The University of Technology of Sydney has published a study which identifies about 50 negative effects related to the use of social network. The research, published in the Journal of Global Information Management, took into consideration more than 50 research articles published between 2003 and 2018, in a time frame that also considers the earliest forms of social networks: in 2003, in fact, Facebook had not yet been created and users were looking for the first time on platforms such as MySpace.
The research on the “dark side of social networks”, as defined by UTS itself, has identified “46 harmful effects” ranging from physical and mental health problems to negative impacts on work and school performance, in addition to security and privacy problems.
“Social networks like Facebook and Instagram are used by over 3,6 billion people around the world”, the researchers explain, “a greater awareness of potential dangers can encourage user restraint and help software engineers, educators and managers policies to develop ways to minimize negative effects”.
“The World Health Organization has recognized the need for further researches about the information technology addiction and the need to develop strategies to prevent and treat this problem,” said Dr. Elia Erfani, Deputy Director of the School of Information, UTS systems and models, which added “the harms of social networks have mostly been studied from a psychopathologic perspective. They have received less attention from information systems researchers”. “Much of the research on the use of social networks has focused on its benefits and potential, but we were interested in fully identifying the negative impacts associated with the use of social media,” said Layla Boroon, PhD student who participated in the study”.
The researchers grouped the negative effects into six themes:
Cost of social exchange: includes depression, anxiety or jealousy, but also wasted time, energy and money.
Annoying content: includes disturbing or violent content or sexual or obscene content.
Privacy Issues: includes any personal privacy threats related to storing, reusing or sharing personal information with third parties.
Security Threats: refers to damage resulting from fraud or deception such as phishing or social engineering.
Cyberbullying: includes any abuse or harassment by groups or individuals such as abusive messages, lies, stalking or spreading rumors.
Low achievement: refers to the negative impact on work or academic performance.
An unflattering picture, which photographs a reality that anyone who deals with such media on a daily basis can observe: the verbal violence, the arrogance, the prosopopoeia that is often easy to find in the various posts should be a serious alarm bell, net of studies and research.