Phobia – Reading

This weeks reading task was about a book named: Phobia, by Peter Friend. We are learning to make connections and inferences within the text given. You can see some of this in action on slide 2, where we were tasked to answer questions about the book. The rest of the presentation is tasks to help us improve our vocabulary.

Persuasive Writing Speech – Social Media is Harmful

– Social Media is Harmful –

Back in 2020, us kiwis spent just under 2 hours a day, on the variety of sites provided on social media. Today I will be talking about the dangers of this community, how easy it is to deceive a person/audience, why these multiple sites have a big impact on mental disorders and how kids can access content inappropriate for their age in today’s online community. 

 

About 20,000 people get catfished online each year. People can lose money, get emotionally invested and become so devastated that they may never trust again. Romantic feelings aren’t always involved, a friendly relationship can also be formed, but both have the same impact. While influencers don’t catfish people, they sure do portray a different identity. To an audience or their hundred thousands of followers. If we take a look behind the screen and see what their lives are actually like, there’s much more to it. 

 

49% of 18-24 year olds suffer from a mental health problem as a result of social media usage. Being on a platform like TikTok or Instagram can have a huge impact on a person’s well-being. It can heighten the chances of a mental disorder, such as depression or anxiety. The unrealistic body standards pressure people into having the perfect body. This destroys their self esteem and creates unhealthy habits. Most people lose sleep from social media and devices in general. Our bodies need sleep to function properly, so when this happens it can be extremely damaging. 

 

Kids are exposed to harmful content online. Whether its Extremely violent, sexually explicit or/and age inappropriate. An example of this is a male called Andrew Tate. He has recently got banned from all social media accounts, but has left a huge online footprint. With a sum of 5 million followers combined from his Instagram and Youtube. Andrew promotes sexual, emotional and physical abuse towards women. On his social platforms women are viewed as objects. His audience is predominantly younger boys, boys who see this and think he’s a good influence. Content like this can damage a child’s morals and mental state. 

 

Social media is a big part of life in today’s time and age. As talked about before, it is very harmful because of things like identity theft, the impact on mental disorders and unhealthy content for our younger generation. We ignore the problems on social media until it is too late. Like all things the online community has its pros and cons, but let’s stay on the positive side of social media.