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Social media has always been an outlet for people to express themselves and explain all of the things they feel. Unfortunately social media has become truly addicting and an at times promote bullying and harassment. Violence is a key component in the way society sees social media as harmful.

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Many people who use social media experience cyber bullying and harassment. These people are often at risk for suicide and depression due to the amount of bullying and stress people encounter on the daily due to social media and it’s negativities

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there are so many forms of social media and so many people use it on the daily basis. Social media has become the staple to so many lives and has only continued to grow. Here are a few forms of social media and the influences they have on the world

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Comments have been very influential on the way people have been bullied. Comments are one of those things that promote people to view themselves in a negative light. Often people create comments to talk about other people anonymously. These people are often viewed as ”trolls”.

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Often social media users are underage children who are still very impressionable at this age. These children are more than likely engaging in activities with strangers without guardian knowledge. This puts children at risk for being bullied and judged online. These kids aren’t often building their confidence by being on social media but are ruining their image while trying to live up to others expectations. These are not only children who partake in these ideas but it’s often seen in teenagers primarily.

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This involves taunts, disses and arguments on social media between people in rival crews, cliques or gangs. These exchanges can include comments, images and videos that lead to physical fights, shootings and, in the worst cases, death.

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It is very important to talk about the risk of gang activity through social media because violence is promoted on the internet and people are often pressured to act and be a certain way which leads them into wanting to join a gang.

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Is a process by which members of the same social group influence other members to do things that they may be resistant to, or might not otherwise choose to do.

This relates to my topic because of the way other children are influenced by what they see and hear and are often bullied into this idea of having to act a certain way. Peer pressure doesn’t only take place in the form of violence but it is also in the form of self view.

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Social media was once something that was meant to advance the world but now social media has raised many questions as to what are the true benefits. There has been so many accounts where social media users have took advantage of others and created an unfortunate harmful environment. Social media is very harmful for all people but it is way more harmful to children and adolescents.

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Addictive ; of a substance or activity) causing or likely to cause someone to become addicted.

This talks about how social media can become truly addicting to the point where people rather spend time on social media than being outside forming real life relationships and communicating with other people.

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Social media was created in 1997 from a platform called sixdegrees.com. This was only the start for something so influential. Since then, social media has truly grown and became a staple in many households. Majority of people in the world know of social media. Social media is not only influential in America, but it also helps keep the world connected. Some examples of social media platforms in today's society would be Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Although social media came with benefits it also brought along some very harsh realities and new findings. It was found that social media produced an age where people were in constant comparison with each other which made things so hard when it came to self-esteem. Not only was this an issue but it also aided in suicide rates raising by drastic amounts according to biomedcentral.com. Comments play a huge role in this because of the constant use of cyber bullying by other social media users. According to my cited text "80% of the incidents they described involved comments". Cyberbullying has been so important to aid the reason why social media has become something so dangerous because it leads to so many bad things. Social media has also raised more gang violence also known as internet banging. According to my selected source "internet banging involves taunts, disses and arguments on social media between people in rival crews, cliques or gangs. These exchanges can include comments, images and videos that lead to physical fights, shootings and, in the worst cases, death." These exchanges became extremely popular over time and included people succumbing to this lifestyle. Going hand and hand with bullying and gang violence is also the unfortunate cases of peer pressure to do things that aren't right and they end up being negatively impacted.

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The most common platform for cyberbullying is social media (Ipsos) 65% of global adults say their kids or kids in their community have been cyberbullied over social media. 45% say their child was bullied through text or messaging apps.

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1. Why has social media turned into something so scary for parents?

2. has social media changed overtime and how so?

3. Do you think social media would have less of a influence in society if comments weren't allowed?

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Heger, Erin. “The Sneaky Ways Social Media Can Sabotage Your Body Image - and 3 Easy Tips to Help You Break the Cycle.” Business Insider, Business Insider,

MacGillis, Alec. “Social Media Could Be Contributing to More Violence among Young People.” ProPublica

Gupta, Sujata. “Social Media Harms Teens’ Mental Health, Mounting Evidence Shows. What Now?” Science News

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Elsaesser, C. (2021, Apr 05). How social media turns online arguments between teens into real-world violence. The Conversation : Education

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I truly enjoyed this project. It has helped me figure out truly why social media has its downfalls. Things were very different back then when it came to social media and now it has sadly tuned into something that can be truly dangerous. Throughout my research I was able to find some surprising facts about social media especially when it came to the involvement of gang violence. To see the influence that gang violence has had on social media is truly sad because so many children are misguided through the hopes of finding "family" and "community" within gangs. I wasn't as surprised about the influence of comments on social media because words are already hurtful so i couldn't imagine how hurtful they can be with strangers. We are in a world where there is constant comparison and it's so hard to truly be yourself on outlets where you are judged for simply being you. My sources really helped me in figuring out what social media truly was and how influential it was. Having information and statistics to back up the claims that i made in my project was very sad but informative. I didn't have many challenges throughout this project but one huge challenge i did have was finding credible sources when it came to gang violence. It was hard to find statistics because gang violence also comes with secrecy. I feel that I had the proper skills to overcome my challenge because I was able to dig deep and find more research. I would like to learn more about the studies of how addicting social media can truly be.