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The Breakdown of Interpersonal Relationships.
The most notable negative side effect of social media usage is the breakdown of the way that interpersonal relationships are formed and maintained. It used to be that two or more people, in person, formed interpersonal relationships, and the relationship grew from gradual disclosures of personal information over long periods of time. Social media has completely thrown this out of the window with the advent of the personal information sections on most sites. Users can go to their pages and post anything and everything they want about themselves and make it readily available for the world to see. This leads people to post things that aren't necessarily true, "However, it appears that users' increased capacity for disclosure coincides with enhanced or otherwise exaggerated self-presentations" (Nitzberg and Farber 1184). This exaggeration is usually done through posting things that put the user in a positive light to anyone that sees it, "SNS users tend to enhance their self-presentation by choosing their most attractive profile pictures and presenting themselves as having more positive emotions and better well-being than they actually do" (Nitzberg and Farber 1184). These posts that include exaggerated self well being because other users that see them to believe that life is unfair, and that other people are happier than they are (Nitzberg and Farber 1184). This sort of behavior completely destroys the trust that was previously involved with interpersonal relationships. Not only are the relationships developed online shallow, but they also lack the trust that makes them meaningful and lasting. .
Depression.
The posts discussed in the previous paragraph can lead to depression and can also cause any pre-existing problems to be amplified. This is stated in Nitzberg and Farber's paper, "SNS provides a metric for social comparison that can exacerbate any preexisting tendencies users have toward low self-esteem" (Nitzberg and Farber 1184).