The Dark Side of Social Media

Book excerpt: The Dark Side of Social Media: Psychological, Managerial, and Societal Perspectives examines how social media can negatively affect our lives. The book tackles issues related to social media such as emotional and mental health, shortened attention spans, selective self-presentation and narcissism, the declining quality of interpersonal relationships, privacy and security, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, misinformation and online deception, and negative peer effects. It goes on to discuss social media and companies (loss of power, challenging control mechanisms) and societies as a whole (fake news, chatbots, changes in the workplace). The Dark Side of Social Media: Psychological, Managerial, and Societal Perspectives empowers readers to have a more holistic understanding of the consequences of utilizing social media. It does not necessarily argue that social media is a bad development, but rather serves to complement the numerous empirical findings on the "bright side" of social media with a cautionary view on the negative developments. - Focuses on interpersonal communication through social media - Focuses on psychology of media effects - Explores social media issues on both an individual and societal level - Documents the rise of social media from niche phenomenon to mass market - Examines the differences between creating and consuming content