Argumentative Essay of Social Media Impact

There has always been much controversy and scepticism about forming relationships. Think of Facebook; think of Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Are the relationships you have built on social media worth it? Some say that relationships formed online are one of the weakest connections there are. Some believe that you can never know someone enough through social media. Many people live fake lives on social media; hence, it is tough to differentiate a genuine person. However, I believe otherwise. I think that social is a whole gold mine of opportunities through the relationships we have formed. I believe that you can achieve very many things through the connections you have on social media. If you are an open-minded person, social media can be an excellent tool for building and maintaining relationships. Below are details on the kinds of relationships that can be created and maintained through a social platform.

A while back, this would seem so shady to many. Social media romantic relationships were not accepted by many, and many people thought that they would not last and would always end up badly. In the contemporary world, these kinds of relationships have become very common and acceptable. Many couples met on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and now have families together. Theknot.com is a site that has beautiful stories of couples that met on social media and later got married. Some of these relationships start by simply liking or commenting on the other’s content, and then they may advance to private messages. Nowadays, there are dating sites where people meet, match up to see whether they are compatible. From there, they may decide to meet up and eventually become an item (Sutcliffe, 2018).

Social media also plays a vital role in maintaining these relationships. Couples sometimes may use social media as a surveillance tool on their partners. For instance, these couples who meet through social media may decide to have a long-distance relationship. They are never sure about what their partners are doing; hence, social media becomes an essential tool. It is evident that this is not the healthiest way to do it, but sometimes partners may use more passive ways to gain information. (Fox & Warber, 2013). Social media can become a tool to spy on their partners when online and offline, either through friends or any other means, and they do not need to be geographically close to doing the spying. I still believe that people can use social media to build and maintain romantic relationships, but be careful not to destroy the same relationships through social media.

Social media has become an essential tool in creating and maintaining strong professional relationships. It has become the new norm for people to work online without doing collaborations that are meaningful and profitable to businesses and organizations. Social media has facilitated relationship building that has helped create opportunities for individuals to collaborate, share ideas, get feedback, and reduce stress truth social support (Benetoli et al., 2018). It is very beneficial to create and maintain social, professional social media relationships because, through this same social media, businesses have grown through social media. Big companies have continued to grow because they have continued to increase their workforce by hiring through social media. For instance, Amazon has over one million workers, and more than half of them are employed online and work from their respective countries (Mergel, 2017). Amazon created all these job opportunities through social media. Making all these job opportunities online through social media ended up helping thousands in search of jobs. I believe that solid relationships can be created and maintained through social media, which are likely to last.

In addition to creating strong professional relationships, social media can also strengthen already made relationships. Social networks present opportunities for people to publicly recognize people’s successes in the relationship, which increases confidence, self-worth, and security, hence making each other confident to invest more in such relationships (Mergel, 2017).

I believe in social media friendships. This one is quite common because we all have one or two friends, if not many, that we met online and became very close, and some that we have not even met physically.  According to statistics, 76% of teenagers use social media, with 76% using Facebook, 52% using Instagram, and 41% using Snapchat. Twitter is used by one-third of American teenagers, and Google Plus is used by another third (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). Teen friendships are formed primarily because of social media, which allows them to learn more about their peers. It is even familiar for teens to share their social media usernames to get in touch with new friends they have met physically. Many people believe that social media allows them to interact more effectively with their friends; others even think that social media will better understand their friends’ emotions.

Finally, it is undeniable that social media plays a significant role in bringing people together. Yes, we can build relationships on social media, and yes, we can maintain them on social media. I think it is time for people to drop their scepticism and accept that we could have even lost the relationships that we already built without social media. Some people depend entirely on social platforms to put food on their table through the solid relationships they formed online. Many businesses are thankful that social media exists because it is why those businesses are flourishing. Not only has social media helped in developing and maintaining relationships, but also in making them better. It is high time we embrace such a fact for a more fantastic future.

Anderson, M., & Jiang, J. (2018). Teens, social media & technology 2018. Pew Research Center, 31(2018), 1673-1689.

Benetoli, A., Chen, T. F., & Aslani, P. (2018). How patients’ use of social media impacts their interactions with healthcare professionals. Patient education and counselling, 101(3), 439-444.

Jesse Fox & Katie M. Warber (2013). Journal of Social and Personal Relationship.

Mergel, I. (2017). Building holistic evidence for social media impact. Public Administration Review, 77(4), 489-495.

Sutcliffe, A. G., Binder, J. F., & Dunbar, R. I. (2018). Activity in social media and intimacy in social relationships. Computers in human behaviour, 85, 227-235.