Nowadays, social media has become an integral part of modern life, but as the audience becomes bigger, it is full of controversy on whether it affects the user’s inner health and whether it is safe or not, according to Altman and Jiménez (2019), in some social media such as YouTube some big data as well as algorithms are used to make the viewers addicted, and the social media will be these views cash in through adverts. But social media also has positive values, such as the maintenance of intimate relationships, as I will mention in my article Büchi (2021), and the provision of emotional support (e.g. mental health communities). Contrary social platforms well-being responsibility is shifted to the user, but avoid their own design on inequality and mental health crisis. So this paper will explore whether social media is good or bad for user wellbeing
Social media platforms are largely designed with the user experience in mind, which in a positive way allows users to reduce loneliness and increase their well-being, for example, contact media such as think whatsapp breaks down geographic constraints and greatly improves communication between people (Graciyal and Viswam, 2021), which in terms of subjective well-being can maintain the intimacy and provide emotional support.
However this is all basically active interaction with the customer, some social media make the customer passively accept the rules of the platform through the platform algorithms instead making the user dependent (Büchi, 2021). Passive acceptance of this information can instead lead to a decrease in well-being. (Verduyn et al., 2015). According to Altman and Jiménez (2019), who analysed the data using the design of the YouTube platform as an example, the platform, in order to increase the user’s browsing time, he slowly creates dependency in the user by shortening the video so that the viewer can watch the video quickly and become interested in the producer, this model determines that its most fundamental design goal is to ‘Extend the user’s stay time’. Internet addiction can according to damage to an individual’s state of mind and academics (Beard and Wolf, 2001). Moreover, according to Chua and Chang (2016), Instagram is a photo-based social media, and creators reap the benefits of ‘likes’ as a strong feedback on the content they produce, which makes them unable to leave the social media. On this platform, according to Tiggemann et al. (2018), the creators usually choose filters and face lifts to edit their photos, and through the number of ‘likes’, the standard of beauty is ‘thin and white’. Therefore, the long-term use of these apps can lead to anxiety about their appearance and body shape in reality, and denial of their self-worth when comparing themselves to others.
These social media are designed and created with the goal of making a profit, analysed in terms of the platform’s business model. According to the study (Enders et al., 2008) using the famous European online business search social platform ‘XING’ as an example, the profit model of this platform basically relies on the opening of the user’s membership to make profit, a kind of paid and a kind of free, the paid features are greatly higher than the free users, so the platform for the excessive Users who are overly dependent on the platform tend to top up their memberships, and the platform makes use of this difference in design to make profits, leading to consequences that exacerbate this inequality and make money equal to the right to speak, which is obviously unfair to some ordinary users. As well as the fact that Facebook, now a global social media platform, now relies on adverts on its interface as its biggest means of monetisation, a large number of users are concerned that such adverts could lead to a massive leakage of user information, according to early research (Taylor, Lewin and Strutton, 2011), and as the number of users grows, so does the revenue from adverts, and so does the potential concern for user privacy and intrusion, which is a huge drawback to the well-being of social media users (Lin and Kim, 2016). According to a study (Jaipong, 2023) Tiktok, another huge social media in China, is expanding its revenue streams through ‘live streaming rewards’ and ‘live streaming with goods’. Users reward their favourite anchors by purchasing virtual currency, and the platform takes a cut, which is a huge way to make money. However, while this mechanism stimulates the enthusiasm of content creation, it also exacerbates the emotional bonding between creators and users, leading to ‘content involution’ and ‘persona anxiety’. Especially for teenage users, too much exposure to untrue information in an immature state of mind can lead to self-identity denial.
总结
In summary, social media has become an integral part of modern life, and while it is true that in part social media has had a huge positive effect on user well-being in terms of increasing interpersonal relationships and emotional support, social media is a double-edged sword, with platforms using algorithms to over-engage viewers in order to monetise their business model and also continue to deplete the subjective well-being of users ( Docherty, 2021). From the risks associated with passive reception of information to the anxiety and self-worth of users, social media is not a tool that is only beneficial, especially for immature teenagers, who are the most susceptible to influence, so social media platforms need to find a balance between profitability and balance of users.
Reference list
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