Systrom, the company’s chief executive and co-founder, announced that the initiative would feature a new artificial intelligence technology called DeepText that can filter out comments and hate-filled messages to decrease bullying, racism, and harassment on the app. Systrom added, “Protecting our youngest community members is crucial to helping them feel more comfortable to express who they are and what they care about” (Holson). In addition, many other popular social media sites are adopting this approach to decrease bullying and harassment, which can lead to a huge improvement if it is effective. Aside from the approaches of media sites, it is important for users to be able to maintain happiness and stability without the use of social media. Since the younger generations are so prone to technology, as it has been present throughout most of their lives, sometimes they forget to take time away from the screen. This is vital to stepping closer to a solution because the negative impacts will only become stronger if people’s lives continue to be centered around social media.