Nick's Journalism Blog

Students tend to use social media frequently as it’s an easier form to communicate with classmates and friends throughout campus. Yet, how has social media directly impacted the lives of students in both positive and negative ways? Christopher Jones , an MSU student studying physics , has primarily been able to use social media positively in his life. Serving as a missionary in Hungry, Jones says that he still keeps in contact with people he met during that time with Facebook being his “primary form of communication” to keep in touch. For the most part, Jones says he’s been able to use it as a “tool” rather than something that causes stress in his life, with it at its worst being a time waster when browsing through YouTube. Riley Scanlon , a junior at MSU, says that his primary use for social media boils down to “a source of entertainment” so that it doesn’t consume all of his time that could be used more productively for school. ...

Social media has allowed for entirely new ways for friendships to be formed and kept. As the number of adults who use social media and other digital communication continues to rise, people are facing different problems with new kinds of exposure to their friends lives. The amount of stress related to social media use can be traced back to the kinds of information friends on social media are privy to that friends may not have shared previously outside of social media. A Pew Research Study shows that stress can be tied to the types of relationships that are kept over digital media and the type of information that’s shared from someone’s friends.   This awareness of events that influence a person’s levels of stress can lead to the perception that the social media is the cause of the stress, when certain types of social media interaction actually can help decrease stress in some cases according to the study.