The Positive Social Media for the Cases of Internet Addiction

Many studies show that individual’s characteristics such as education or gender can predict the experience that the user has when engaging in a social media. Specifically, I would like to explore how the age of social media users is significant when predicting the outcome of technology use as young adults and adolescents are more likely to be affected by virtual communities negatively in terms of fear of missing out, gossip and Internet addiction. Even though there are many positive outcomes and benefits from using social media, however, it appears to affect negatively to certain age, particularly, young people First of all, according to Przybylski (2013)’s reading “Motivational, Emotional, and Behavioral Correlates of Fear of Missing Out”, abundant updates from social media makes a new phenomenon to occur and furthermore to create a new term called ‘Fear of Missing Out” (FoMO).

The FoMO refers to a “pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”, and FoMO is characterized by that individuals have a desire to stay constantly connected with what everybody else is doing, in other words, people fear missing out from what others are doing (Przybylski 2013). For those people who fear missing out, social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, blog, and Instagram, is very attractive tool to seek for social connection and involvement (Przybylski 2013), Especially, Przybylski (2013) paid attention to how demographic factor like age influences to FoMO on the population level, and they collected a sample of young adults (especially university freshmen students) to conduct research.

The study focused on particular behavioral correlates of FoMO among young adults, and it turns out those who have a high level of FoMO are more likely to use Facebook instantly after walking, when having meals, and before going to bed, and particularly, students high in fear of missing out tend to use social network sites in university lectures (Przybylski et al, 2013). Furthermore, individuals high in FoMO tend to fall into temptation of texting and checking emails even when they are driving (Przybylski et all 2013) Therefore, their research shows that the young adults are more likely to have higher levels of FoMO and suggests that FoMO tends to “be a phenomenon grappled with by younger people” (Przybylski et al. 2013), Consequently, Przybylski et al. (2013) found that fear of missing out varied depending on individual’s age, as young adults are more likely to be subject to fear of missing out.

In addition, Kuss (2013)’s reading “Internet Addiction in Adolescents” argues that Internet addiction is prevalent among adolescents, and Internet addiction regards as a potential problem in adolescents According to Kuss (2013), many studies have shown that Internet addiction has many negative outcomes for young people that require professional help, Kuss (2013) explains, “Adolescents appear to be a population at risk for developing Internet addiction” because of “variability in developing their cognitive control and boundary setting skill”, and in terms of prevalence of Internet addiction in adolescents appears 4% of us high school students and furthermore 107% of South Korean adolescents Kuss (2013) explains that online game, social network sites, and Twitter contribute to increase the risk for Internet.

Addiction, for instance, using SNSs every additional hour per week makes adolescents to be addicted to the Internet by 2.7%. Internet addiction is problematic for adolescents as it tends to negatively affect to identity formation and it changes the structure of developing brain (Kuss 2013). Also, Internet addiction has negative consequences that results in poor academic achievements and engagement in risky behaviors (Kuss 2013). Consequently, Kuss et al, (2013)‘s reading indicates that adolescents have signs for Internet addiction that negatively influence them, and also it represents user‘s age is a predictor outcomes of engaging in social media or virtual communities.

Lastly, Marwick and Boyd (2011)’s “The Drama! Teen Conflict, Gossip and Bullying in Networked Publics”, teenagers encounter with gossips and drama through SNSs. Drama is term used within teenagers’ communities to distinguish them from what adults call bullying (Marwick and Boyd 2011). Drama is the visibility of the way girls interact with each other and they are involved in activities from gossip, flirting, serious issues ofjealousy such as gossiping about someone‘s relational breakup in order to draw attention from others, involve in other’s life, and gain social capital, and SNSs allow for audience to this drama instead of face—to—face channels.

For example, a girl cheated on her boyfriend at a party when she was drunken, then what she did was posted on Facebook, and many people commented on it saying “You can do better than that slut” and “You’re such a cheating whore”, and interesting stuff like this is a drama Therefore, drama is the way teenagers defend themselves unrecognizably from bullying and relational aggression because they do not perceive themselves victims or assailant, Drama makes it obscure boundaries between what is justjoking and what truly hurts others, leading emotional impact not consequential as teens can save themselves by not directly attacking someone (Marwick and Boyd 2011). In conclusion, many studies prove young adults and teenagers tend to engage in social media in a negative way in terms of FoMo, Internet addiction, and drama.