The Dual Nature of Social Meda: A tool for Connection or Division

Abstract
In the digital age, social media platform is not just a tool for people to communicate, but
also a space for sharing ideas, and offering support. However, social media platform also
can be a powerful weapon, spreading misinformation, promoting division, and also
cyberbullying. Social media users all around the world engaged in meaning exchanges,
promoting each other cultures, provide assistance across diverse communities to one
other. It also poses challenges, since social media platform’s influence can be wielded for
negative purposes. This paper is going to explore the dual nature of social media,
examining the potential of social media platform to positively shape the relationship
between peoples, and also a weapon for manipulation and conflict. By understanding
these issues, we can better navigate the impact of social media on society.

The Dual Nature of Social Media: A Tool for
Connection or Division?
In the digital era, social media platforms have been gradually replacing traditional
media as a platform for people to communicate, share ideas, or make friends. Platform
such as Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, X (formerly known as Twitter), YouTube, and
Reddit allow people to engage with each other, share their opinion, promote their culture,
or earning money from the digital market.
However, social media still has a big potential to bring peoples from all around
the world together, and unite the peoples or divide, harm peoples (Sunnysidezvision,
2023). Every coin has two sides: the impact of social idea is there twofold- it can unite
the peoples from different culture, but also cause them to oppose each other and starting
to have a conflict between them (Ashar, 2024). This paper will criticize how can social
media platform be a force for unity and support, or a source of division and conflict.

The Positive Potential of Social Media
One of the most significant of social media platforms is their ability to connect
people no matter when they are. Social media allows users from different country, culture,
and background to connect, share ideas, and build their friendship via the platform. For
instance, events like “#MeToo” and “BlackLivesMatter” brings a huge impact on social
media, raising people’s awareness of the underprivileged and calling on them to speak
out to change their social status (Greene et al, 2019). During the Covid-19 pandemic,
people are isolated at home, but social media platforms provide a channel for people to
mutual support in time of crisis to avoid losing hope and causing tragedy (Szeto, Au and
Cheng, 2024)
Social media also allows people to express themselves, share their own stories,
and form communities around common interests (CLRN team, 2024). As an example, Platform likes YouTube and Instagram have provide an opportunity for people to become
influencer, use their creativity to increase their influence, and build a positive community.
Besides, social media also revolutionized the way professional are built. It allows
everyone to connect with colleagues, mentors or employers around the world.
Professionals also can share experience, career advice to the beginners. Employees
should be encouraged to use social media because platforms like Linkedln allow
employees to have skill-building, knowledge sharing, and networking (Wasuna, 2023).
Social media also can minimize distractions, and use productivity tools such as
StayFocused to avoid employees doing other things during work time. The power of
social media in shaping relationships and society is crucial, so people need to be careful
when using social media.

The Dark Side of Social Media
Everything has a good side and a bad side, and social media is no exception.
Despite there are so many benefits, but social media also has a dark side that cannot be
ignored by peoples. One of the most serious issues is the spread of misinformation,
nowadays the information that posted on Instagram, Facebook, or X is hard to verify the
truthfulness of content, and spread is also rapidly. This has to led to the rise of fake news,
which can cause people to be consistently deceived by fake news and doubt the
authenticity of real news, or use fake news as an argument against those who have not
been deceived by fake news (Lazer et al., 2018). Misinformation can exacerbate
polarization, cause confusion and division among people, thereby undermining unity
among the peoples and even directly leading to social unrest.
Besides, privacy concern is also one of the issues because social media platforms
like to collect users’ personal data, including location, search history and others. As an
example, every time we search something and it will be starting to recommend us the
things that we are looking for. It is because social media companies collect personal
information and make it available to marketers to accurately deliver advertisements, and
personalized content recommendation (Rainie, 2018). In recently year, the leak of
personal information caused users become a target of hacker attacks and lead to property
losses, and also have a long-term impact on civil liberties and privacy (IEEE Digital
Privacy, n.d.)
Cyberbullying and online harassment is another significant problem, particularly
among young people with immature mental condition. As technology advances, social
media platforms have become something that everyone knows how to use, and social
media platforms support anonymous messages, and communication, which has led people
to remove their disguises in reality and reveal their true selves. As an example,
cyberbullying has become increasingly prevalent among adolescents, with the
cyberbullying victimization reaching up to 57.5% (Zhu et al., 2021). Hence, social media
companies have an important responsibility to protect their users, including provide a
more accessible reporting systems, and strengthen their content moderation (Stephen,
2021). Not only that, cyberbullying also can exacerbate mental health problems,
especially kids, and teenagers.
Meanwhile, social media platforms such as Instagram, and TikTok having a trend
of showing off wealth. Nowadays, teenagers constantly exposure to influencers to extravagant lifestyle of influencers can lead teenagers have a detrimental effect on
teenagers’ mental health (Sina, 2023). They may begin to show sign of increased anxiety,
or even depression, and develop an unhealthy obsession with material possessions,
leading to impulsive spending (Sina, 2023). So, parents have to set healthy boundaries
around social media, such as time limits on platform, encouraging offline hobbies, and
promoting face to face social interactions. It is important to monitor the content children
to ensure it is appropriate for their age and maturity level.
Addiction is also another problem that will cause to teenagers when they’re using
social media. It is because when we’re using social media our brain will produce
dopamine signals and sees this activity as rewarding and worth repeating (Cherney, 2020).
So as the feel-good dopamine wears off, we will return to the source for more. In the
other hands, teenagers nowadays want to gain attention to enhance their sense of
existence, through likes, comments, and shares to create a dependency cycle, leading a
social media addition. Besides, Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is also a reason that cause
social media addiction because users feel urgent to know the latest trend, to let people
compulsively check their phone, even in the middle of other activities (Scott, 2024).
Information cocoons is also one of the dark sides of social media, it is because
social media often create “echo chambers” to push content that users are interested and
consistent with their positions. Information cocoon makes it more difficult for people to
have a discussion with different views, and might lead to social division. This isolation
could lead to reinforcing of misinformation and deepen social divisions. It is because
users will believe in their own ideas more firmly and ignore other opinions as wrong,
which makes us unconsciously limited to limited information and causes social division
(Hou, Pan, Liu, Yang, and Zhou, 2022).

Navigating the Impact of Social Media
Positive impact of social media enables seamless communication, promotes
global communication, and allows people to interact with each other to share their
knowledges, cultures and playing a crucial role in marketing, education. Firstly, social
media provides a real-time communication across the global. The platforms such as
WeChat, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Snapchat allow people to maintain their relationship
even at different geographical location (Kuhada, 2022). Meanwhile, it promotes crosscultural interactions, allow peoples to learn different perspective, traditions, and lifestyle
to foster a understanding among peoples with different background. Social media is also
one of the platforms to let people share their knowledge via articles, videos, blogs or
journal to promote education, and raising awareness (Freitag, 2019). A lot of brands also
promote their products via social media, engage with customer and create a personalized
experience. Social media has become an essential tool for effective marketing campaign
to provide business with direct access to their target customers (Kuhada, 2022). Social
media is one of the biggest learning platforms for students, institute or educators to share
resources or knowledge. The platform such as YouTube, Linkedln and any others
platforms offer online tutorials, lectures, or workshops to expand the reach of learning.
Negative impact of social media is misinformation and fake news, undermines
peoples’ trust in authentic sources of information, creating an environment that hard to
distinguish between truth and falsehood (Lazer et al., 2018). Government needs to
strengthen content moderation to prevent the spread of fake news. Social media also has a privacy issue since social media likes to collect a large amount of personal data and sell it
to marketers, and used for profit, raising questions about the ethnical use of personal
information. Government should implement stricter data protection law to ensure users’
personal data is fully protected and stored. Besides, the anonymity of social media makes
it a hotspot for cyberbullying. Victims, especially teenagers often subjected to cruel
comments, and threats, which can cause a long-term effect on their mental health
(Stephen, 2021). Platforms should employ AI tools to detect harmful language and ban
the user that is bullying someone. Social media platform, especially flexing wealth or
lifestyle, can lead to low self-esteem among teenagers. This may make teenagers pursue
money instead of inner wealth. The “dopamine cycle” generated by likes, shares, and
comments will make us addicted to social media and Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) will
exacerbate this addiction, and makes teenagers feel compelled and constantly check their
feeds, or reels. Platform need to promote the awareness about the addictive nature of
social media, and engage user to take break while long time using to help prevent
addiction. Social media platforms often employ algorithms to prioritize the content that
users have previously engaged with. It will make peoples are isolated from different
views, and critical thinking, ultimately leading to social division. When peoples are more
used to online interaction, the face-to-face interaction skills may decline, and the online
communication skills lack of body languages and emotional, it may lead to
misunderstandings and cause a conflict. Over-rely on digital communication will also
reduce empathy, and the ability respond to reality social situations.

Conclusion
In conclusion, social media a two-edged sword. It is a powerful tool to let people
communicate, share ideas, and even form connections but also carries significant risk.
Fakes news, privacy violations, cyberbullying, and also addiction all contribute to the
darker side of these technologies. As we move forward, it is essential for us to balance
the benefits and dark side of social media. By raising awareness, and improving content
moderation, we can help users to navigate the complexities of the digital world. Even
though, social media has a huge potential that able to change the world, but it still
requires careful management to ensure it remains a positive force rather than a source of
division.

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