“Social Media.” Instantly upon hearing those two small, simple words, your mind probably jumps to your twitter feed in need of desperate attention, the Instagram picture you need to post from last night, or a cute cat video you’ve recently seen on Facebook. This phrase and all it entails has become a crucial part of society today for everyone from newborn babies (whose pictures are plastered on facebook by proud parents) all the way up to “tech savvy” grandparents. It seems that everyone has become caught in the web of social media. It has affected life as we know it, but not necessarily in a positive way; social media has negatively altered the way we communicate, and ruined relationships, increased greed, and poor social skills are all results of this phenomenon.

Ever since the first caveman uttered the first word to his fellow hairy friends, humans have been talking. Talking about weather, their favorite TV shows, what they had for dinner last night, etc. At this point in the twenty first century, however, this physical speech has changed platforms. Now, a vast majority of people prefer talking with their thumbs rather than their mouths, and are becoming more offended than ever before at what people have to say.

Being a sixteen year old girl with a twitter, snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, I am no exception to the billions using social media worldwide (According to a study by Statistica, Twitter has 305 million monthly users), and while it may come across as hypocritical to criticize something I find myself on at least 100 times a day, I am not blind to what social media causes. At least weekly, you can find arguments among people you know, which are often started on twitter because of a ‘subtweet,’ when a person directs an offensive tweet towards someone without mentioning a name. These online quarrels, while petty, can cause real life friendships to end, and I've witnessed this first hand. A recent study conducted by Pew Research shows that 15% of adults and 22% of teenagers had an experience on facebook that ended a friendship.

The question is, would these fights cause such huge rifts between friends if they occurred face to face rather than online? The same study suggests that most of these quarrels are sparked by an offensive picture, comment or status update, things that don't exist in the real world. Social media is making us such ineffective communicators that we are not capable of retaining friendships.

In addition to ruining relationships, social media has caused people to become greedy and cowardly communicators. In her TED Talk entitled ‘Connected, but Alone,’ Sherry Turkle reminds her audience of humans’ need to be heard when she says we are “a generation that craves automatic listeners.” People have always wanted to be heard, but social media has created an outlet in which users can proudly express their opinions while hiding behind a screen. This ability makes people greedy with their words because they can say whatever they want whenever they want, but the majority of what’s said would not be said if there were no screen as a barrier.

Among the reasons social media is making us less effective communicators is that it has eliminated social skills. Of course some will argue and point out that they have no trouble talking for hours with friends and family, but what about strangers? Potential employers? People at parties? According to Jasmine Fowlkes, a mass communications graduate from the university of South Florida, guests at parties are often “attached to their smartphones tweeting or texting, but no one is truly engaging with the people around them.” A big part of having social skills is to be able to read others’ emotions, and social media is majorly hurting this factor; UCLA recently conducted a study and concluded that sixth graders who went five days without looking at any sort of screen did better at reading human emotions than sixth graders who continued to spend hours daily on their electronic devices. Social media causes us to lose a very important part of human interaction and personal connection.

Some may argue that social media has actually created more personal connection, but the connections made online are not personal, and often they aren't even safe. According to the article written by Jennifer Brannock Cox, 'I Knew You Before I Met You,' "When we connect as strangers...also open the door for reckless behavior that can put our identities, and even our lives, in danger." Over the internet, you never can be 100% sure of who you're talking to- how personal can it be? This uncertainty can potentially lead to kidnapping, stalking, and even identity theft by people who- quite easily- hide behind false identities online.

All in all, social media is a fascinating technology that will always be around, but that doesn't mean it's in the best interest of everyone. Ultimately, the cons outweigh the pros in terms of how it has affected communication. It ruins relationships, creates greed, and hurts social skills. Social media is something that should be taken in small amounts, to prevent it from taking over life as we know it.