Top Ten Reasons Social Networking is Hurting Our Generation

Story by Jake Davidson

Status updates, tweets, profile pictures and hash-tags are a part of “Generation Z’s” day to day life. But is this hurting our generation more than it is helping us stay connected? It certainly seems that way with more students spending more and more time on these social networking sites.

10. Increased Drama. Ughhhhhhhh

When you are reading something online it is different than hearing it in person.  The interpretation is up to you. A report from a divorce attorney says nearly 20% of all divorce papers had some reference to facebook. This not only affects your relationships with friends and family, but it can also affect chances of finding a job. According to careerbuilder.com, 19% of people were not hired for trash talking former employers.

9. Too Time Consuming

It almost seems as if most of our time these day is spent on social networking. Recent statistics have reported that the average user of Facebook spends roughly 55 minutes per day just on Facebook. That is almost six days a year spent on your phone/computer just on facebook.

8. People you Don’t Know Contact you

Alright, if you put your number on facebook, you are only asking for problems. First of all, don’t add people you don’t know or you don’t want to talk to. Odds are if they have added you, they will find your number and try to contact you. Don’t be surprised, upset or start complaining when your best friend’s forty year old uncle decides to start texting you because of your negligence.

7. Private Life Becomes Public

Private relationships should stay, just as the name suggests, private. Most people don’t care about your two-week-a-versary. Also, your potential future employer can see your posts.  Everything that goes on the internet stays there.

 6. Look at Me! Syndrome

Complain about not getting respect? Truth is, I am not going to respect anyone that takes a picture of themselves in the mirror with a duck face and peace sign, while sticking their butt out and an extremely low cut shirt. It just screams “I need attention”.

5. Religious (Or Lack There of) Battlefield

On Facebook, people have every right to state their opinions. However, it often leads to people overstating those opinions. Like in #10, people still overreact when it comes to fights and drama.  Right now there is a hot debate between atheists and Christians. There is a time and a place for that and Facebook isn’t it. You can express your opinions but don’t take it too far where you are trash talking other people for their beliefs.

4. Difficulty Getting a Job #KMN

 Imagine you are graduating from college and are legal drinking age and you have pictures of the “rager” that you threw last Saturday. Monday morning you are applying for jobs and you don’t know why no one is calling about your resume. In a lot of big companies, there is a department that looks at potential employee’s social networking pages and blogs. Companies would rather not hire the frat boy with a lampshade on his head with his beer pong table in the background. Statistics from careerbuilder.com report that 25% of managers said they have used some form of social networking to judge candidates, and 51% of those have decided not to hire a prospective employee because of their facebook page.

3. Face your Problems, Don’t Facebook them

It seems as of today, our first instinct is to go on a social networking site to deal with our problems. Often times people don’t even acknowledge the person that has wronged them. People just continue to put up passive aggressive posts that do nothing to help the situation.  Stick up for yourself and interact with other people. Posting stuff on social networking is only going to strain relationships more and give people a thinner skin. Not to mention people are opening their problems up to other people, possibly getting them involved, and making things more complicated.

2. Increased “Slang” and Incorrect Grammar Usage!?

We live in a world full of shortcuts with LOL, OMG,  and ROFL. There is nothing wrong with using these phrases, but  we are sometimes unable to distinguish when these are appropriate and when they should not even be thought about and that can lead to problems.  But the bigger problem here would be incorrect grammar usage. Being in school I see incorrect forms of you’re and your on a daily basis. People do not know the correct forms of their, there, and they’re anymore. It is almost as if social media has somehow erased some part of our intellectual being, things that we learned in early grade school are no longer important to us.

1. Inability to Communicate with Other Humans Face to Face, Especially Adults.

Due to the lack of personal human interactions, our generation lacks in a sense of professionalism and just communication skills in general. From my experience in working retail, many kids my age are unable to communicate successfully and politely with me. I believe that this is some of the byproducts of an electronic society. It hurts our generation’s chances in job interviews and puts us back in time. We need to be able to interact with other human beings face to face, not just through the internet. 25% of people that are not hired by a company are said to have poor communication skills during the interview.