Social media has taken a significant space in our lives, impacting our lives in several ways. Everything that has advantages also has disadvantages.

Social media has started shaping our lives in many ways. In this article, we will discuss the top advantages and disadvantages of social media in 2023.

Social media has given the world some better options to connect with loved ones, friends, and relatives. But it can give us the benefit until we utilize it in the way it is meant for.

Social media was not invented to leave behind the physical contact we used to have with our friends and family, but rather to come closer to them by breaking the boundaries and limitations of borders.

This has become an integral part of most of the population, especially the younger teens. They spend most of their time in either content creation or content consumption.

Unnecessary content consumption can impact the physical and mental health of youngsters. If we talk about this concerning science, our mind releases a compound called Dopamine which is also known as the “feel-good” hormone.

Whenever we use social media, we use it to get motivation, or just to seek pleasure.

When we use social media for pleasure and entertainment purposes, this hormone (dopamine) is released, but if it is released in larger quantities then, it can affect your health badly.

So the point till now is to use social media in a right and restricted way, never go beyond a limit. Read this complete article to get more insight into the advantages and disadvantages of social media in our daily lives.

Now let’s discuss some important advantages and disadvantages of social media in a broader sense.

Advantages of Social Media:

 Social Connect:

The main utility and advantage of these social media platforms are that it provides you the ability to connect with individuals across the globe without the limitations and hindrances of borders.

It gives you more opportunities to connect with the people, who are residing thousands of kilometers away from you. People can connect via different video conferencing apps like Google meet, skype, zoom, etc.

Many social media platforms also provide the utility of making voice calls and video calls from their platform with just a data connection.

These video-conferencing apps and features make you feel as if you were meeting that person physically or in person and not via any application.

A Source of Entertainment:

Gone are the days when people used to sit together in front of the Television and watch TV serials and movies together, and spent quality time with their family and friends.

Nowadays, people spend most of their time scrolling through their social media feeds and watching videos and photos shared by their favourite influencers and creators.

Now the source of entertainment has shifted from TV to Youtube, feeds, and watching movies and originals on OTT platforms like Hotstar, Netflix, etc.

Social Media a source of News & information:

People also use social media to get quality information, and news and remain up-to-date with the things going around.

Many people just get news and updated content from the influencer and creators they are following.

But the information they are getting from them might not always be reliable and authentic, because influencers can sometimes share biased opinions with their audience.

So far we have discussed some of major advantages of using social media, now let’s discuss disadvantages of Social media.

Disadvantages of Social Media:

Technology including social media has various advantages but if used in excess, it also has some disadvantages.  So now let’s discuss some major disadvantages of social media in our lives.

Reduces personal touch & communication:

As many people use social media to connect with their friends and relatives. The sense of personal touch and face-to-face communication is lacking with the use of social media.

This can create a communication gap, as people have started using social media platforms to interact with their friends.

Now the trend of exchanging good wishes on the occasion of festivals, birthdays, and anniversaries has also changed. Now people prefer to do this using social media messengers.

The Social Media Addiction:

This is one of the most severe disadvantages of using social media that the world is going through.

Especially youngsters and students, tend to use social media for entertainment and motivational purposes, but later become addicted to it and spend most of their time there.

Social Media makes Undisciplined:

People become distracted and lose focus in their lives through the unrestrained use of social media. It has actually started taking a toll on their mental and physical health.

While using social media platforms people tend to become slaves and keep on scrolling their newsfeeds, posts, shorts, etc.

Conclusion:

In this article, we have discussed all the important advantages and disadvantages of social media. Hope you will keep these points in while using social media platforms to connect with people.