Individual essay huynhkimbao AEn T321WSB 7 21000803

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SCHOOL OF

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Student
name:
Huỳnh Kim Bảo
UNIT AND TUTORIAL DETAILS
Unit
name:
Academic English
Tutorial group: Individual essay
Lecturer or Tutor
name:
Gabriel Ryan

Student ID
number:

Unit
number:
Tutorial day and
time:

21000803

7
Mon, Tue, Thur
15:30-18:45

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS
The attractiveness of social networks to young people makes them more selfTitle:
conscious and self-centered. Analyze this statement.
Length 1200-1500
Due
Date
:
words
date:
2/1/2022
submitted:
2/1/2022
Home campus (where you are
enrolled):
WSB
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The attractiveness of social networks to young people makes them more
self-conscious and self-centered. Analyze this statement.

Huỳnh Kim Bảo
Western Sydney University
AEn-T321WSB-7
Mr. Gabriel Ryan
January 2, 2022


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Essay
Nowadays, technologies have been improved magnificently in the 21st century. With the
development of the internet, social media has become one of the most popular things. On social
media, people can find and share information with others, where sellers and companies can find
their potential customers and young people can frequently receive personal influence images
from others. Furthermore, social media is becoming an initial thing in human life, and because

the attractiveness of it more and more people will join in this social media environment. This
essay will discuss the attraction of social media to people, especially young people, and the
consequences of the effect of social media on people.

People use social media in many forms, such as transmitting information from one to
another or getting inspiration for working, daily life, and goals from other people. Social media
has more than two billion active users, nearly one-third of the world's population (Statista, 2021).
That has enhanced and consolidated the popularity of social media in today's world. People use
social media to communicate with their friends, family. They share their daily life experiences
with people through images and videos. There are famous social media platforms to share
memories, such as Facebook, youtube, Instagram, etc. Besides sharing memories with others,
people can find many things on social media, from trends, news to fashion, styles. Therefore,
social media has attracted a tremendous number of people using every day. Not only do more


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people use social media, but people also use social media more frequently than in history. In
2012, people spent an average of one hour and a half using social media (Statista, 2021). In the
next eight years, people spent an additional one hour more using social media add up to a total of
two hours and a half. One of the most popular uses of social media is personal influence.
Individuals usually upload their images about appearance, relationships, traveling, fitness, etc.
People who see these influence images may have motivation and inspiration to achieve their
goals. Besides personal influence, social media offers people many entertainments methods. For
instance, people usually see a funny video clip, a funny story, or meme images on social media.
These methods create for the viewer a pleasure time using social media and attract them to use it
more. Therefore, social media is an attractive place for people where it can take a lot of time, and
people do not even notice. The attractiveness of social media can cause many negative and
positive effects on people, especially young people.

The attractiveness of social media to people can have some consequences, which may
affect young people. In today's world, the number of people using social media is remarkable,
and the major are young people. When using social media, there is numerous information that
has not been censorship. With the massive network of information around the world uploading
on social media, people can not control and validate all the data. Therefore, young people can be
affected negatively by misleading and unrestricted information on social media (Ngonso, 2019).
Besides unchecked information, young people can be affected by personal influence images from
other people. People on social media usually see pictures such as appearance, relationships, food


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issues, etc. These pictures can form a young people's mind about the standard of everything.
Social media is an efficient tool to transmit and reinforce many social-cultural messages (Garcia
et al., 2012). Young people who use social media frequently usually have negative emotions
when seeing other people's influence images. For instance, a student who usually receives an
average or below-average score sees other students' achievement in the study with excellent
assessments on social media. The student's feeling, who received an average score, may be
affected and generate a negative effect on its mental health. Besides the impact on personal's
results in the study or work, young people may suffer from eating disorder habits. Social media
effectively transmits and forms beauty standards images, where millions of people share their
results of work out via many platforms. These images cause many people to misunderstand their
values and try to change their body shape by changing habits in eating. Without researching and
following the wrong methods in eating, people can receive a bad result which may affect their
physical health and conditions. Therefore, people using social media should pay attention to what
they see on social media. It can unconsciously affect our mental and physical health by watching
images and videos without any assessments of the information on social media. However, there
are some positive effects of the use of social media.

Social media is a place where people can share and receive new information, knowledge.

When using social media, numerous people have a similar interest in music, sports, books, etc.
These people will create a community on social media where they can share their hobbies with
others. With this advantage, people can have more leisure time using social media to enhance


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their hobbies and be open-minded. Having people with the same hobbies and communicating
with them is generates lots of positive effects for mental. Besides, people should pay attention to
the credibility of the information and be a person who knows how to select data on social media.
If people stay conscious of the images they see on social media, they can avoid pessimistic
effects. All the body pictures that social media generate are not the norm of beauty, which comes
in various sizes and shapes (Nierengarten, 2017). People can avoid self-esteem when knowing
social media has much invalid information. With the numerous users, social media is a tool for
fast accessing new trends. People can be up to date about trends through social media where
within minutes, people can find all the latest news. Using social media to acknowledge trends is
possible with many sources with high credibility. But there is both positive and negative news on
social media. People can recover faster from the stress of negative information by exposure to
positive news on social media (Longpre et al., 2021). Therefore, using social media can help
people reduce the pressure from work and study by watching positive information. People can
improve their emotions and attitude toward things that upset them. To sum up, people can gain
lots of data and have a leisure time with all the positive by using social media.

In conclusion, social media is a place where people can share and find what they need or
lack in daily life. However, there is some dangerous potential of using social media, such as the
negative emotions that affect people's mental or physical health by exposure frequently to
personal influence images. The unchecked information on social media can influence people to
misunderstand things and mislead their awareness about the correct information. On the other

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hand, people can have lots of leisure time using social media. If they can raise their awareness
about things people upload on social media, they can enjoy their time with the positive and
helpful information when using social media. People can learn and develop their knowledge
about trends with many different sources on social media to stay up to date. Overall, social media
is a great place to communicate and learn new things with other people as long as we know how
things work on social media.

Reference list
Fredericks, C.b., Garcia, K., Massey, M., Borzekowski, D.L.G., & Vasagar, B. (2012). Body
Image, Eating Disorders, and the Relationship to Adolescent Media Use. Pediatric Clinics
of North America, 59(3), 693-704.
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Longpré, C., Sauvageau, C., Cernik, R., Audrey-Ann Journault, Marin, M., & Lupien, S. (2021).
Staying informed without a cost: No effect of positive news media on stress reactivity,
memory and affect in young adults. PLoS One, 16(10).
/>

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Ngonso, B. F. (2019). Effect of Social Media on Teenagers and Youths: A Study of Rural
Nigerian Teenagers and Youths in Secondary Schools. Global Media Journal, 17(32), 1-6.
/>
Nierengarten, M. B., M.A. (2017). Influence of social media on teenagers' body
image. Contemporary Pediatrics, 34(10), 21-22. />accountid=63189

Statista Research Department. (2021, September 7). Daily time spent on social networking by
internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2020. Statista.
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Statista Research Department. (2021, November 16). Most popular social networks worldwide as
of October 2021, ranked by number of active users. Statista.
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Study.com. (2018). How Social Media Influences Attitudes & Behaviors.
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