2014年12月15日 星期一

How social media influence family relationship


Nowadays Social media Websites is one of the most common activities among teenagers. It is hard to imagine living without social media as we are so much depending on them to communicate with other and contact with the outside world. First, let’s define what social media is: Any Website that allows social interaction is considered a social media site, including social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter; gaming sites and virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Second Life, and the Sims; video sites such as YouTube; and blogs.(SAYENPURE) Such sites offer teenagers a platform for leisure and communication. 

However, everything has pros and cons. Social media does convenient us in many ways, but it should be aware that not all of the social media sites give healthy information for teenagers. Also, it is not always doing a favor in all kind of relationships. And in this essay, I would focus on talking about how social media influence family relationship.


I would start by discussing the advantages that social media bring to family relationship.




First, it can help strengthen relationship through sharing. As social media can bring instant sharing, family can know each other latest situation more. For example, Facebook is a welcomed site that people can share their status with the friends and family. By uploading a photos or sharing feelings and opinion, people can know about where you are, what you are doing and who are you spending with. Your friends and family can also common on it to make an interaction.

Also, it provides a more convenient way for long distance family members to communicate. Parents and children separated by migration can continue to care each other through new media such as Skype and social networking sites. Before these media came out, migrant families could only communicate through occasional letters and expensive phone calls.
(Mirca Madianou, Daniel Mille)



Furthermore, the social media create more common topic for parents and children to discuss about. As the social media is so common, not only the teenagers, the adults can also know more about the heat topic and popular culture through the internet. Just like the wave of PSY and Frozen the previous time. Parents can know more about what their children are hitting on if they have seen the same video.



Nevertheless, social media may also cause some other family problems. One of the most common result is that teenagers may neglect the family relationships due to internet use.

Family members spend more time in surreal communication than in face to face communication. Since it is hard to represent feeling through internet, it may easily cause misunderstanding. Despite there are many cute emojis in the social media nowadays, it is hard to express the really emotion. People used to react differently with their emoji when they are texting. When you send a people a smiley face, it is not actually building any common ground but just participating in a common dialect. It doesn’t actually bring two people closer in real life. ( Marissa Miller)

Teenagers that always present on social media show more signs of other psychological disorders, including anti-social behaviors.( Larry Rosen) This may make them having less motivation to communicate with their parents or share about their daily life. Overtime, estrangement might easily cause if one party does not explain him or herself clearly.


Apart from this, the trust of family maybe damaged as family member spying on others in social media. Since many teenagers are somehow rebellious and more likely to share their status with their peers than their family. Teenagers may block their parents and relative’s accounts so that they can’t view their latest status.

Recently, there is funny news that a mother changed her profile picture and pretended to be a hot girl “Angela” that interested in her son and chatted with him on “line”
They started to know each other more and eventually, when the son wanted to ask “Angela” out, she told him that he was tricked.

For sure it is only a sincere joke but not an online scam. However, it is actually a bit tragic that the mum needs to pretend to be other to understand him more. It shows that somehow social media may not be direct bridge for different generations to communicate. Even worse, it may cause suspicion over each other.

As a result, it is doubtless that social media bring us a lot of convenience, it makes us easily to share and communicate with our friends and family whenever we are. However, it is only a tool that tries to improve our lives. If we have to bring up a healthy family relationship, we can not only depend on these social media websites. Real life communicate can’t be neglected to maintain the trust and understanding.




Reference
Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia
Routledge Mirca Madianou, Daniel Mille, 17 Nov, 2011.


Apparently Using Emojis Actually Affects the Way You Feel?
Marissa Miller
http://www.teenvogue.com/my-life/2014-10/emoticons-impact-feelings

Children and Social Media
SAYENPURE 8 Nov, 2013
http://sayenpure.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/subject-children-and-social-media/


Social Networking’s Good and Bad Impacts on Kids
The American Psychological Association Larry Rosen 6 Aug, 2011
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/08/social-kids.aspx





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