Ethics, also called moral philosophy, the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. The term is applied to any classification or theory of moral values or principles. In the digital age, cyber-ethics is described as the discipline of using appropriate and ethical behaviors and acknowledging moral duties and obligations on online environments and digital media (Wiafe et al., 2020). Modern technology and ethics influence everyday life in the following ways, such as social justice, social media, hacking, privacy and cyberbullying.
The issues with social media are among the most prevalent in modern days. People use social media everyday; however, it could be regarded as a double-sided sword (Keles et al., 2019). In 2022, according to global statistics (2022), “there are 270.1 million active social media users in the United States of America. This accounts to 80.9% of the total population of US”. Research has indicated a relation between social media use and psychological problems, even though it has benefits of sharing information. Social media “likes” have effects on the brain, such as a correlation between negative online interaction and both depression and anxiety (Keles et al., 2019).
This is true to the adolescence and children especially, because social identity formation is now dependant on social media. There is an association between social media use and mental health problems. Moreover, the obsession with media popularity urges users to use bots in order to increase “likes”, which is an example of unethical behaviour. For example, when Instagram cancelled showing an exact number of likes, due to the unhealthy fixation on popularity and resulting mental health problems of its users. As well as that, because of the free flow of information, now is hard to determine, which information is true. However, information from people whom users know deemed more trustworthy than that from other sources, which enables bloggers to deceive their audience (Cooley & Parks-Yancy, 2019). Thus, the issues of social media are far beyond fake likes and misinformation.
I think that social media has majorly negative impact on the younger generation. In my opinion, the impact on depression, anxiety, social identity formation and body image can be atrocious. People should behave online appropriately by providing honest information, inclusivity, real body image and a real number of likes. Thus, the use of social media has to be mindful and ethical.
References
Cooley, D., & Parks-Yancy, R. (2019). The effect of social media on perceived information credibility and decision making. Journal of Internet Commerce, 18(3), 249-269. Web.
Global Statistics (2022). US Social Media Statistics 2022 | US Internet & Mobile Stats. Web.
Keles, B., McCrae, N., & Grealish, A. (2020). A systematic review: the influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25(1), 79-93. Web.
Wiafe, I., Yaokumah, W., & Kissi, F. A. (2020). Students’ Intentions on Cyber Ethics Issues. In Modern Theories and Practices for Cyber Ethics and Security Compliance (pp. 105-121). IGI Global. Web.