Rebecca+N’s+Final+AmEx+2015+Speech


 * The Impact of Social Media **

Good morning my fellow classmates, teachers. Junior year has almost come to an end and we can all take a deep breath. It was perhaps the most difficult year of high school, but we all made it out alive. There is one last thing I need to do to before I can conclude my junior year; my speech. There were so many topics to choose from that made it difficult for me to pick, but I finally decided to talk about the impact of social media since it's so prevalent in our lives. There are dozens of social media sites, of course the most popular being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. I personally don't use any of these sites, except Snapchat, but that's about it. Even my 11 year old little sister has an Instagram. So why is that? The most common argument I found in my research was that social media obviously allows us to communicate with others, but it seems that there are more cons than there are pros. It really is a good idea when you think about it but it's becoming more of a frivolous activity for some people. I really don't want to know what my someone is doing every minute of the day. I just don't find it necessary to be posting every single event that happens in my life. Americans are on it so much that it's beginning to decrease face-to-face communication skills. According to college.usatoday a study was conducted and it was found that one in four people spend more time socializing online than they do in person. With every new generation human interaction in person is diminishing at a rapid rate. Children are being taught at a young age that it's normal to be staring at screen all day long. Social media also makes us vulnerable to online predators. As if bullying wasn't bad enough, cyber bullying continues to grow. The worst part is that the victim could have no idea whose bullying them because the bully can pose as anybody they want and get away with it. And that's what bothers me the most, that these predators can hide behind their computers and pretend to be someone they aren't. I found out that 77% of these predators target children aged 14 and older, and 22% target children 10 to 13. This makes me even more afraid of social media because these types of people are on it. Social media is very dangerous if the user isn't responsible and mature. Which brings me to the point of my speech being that I wanna grow old in an America where any one using any type of social media is cautious of what they post because the internet is forever. I don't want to see people constantly staring at there phones. I wanna grow old in an America where more people are meeting face to face first rather than social media because anyone can hide behind a keyboard and conceal who they really are. Thank you.

http://college.usatoday.com/2012/10/11/opinion-why-social-media-is-destroying-our-social-skills/ http://www.guardchild.com/statistics/ http://www.sentrypc.com/home/statistics.htm
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