Social media is big, so, it would be good for you to learn about the downsides and negatives to social media. Some of the downsides to social media are Cyber bullying, Fear of Missing Out, Self-image issues, and the fact that social Media is addicting. Cyber bullying is a huge problem because social media is big and people tend to not care about what they do on the internet like who they might bully and what the effects are on the person. According to lifespan.org, “Every 7 minutes a child is bullied. Unfortunately, intervention is rare, with an adult intervening in only four percent of cases, and a peer in 11 percent. An astonishing 85 percent of all cases of bullying are not addressed.” FOMO means fear of missing out, which has become a common theme on social media and can often lead to continual checking of social media sites. The idea that you might miss out on something if you’re not online can affect your mental health and make social media more addictive. Being addicted to social media makes you want your phone more and you can’t stop using your phone. People can track you from what you post and see where you live. Social media itself is not a problem, it’s the way people use social media.

Now, while there may be a lot of negatives and downsides to social media, that also means it comes with its positives, one of them being about friends and family. Through social media, staying in contact with your friends and family is made easy especially through long distance so you can communicate with them without having to leave your house. Another reason that social media can be a good thing to have and use is because news gets spread fast through it, allowing you to be up to date easily. 

Being able to start and run a business is also made easy through social media, because you are able to advertise and inform other people about what you do, where you do it, and how you do it. Not only that but it makes it easier to get sponsored, and you gain access to paid advertising services so you can profit even more off of other companies and gain more recognition in the process which educates people of your business. Talking about education, through social media it is easy to learn things as well, while you shouldn’t believe everything you see on the internet a lot of it is or can be true so it makes it easier to learn having all the information right in front of you. 

It is also important that you learn some tips on how to stay safe while using social media because anything used incorrectly can be very dangerous. First off, don’t say anything that is personal for example, where you live, or what you look like, how old you are, or what school you go to especially to anyone you don’t trust or anyone that is a stranger. Secondly, use strong passwords and/or security questions, following that up also only use things that you would remember or that you would know. Thirdly, be mindful and careful of links, friend requests, and what you get yourself into at all. Many things on the internet can be stalkers, scammers, and numerous other bad things. Also, do not respond to messages from strangers, as previously spoken there are a lot of weird and bad people on social media. Lastly, another thing you can do and should do is to close accounts that you don’t use anymore. There are multiple reasons for this but the main one is because it makes you more susceptible to being hacked.