Jeff Jerez Outline & Draft

Outline 

Thesis statement: 

I believe that social media is bad for our youth, it can affect one’s mental health, mislead one another, and lead to addiction. 

1st claim: 

One way that social media is bad for the kids is that it affects mental health. There are kids who are getting diagnosed with depression due to social media. Many of the kids follow trends and some may not fit the trend, which can lead to feeling different and unwanted. I’ve personally dealt with it, I used to look through my feed and question whether im doing things right or not but now that I know better, I just live my life without comparing it to others, i’m just doing me now. 

Supporting evidence:

Cq researcher: https://cqpress-sagepub-com.bmcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu/cqresearcher/report/social-media-youth-well-being-cqresrre20230929

The other source mentioned is in the pros and cons section of this article. 

2nd claim:

Another way that social media is bad for the kids is that it spreads false information. Political wise, most information can be very one sided and can provide false claims to make themselves look better. News wise, a majority of us now gets news and info from these social media sites. Mostly the youth you know, since everybody has smart phones and tend to pass time swiping through social media. 

Also this widespread amount of false information can mislead our youth. For instance that kid that died doing the russian roulette challenge. 

Also, these social media sites have an algorithm in order to show us what we’d like to see. Many see memes and many can take them too literal, you could see it in the way people act. 

Supporting evidence:

CQ Researcher: https://cqpress-sagepub-com.bmcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu/cqresearcher/report/social-media-platforms-cqresrre20201002

3rd claim: 

A third way that social media is bad for the kids is that they can get addicted. This is one of the first things that I’ve realized early on in my life, spending too much of your time on social media.  I’m a victim to that because there would be days where I catch myself being on social media too long, I would see some nonsense on my feed then im like what am i doing watch this, when i could be doing something better like doing my homework, working out, going for walk, cleaning the house, hang with friends. Mainly work related because a lot of us can get caught up and leave shit till last min. 

Also the memes, probably other things that keep us addicted. Insta Reels and tiktok mainly because they’re short. From that it can lead to a short attention span. This can affect one by not being able to get through a full reading and expecting to get all this information quickly. 

Supporting evidence:

Secondary sources provided by the bmcc library: https://content-na1.emarketer.com/us-gen-z-social-media-activities-2023?_gl=1*18pmun5*_ga*MzQzOTQ3NjU2LjE2OTc3MjYyOTE.*_ga_XXYLHB9SXG*MTY5NzcyNjI5MS4xLjAuMTY5NzcyNjI5MS4wLjAuMA..*_gcl_au*MTM2NDQwNjk0Ny4xNjk3NzI2Mjkx

Cq Researcher: https://cqpress.sagepub.com/cqresearcher/report/social-media-explosion-cqresrre20130125 

Counter Argument: 

I’ll be using that text from opposing viewpoints, it provides info on social media’s usefulness. Like how it is used through school, work and politics. And I agree with all that but I will counter that with, it should only be used for those things. Yeah it can be used for entertainment but then again it can lead to addiction, misleading, ultimately affecting one’s mental health. 

I get it, it can be used for fun but look how far that fun can take someone, what happening to going out to play sports or just walking, what happens to reading, what happens to drawing, or doing something better than just being on a screen looking for enjoyment. 

Supporting Evidence:

From Opposing viewpoints: https://go-gale-com.bmcc.ezproxy.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?resultListType=RELATED_DOCUMENT&searchType=ts&userGroupName=cuny_mancc&inPS=true&contentSegment=&prodId=OVIC&docId=GALE|PC3010999130&it=r

Rough Draft

Social Media, the one thing we can not live without nowadays, or that is what it seems like. We look around today and almost always we will find someone, or everyone, on their smartphones, swiping through these social media apps. Heck, I’m one of those people too, but there are others who can get too into it. Many may not realize that all the content that social media provides us can be at times, or most, false. Then, there are other times where this same content can impact one’s mental health significantly. Lastly, but not least, people can also get addicted to such content, since their algorithms are made to keep us engaged. 

Now, the first point I want to touch on is mental health. In Recent years we have seen a rise in mental health issues, there’s been a significant rise in rates of depression, anxiety, and anorexia, and Part of the blame goes to Social Media. I say that because there’s been an incident, pointed out by Sarah Glazer in CQ Researcher, of a 11 year old girl, Alexis Spencer, who had opened up an instagram account without her parents supervision. At first she was fine but within a couple months “she had an eating disorder and suicidal ideation”, all due to a simple search about fitness. As months passed by, her parents had found out when she had posted something saying that she wanted to kill herself, She then had gotten hospitalized for “anorexia, depression and anxiety.” 

This brings us to another point, which is social media addiction. It’s no secret that a majority of us nowadays spend a part of our time on these smartphones, mainly swiping through these social media apps. When we look at the report from emarketer conducted by Debra Aho Williams, he goes over this generation’s preferred platforms, and he divides them between teens and adults within the same generation. From this report, We see that teens tend to use more social media than adults, they are mainly on youtube, instagram, tiktok and snapchat. This is important because the main thing that these have in common is that type of entertainment that this generation enjoys most. That entertainment being the short term social videos that many of us have encountered more of in the recent years. nowadays we get a bunch of information so quickly, and in such little time. Most times this information intrigues us, setting off that dopamine hormone, where it gives this sense of pleasure. This is something we see with addicts, they tend to go after this sense of pleasure.Also, since this is the type of content, fast content, that we are seeing more of almost everyday, it’s clearly going to have an affect on our attention span. Though we may not realize it, some, or most, of us now find it more difficult to get through longer pieces of information, work, or even entertainment. 

The last point I wanted to talk about is the false information that’s spread throughout social media. This is something that doesn’t just affect our youth but it affects almost everybody that’s on social media. This shouldn’t be no secret, the spread of false information is almost all around social media, people should be able to catch these lies with ease. the information we get may sometimes seem genuine to us. Also, something that I thought was crazy is that all this information is protected by law, a law that provides these social media companies with “both a shield and a sword.” This was something that was said in an article from CQ Researcher by Hannah H. Kim, she says after that, “A sword to enable them to police the content on their sites, and a shield from legal liability when they do so.” 

Now social media is not all bad, it does help get the latest news but we do have to watch out for some articles that may have false information. Also, it does help us socialize a lot more but we do have to be careful of who we talk to, people tend to portray their best side on the social media apps in order to give off a certain impression.

To conclude, though social media does help us socialize, get our latest news, and entertainment. We should still be cautious of it, mainly to our youth because many may not realize how much more of an impact it has on us.