Social media consumption has had some significant downsides impacting individuals and society over the past 2 decades in a negative way. Although the downsides are many, it has brought more reach among the audience, which has helped in many areas; therefore, I partially agree that social media does have a negative impact on people.
The increase in accessibility of social media via smart gadgets has led to a steady spike in consumption of various social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. Each of these platforms has introduced various features to keep users engaged 24/7, which works, and users tend to lose awareness of the outside world and become completely lost in the digital world. One such example is the Reels feature on Instagram, which allows for almost endless scrolling on a smartphone. The use of such sites in day-to-day life has eventually resulted in many victims of social media addiction.
Over the past few years, people have relied more on social media as a medium for consuming news, and the information floating on social media contains many false positives, such as information on politics, health, and day-to-day local news, which misleads many people.
One such instance, where it affects people the most, is when people blindly follow influencers on the platform who are not certified in their genre and perform the suggestions provided by them, which often misfires severely.
In conclusion, users tend to experience many negative impacts when using social media platforms by getting lost in the digital world of such addictive sites, and much of the information spread tends to be false.