I would like to believe my essay is very informative but still very entertaining so the readers don’t get bored. I perhaps could have used more quotes since I paraphrazed most of my quotes too. I honestly don’t think I could’ve put in more since the evidence I used was clear and relatable. Hopefully, everyone enjoys and is educated on my topic.

Miriam Mendez Writing for the Sciences Informative Report

Answered: Your Most Burning Questions About How SOCIAL MEDIA IS DANGEROUS!

Social media has been around for almost two decades; MySpace was first introduced in 2004. Ever since then, the social media spectrum has expanded and more and more social media apps have been coming out. From MySpace, to Facebook, to Instagram, to Snapchat, to Musically, which is now known as TikTok, social media has been wired into our everyday lives and routines. At least most not all usually spend their free time laughing at the hilarious TikToks. As well as, finding out what the newest obsession on Twitter has tweeted. It is all just fun dance routines or funny memes but what most don’t know is the mental, physical and emotional toll it can have on society today.

Scrolling through Instagram and seeing a beautiful, skinny, perfectly fit model flaughting at a beach in Hawaii can be tough for most people who see that “perfect” model as a threat. Most even feel insecure, questioning themselves and hating the way their body looks because it does not look like the “perfect” girl in the picture. Why am I putting, perfect, in quotations? You’ll find out soon enough. There are different components as to how social media can affect those mentally. One of the aspects are, filters. Yes, taking selfies with the filters can be fun but it can also alter someone’s image and make them feel less of themselves and will make one doubt their own beauty; thus creating a false illusion. For example, a filter can make someone’s nose look a different way or change the color of someone’s eyes. Seeing the “perfect” picture on the screen can make others feel insecure and think that they have to look this way to feel beautiful. In reality, everyone is beautiful in their own way. FOMO or fear of missing out is another way

social media can affect someone menatlly. Fear of missing out can be defined as seeing your friend doing a tik tok dance video with one of your mutual friends and thinking to yourself that you might have missed out on an inside joke or even doubt the friendship the both of you have. One little video on social media can make a person overthink, bigtime. Constant scrolling and going in between apps can lead to the decline of the studies and school work. While you’re scrolling through instagram, your deadline on a paper due at 11:59pm is getting closer and you have nothing to write. The distraction can lead to major procrastination, less retention of information (less grasp on information), and higher levels of stress. Other feelings that can occur are exclusion, anxiety, and loneliness; this ties back to the FOMO aspect of social media affecting society mentally. Apps, such as instagram, facebook, and twitter can have a negative effect on confidence and self esteem. For instance, whether it’s posting a picture, tweeting, or uploading a status, you’d think you would get loads of likes, comments or shares. However, what happens when you don’t get as much as you thought you would? That can lower your self esteem and can leave you feeling depressed or have anxiety about why your posts aren’t doing well as the next. It is all about competition, the game of getting more likes than the next person. Life should not be about whose content can gain more popularity. Some are even driven to post prerogative pictures because that’s what they see is getting the most attention. The “perfect” model you see on instagram can be suffering from a sort of mental illness so she can stay the size she is. The insecure girl sitting behind her phone sulking on the fact that she does not look like the picture perfect girl can also gain a mental illness driving her to force herself not to eat. Not only can social media bring out the worst in somebody mentally, but also can harm someone physically. (Stabler)

Social media use has been linked to poor health among society since the early 2000s. A study was made on college students at the University at Buffalo. Study shows that participants who excessively use social media were found to have higher C-reactive protein. C-reactive protein or CRP is a biological marker of chronic inflammation that predicts illnesses like diabetes, certain cancers, and other cardiovascular diseases. (Gambini). In simpler words, students who were using social media ridiculously showed signs that they had CRP which can predict some illnesses that can harm the body in many ways. Other ways social media can be detrimental is it can lead to headaches, back and chest pains, as well as frequent visits to the doctors and health centers for treatments. (Gambini). In this study, researchers recruited about 251 undergrad students between the ages of 18 and 24. Questionnaires as well as blood samples were collected and the usage of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram were recorded. David Lee, PhD, assistant professor of communication of the UB College of Arts and sciences stated “We were able to establish a correlation between the amount of social media use and these physical health indicators… the more somatic symptoms they experienced and visits to the doctor… they showed higher levels of chronic inflammation”. Chronic inflammation is when your body continues sending inflammatory cells even when there is no outside danger. In closing, Lee expresses there is more work to be done but does believe social media use may have a link to important physical health outcomes.

Lastly, social media has an effect emotionally as well as psychologically. In an online article it is stated that social media affects different brain functions. It’s said to contain many combinations of stimuli that can trigger different reactions, thus social media’s effects on the brain appear in many different ways. For instance “when social media users receive positive feedback (likes), their brains fire off dopamine receptors, which is facilitated in part by the

ventral tegmental area (VTA)”. (“The Psychology of Social Media”) It was also explained that “researchers found that parts of the brain that deal with emotional and sensory processing reacted noticeably when participants felt excluded” (“The Psychology of Social Media”). This can be in relation to FOMO, the fear of missing out, as previously mentioned. At times, as humans we could have psychological reasoning for posting on social media such as, physiological needs, esteem, safety, love/belonging, and self-actualization. All of those aspects tie down to how someone might feel obligated to post to feel that sense of being included or post because someone wanted them to or even just to post someone got a new house or job or etc. Social media can also shape one’s identity. It is declared “social media networks has given a ‘rise to interreality’, a new social space, more malleable and dynamic than preceding social networks”. (“The Psychology of Social Media”). People can alter their identities to conceal their real ones and use the virtual ones, change the way others perceive them, also, use social media tools to expand their own social connections. To illustrate, there is a popular TV show called “Catfish”. The plot of the show is about online relationships, however the two partners haven’t met and the hosts of Catfish are contacted so that way the person can meet the other. Let’s say, 25 year old Tami from Texas thinks she is in an online 3 year relationship with the 32 year old singer/dancer Chris Brown because it “seems” like the person she has on Facebook is the real Chris Brown. However, with the help of the TV show hosts, she ends up meeting this person who is believed to be Breezy and it is revealed Chris Brown was really a 25 year old man from Louisiana with identity issues. Which takes part in how social media can negatively affect the lives of someone based on everything that was mentioned before. Social media can really be used to control someone’s life and it can either make or break everything.

To conclude, I want to end this essay by saying “social media is a dangerous place to seek affirmation, acceptance, identity, and security” – Cornelius Lindsey. Social media has a mental, physical and emotional consequence on somebody’s life, whether they’re adults or adolescents. One should be careful on how much they should spend on these platforms or even what they do on them.

Works Cited
Gambini, Bert. “Social media use tied to poor physical health.” ScienceDaily, 24 January 2022,

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220124103917.htm. Accessed 10 March

2022.
“The Psychology of Social Media.” King University Online, 19 September 2019,

https://online.king.edu/news/psychology-of-social-media/. Accessed 10 March 2022. Stabler, Christine M. “The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health – Penn Medicine Lancaster

General Health.” Lancaster General Health, 1 September 2021, https://lancastergeneralhealth.org/health-hub-home/2021/september/the-effects-of-social- media-on-mental-health. Accessed 10 March 2022.

While writing and brainstorming my ideas I knew I would have to bring in a ton of details to make the reader informed on my thesis. I needed to back up my thesis with enough evidence. However, I still needed to keep the readers interested so I still need to keep up my author’s tone and not lose my creative process throughout my writing. Seeing the objectives made me want to keep perfecting my writing and do better on the drafts leading up to my final draft.  

Miriam Mendez

Writing for the Sciences

Informative Report

Draft
Social media has been around for almost two decades; MySpace was first introduced in

2004. Ever since then, the social media spectrum has expanded and more and more social media apps have been coming out. From MySpace, to Facebook, to Instagram, to Snapchat, to Musically, which is now known as TikTok, social media has been wired into our everyday lives and routines. At least most not all usually spend their free time laughing at the hilarious TikToks. As well as, finding out what the newest obsession on Twitter has tweeted. It is all just fun dance routines or funny memes but what most don’t know is the mental, physical and emotional toll it can have on society today.

Scrolling through Instagram and seeing a beautiful, skinny, perfectly fit model flaughting at a beach in Hawaii can be tough for most people who see that “perfect” model as a threat. Most even feel insecure, questioning themselves and hating the way their body looks because it does not look like the “perfect” girl in the picture. Why am I putting, perfect, in quotations? You’ll find out soon enough. There are different components as to how social media can affect those mentally. One of the aspects are, filters. Yes, taking selfies with the filters can be fun but it can also alter someone’s image and make them feel less of themselves and will make one doubt their own beauty; thus creating a false illusion. For example, a filter can make someone’s nose look a different way or change the color of someone’s eyes. Seeing the “perfect” picture on the screen can make others feel insecure and think that they have to look this way to feel beautiful. In reality, everyone is beautiful in their own way. FOMO or fear of missing out is another way social media can affect someone menatlly. Fear of missing out can be defined as seeing your friend doing a tik tok dance video with one of your mutual friends and thinking to yourself that you might have missed out on an inside joke or even doubt the friendship the both of you have. One little video on social media can make a person overthink, bigtime. Constant scrolling and going in between apps can lead to the decline of the studies and school work. While you’re scrolling through instagram, your deadline on a paper due at 11:59pm is getting closer and you have nothing to write. The distraction can lead to major procrastination, less retention of information (less grasp on information), and higher levels of stress. Other feelings that can occur are exclusion, anxiety, and loneliness; this ties back to the FOMO aspect of social media affecting society mentally. Apps, such as instagram, facebook, and twitter can have a negative effect on confidence and self esteem. For instance, whether it’s posting a picture, tweeting, or uploading a status, you’d think you would get loads of likes, comments or shares. However, what happens when you don’t get as much as you thought you would? That can lower your self esteem and can leave you feeling depressed or have anxiety about why your posts aren’t doing well as the next. It is all about competition, the game of getting more likes than the next person. Life should not be about whose content can gain more popularity. Some are even driven to post prerogative pictures because that’s what they see is getting the most attention. The “perfect”

model you see on instagram can be suffering from a sort of mental illness so she can stay the size she is. The insecure girl sitting behind her phone sulking on the fact that she does not look like the picture perfect girl can also gain a mental illness driving her to force herself not to eat. Not only can social media bring out the worst in somebody mentally, but also can harm someone physically. (Stabler)

Social media use has been linked to poor health among society since the early 2000s. A study was made on college students at the University at Buffalo. Study shows that participants who excessively use social media were found to have higher C-reactive protein. C-reactive protein or CRP is a biological marker of chronic inflammation that predicts illnesses like diabetes, certain cancers, and other cardiovascular diseases. (Gambini). In simpler words, students who were using social media ridiculously showed signs that they had CRP which can predict some illnesses that can harm the body in many ways. Other ways social media can be detrimental is it can lead to headaches, back and chest pains, as well as frequent visits to the doctors and health centers for treatments. (Gambini).

While watching the documentary, it grabbed my attention because the stories that were told felt real and not just a person telling the story but you can tell it was a person feeling their story. Not only were they telling the story with such emotion, but it made me feel what they were feeling. I agreed with the fact that no matter the drug, let’s stay opiates, the addiction will be felt 10x times harder. Including a different story from a different background gave me the notion of, literally anything can happen to anyone. It doesn’t matter where one comes from, anybody can do drugs and die from it. Addiction is to be taken seriously and this documentary shows that. 

Miriam Mendez
Writing for the social sciences

Informative report outline

Brainstorm:

For my informative report, I would like to talk about social media and how it affects the mental, physical, and psychological health. Since social media is used in everyday life, I thought why not use a topic that can possibly relate to.

Outline:

Introduction – start off with getting the reader’s attention. Keep it short and simple but still give detail about the topics discussed.
First body: I will speak about the effects social media has mentally.
Second body: I will speak about how social media affects the body physically.

Third body: I will talk about how it affects the body psychologically/emotionally

Possible Works cited:

Stabler, Christine M. “The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health – Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health.” Lancaster General Health, 1 September 2021, https://lancastergeneralhealth.org/health-hub-home/2021/september/the-effects-of-social-media- on-mental-health. Accessed 2 March 2022.

“Social media use tied to poor physical health.” ScienceDaily, 24 January 2022, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220124103917.htm. Accessed 2 March 2022.

“The Psychology of Social Media.” King University Online, 19 September 2019, https://online.king.edu/news/psychology-of-social-media/. Accessed 2 March 2022.

The purpose of informative reports is to teach and inform and help others learn to create more insight. An informative report has to be clear and exciting. The main goal is to grab the reader’s attention and be accurate with your writing but as well add creativity. One can lose the sight of being creative when writing an informative report. When writing, one needs to consider the audience as the professor/instructor and classmates. One should make sure the topic we’re writing about is specific. We can teach our readers about our topics as well as learn from other reports. Writers should have an objective stance. An objective stance means that there are no sides taken. Being subjective means letting readers know the writer is taking sides and one wants to write with no preference. Reading some of the sample informative reports, one that stood out was “Chatting Online about Stocks”, since it was very informative and made me gain more knowledge about something that can be useful to me in the future. One of its strengths was that it was interesting to read. Personally, I usually get bored reading the first paragraph, however, reading this grabbed my attention quickly. Honestly, I have no further questions in regards to the structure and the prewriting process. Possible ideas I can write a report on is birth control and the effects it has on the body. I can also write about the psychological effects different disorders have and how we can help diagnose patients. 

While writing my reflection, I wanted to write about something everyone can relate to. Yes COVID-19 is such an overrated topic, regardless, it is still an issue in today’s society. It did not require too much planning because I knew I wanted to talk about COVID. However, I didn’t just want to talk about the pandemic. I wanted to talk about specifically, COVID protocols in schools. I am a student, most people I know are just not starting to go back to school online after two years of being remote, so why not? I wanted to talk about my own experiences but I also wanted others to be able to read my memorandum and think “wow I experienced that too” or “I have seen that with others around me”. Like I said, I wanted everyone to relate. 

In my memorandum, I wish to put in more of an author’s tone. I wish I had more of my own personalized experiences, not only in schools but in the workplace since I know in the two years many people went back to work. I work at a retail store and I can believe that most teenagers my age or even adults have worked retail and can see the difference from before and after the pandemic; they also have experienced what I am experiencing and have their opinions. I’m proud of the fact I took a stand on my opinion and stood up for it. Some schools, especially public schools , would just vaccinate their students without telling their parents only because it’s “mandated”, however, are they really doing more harm than good? I am also proud of including the amendments in my argument; I believed it made my argument stronger. 

To: The President of CCNY, Vincent Boudreau, and all other school presidents From: Miriam Mendez
Date: February 15th, 2022
Subject: COVID-19 health precautions and mandates

As we all know, COVID-19 has been a big issue in the world for two years now. The mandates as well as the health precautions, in schools, are very flawed and are not thought out to really help their students. Schools all over the world have been mandated to give booster shots as well as vaccine shots such as Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer. Some schools, that I’ve witnessed, even have tried to give the vaccine or booster shots to children without their parents consent. All the Principal and Presidents do is send emails stating their going to give their students the vaccine without asking the permission of parents. Additionally, why are students being forced to take the vaccine when it can do more harm than good. Honestly, one can take the vaccine and have no issues. However, everyone’s body is different and there are people out there who can get very sick and even hospitalized over the vaccine. This notion of getting vaccinated or losing all your classes is a big issue because how are we paying for our own education and we are being denied it because we don’t have the vaccine. People with or without the vaccine are still getting covid so what is really the issue here? Some students are religious and believe vaccines are harmful, thus not taking it. The first amendment is all about the freedom of religion and there should be no laws prohibiting the exercise and freedom. How would one make laws forcing people to take the vaccine to get an education when it goes against their religion or beliefs. What if education is all one can have? Another issue regarding COVID-19 restrictions are the 6 feet rule as well as masks. It is very contradictory to the 6 feet rule when students are learning in a class of 40 other students and the chairs/desks are 2 feet apart. The mask mandate is always changing. One day there’s an email saying the masks are no longer needed and then the next day we need to double up in masks. It just does not make sense. To be quite frank, schools should go back to being online to prevent all the madness and chaos of being denied education or standing in line; which can also increase the chances of getting covid. Hopefully, school administrators and presidents can see the flaws in these mandates and accommodate the real needs of students. Change starts with the people and who knows, it can take one person to bring change to thousands.

To: The President of CCNY, Vincent Boudreau, and all other school presidents From: Miriam Mendez
Date: February 15th, 2022
Subject: COVID-19 health precautions and mandates

As we all know, COVID-19 has been a big issue in the world for two years now. The mandates as well as the health precautions, in schools, are very flawed and are not thought out to really help their students. Schools all over the world have been mandated to give booster shots as well as vaccine shots such as Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer. Some schools, that I’ve witnessed, even have tried to give the vaccine or booster shots to children without their parents consent. All the Principal and Presidents do is send emails stating their going to give their students the vaccine without asking the permission of parents. Additionally, why are students being forced to take the vaccine when it can do more harm than good. Honestly, one can take the vaccine and have no issues. However, everyone’s body is different and there are people out there who can get very sick and even hospitalized over the vaccine. This notion of getting vaccinated or losing all your classes is a big issue because how are we paying for our own education and we are being denied it because we don’t have the vaccine. People with or without the vaccine are still getting covid so what is really the issue here? Some students are religious and believe vaccines are harmful, thus not taking it. The first amendment is all about the freedom of religion and there should be no laws prohibiting the exercise and freedom. How would one make laws forcing people to take the vaccine to get an education when it goes against their religion or beliefs. What if education is all one can have? Another issue regarding COVID-19 restrictions are the 6 feet rule as well as masks. It is very contradictory to the 6 feet rule when students are learning in a class of 40 other students and the chairs/desks are 2 feet apart. The mask mandate is always changing. One day there’s an email saying the masks are no longer needed and then the next day we need to double up in masks. It just does not make sense. To be quite frank, schools should go back to being online to prevent all the madness and chaos of being denied education or standing in line; which can also increase the chances of getting covid. Hopefully, school administrators and presidents can see the flaws in these mandates and accommodate the real needs of students. Change starts with the people and who knows, it can take one person to bring change to thousands.