Essay Task 2 about the advantages and disadvantages of social media

decline in direct interaction between people

Topic: The use of social media is replacing face-to-face interaction among many people in society. Do you think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

Controversies surrounding the impact of social media on the interaction amongst individuals in the community have never diminished. I wholeheartedly agree that the rapid development of telecommunication has, to an extent, led to some negative outcomes. Nonetheless, the preponderance of the merits of social media when compared to negative ones is irrefutable.

To commence with, possessions of smartphones in the modern world are so commonplace that users may have an inclination towards online communication rather than by direct one in real lives. While some may argue such predilection for online interaction can affect one's ability to communicate, I firmly believe that such worry is so inconsequential when compared with the advantages that social network brings. Firstly, the amount of time allocated to real-life meetings, get-togethers, etc. can significantly be reduced by online meetings and communication. Social media has made it so easy for one to contact any person just by a call or a message instead of traditional meetings. Therefore, the working productivity can sharply be increased. People have more time to finish tasks and work at either schools or companies. Secondly, social media entitles us to make new friends and, in some special circumstances, romantic relationships can be developed online that can possibly lead to face-to-face dating later. Traditionally, the amount of time needed to form and nurture a network of relationships is so long, whereas social media can do it almost at once.

On the other hand, a sense of alienation may arise from the state of people focusing too much on their smartphones. For instance, it is usual to see people on a bus or a train occupying with their smartphones, scrolling Facebook for news, or playing games for entertainment. A feeling of awkwardness may unintendedly germinate and nurture in a negative way for those who are not using their mobile phones. I believe this tendency is inevitable and seemingly inexorable in such a world where social media has become so phenomenally popular. A belief that everyone should put their phones down and start to communicate seems to be absurd and implausible.

In summary, I concur that the inevitable decline in direct interaction and undesirable drawbacks of social media is of little concern when compared with the predominance of advantages and values.

Some of my feedback:

In terms of structure, I think it'll make more sense if you talk about disadvantages first then advantages. That's also how you phrase your intro and conclusion, so it'll be more cohesive to keep the body flow that way.

You have the tendency to lengthen your sentence, sometimes unnecessarily. For eg: "A feeling of awkwardness may unintendedly germinate and nurture" >> You mean an organic conversations are harder to have because people feel awkward interrupting others who are using phone? This whole sentence sounds a bit awkward to me, despite, if not precisely because of, big words like germinate and nurture. Unintentionally instead of unintendedly. Another eg: "the state of people focusing too much." Basically you overuse complex words and structures, which make your essay sound more complicated and harder to follow than it needs to be.

I have a hard time following your 2nd reason to back social media up. "Traditionally, the amount of time needed to ..." >> Every relationship takes time, whether you meet them f2f or virtually. I assume you mean that social media allows people to meet those geographically far away that they would never have the chance to connect with otherwise? Similarly, this is a stretch: "romantic relationships can be developed online that can possibly lead to face-to-face dating later" >> the vice versa can be true as well.

Your conclusion should be about 3 sentences and summarize in slightly more details your points. Basically you should spell out what drawbacks and advantages social media have again here, of course after paraphrasing. Don't just stop at "social media has goods and bads" but say " although SM has issue because XYZ, it is still pretty good because A and B." Along those line.

Hope these help!

@ anhnguyenhai333
thank you so much

You are being asked to compare the advantages and disadvantages in the essay. The proper approach to this, if you want to create a coherent and cohesive response and not just keep on delivering confused and non related discussion points in the reasoning paragraph, is to do the A/D comparison for the discussion topics within one paragraph. The more score appropriate format is:

- Advantage
- Reason for the advantage
- Explanation that proves the advantage is a disadvantage
- Example that proves your disadvantage topic
- Transition sentence to the next topic

This is an advanced essay writing format that creates the proper scoring considerations setting for an A/D topic such as this. You do not have to be so round about in the discussion. You merely have to get to the point by presenting related and relevant discussions within 2 reasoning paragraphs. If you can practice writing in this format successfully, you will achieve a higher C&C score, which could also boost the TA considerations in the end.