[Music] the motion is this house believes social media corrupts human interactions and I now look to Jack Simons standing committee lady Margaret Hall to open the case for a proposition thank you Mr President and thank thank you for having me as one of your guest speakers this evening I would like to start by saying that I am most certainly not against social media any one of my friends or followers will tell you that I'm certainly not averse to the semi-regular Instagram post Facebook upload or even Snapchat story perhaps even more importantly as an Australian student social media allows me to effortlessly stay in contact with my friends and family around World more importantly still social media acts as a positive implication for many people living in developing countries and some of the world's largest social media companies are at the heart of these positive changes Facebook's internet.org for example has given internet access to over 25 million people around the world who have been able to reap the many benefits that the internet provides these people live in countries ranging from Kenya to colia and the program is only in its first two years social media gives a voice to the people it allows us to fight for what we believe in it keeps people safe and it allows us to create a movement in the name of what we think is right but the fact of the matter is that the motion put before the house tonight is not about the benefits of social media it is not about whether or not the internet is good or bad the motion put before us tonight is about the impact that social media can have on our interactions on our relationships and on each and every one of our lives on a deeply personal level as a society we are constantly feeling the need to be seen by massive amounts of people we are growing more and more dependent on instant gratification and in order to feel included we are forced to post gram snap tweet upload pin checkin swipe like share react or message our real human connections are being replaced by virtual relationships the simple truth is that for the most part we are spending huge proportions of Our Lives living in the Digital Universe and it is corrupting the way that we act with each other but before I go into more detail about the ways in which social media is affecting our lives it falls on me to introduce tonight's opposition speaking first for the opposition tonight is my friend L vadlamani now in the spirit of tonight's debate Facebook memes often tell us to find you someone who can do both but as the treasurer elect of the Oxford Union as president of the Oxford mulus Asian society as an incoming summer intern in JP Morgan's Asset Management Division and as a regular attendee at all of the finest nightclubs that Oxford has to offer L vadani can not only do both she can do it all next up we have Liam Hackett founder and CEO of ditch the label Liam and I were chuckling earlier because I when I was researching him in the leadup to tonight's debate I came across the first comment on his Wikipedia page which simply read Liam Hackett should not have a Wikipedia page Liam you'll be pleased to hear that I actually disagree I have tremendous respect for you and the work that you're doing for victims of cyber bullying and I look very much forward to hearing what you have to say tonight finally closing the case for the opposition we have Dr Jessica carbiner Tinder sociologist now in an attempt to sabotage my opposition and learn about their arguments for tonight's debate I set my Tinder radius to the maximum 160 km however it was obviously far enough not far enough because Jessica we are yet to match and I still have no idea what you're going to say against me tonight Mr President these are your speakers and they are most welcome I'd now like to continue my argument by first discussing the impact that social media is having on us at an individual level because if we can agree that social media is affecting us as individuals and changing the way that we behave it follows that social media is affecting the way we interact with each other research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied over 1,700 people between the ages of 19 and 32 it was found that on average participants were spending 61 minutes per day on social media and visiting social media ites over 30 times per week this research was conducted in 2014 and the numbers have been growing steadily since that time over one quarter of the young people surveyed displayed indicators of high levels of depression and the people who most frequently checked social media were found to be 2.7 times more likely to develop depression than the average now the opposition would have you believe that this data is inaccurate perhaps is people who are already depressed that are turning to social media as an outlet while this may be true to some degree the extent of the data simply does not lie social media is causing depression for a lot of people and of course that depression is affecting the way that we interact with each other in the physical World perhaps even more troubling than the relationship between social media and depression is the relationship between social media and eating disorders in young people and I'm not just talking about young girls eating disorders today are affecting people of all genders of all Races and from all socioeconomic backgrounds and in some cases of all ages as well the rise of pro-anorexia and proia communities coupled with advancements in social media algorithms now means that these troubling communities have ways of reaching people who aren't even necessarily searching for them in the first instance as someone whose immediate family has been directly affected by the ravages of an eating disorder I can tell you that social media does have a part to play platforms like Facebook Instagram and Tumblr are giving young people distorted images of how their bodies should look and often times the the result is a serious mental illness that has far-reaching implications on loving families and loving friendship ship the mere fact that Facebook and Instagram have simple methods for reporting self Haring and suicidal content is respectable but it is also a chilling indictment of the extent of this problem so if we take a step back and examine the questions that we have looked at so far why is social media causing depression why is social media causing Eating Disorders the answer is one that I think we all inherently know by being constantly presented with highly idealized views of our peers social media elicits feelings of envy and feelings of inadequacy by instilling us with the often false belief that other people are leaving are living more successful or more fulfilling lives social media is not evil but it can very well be dishonest it presents us with a standard that is unrealistic a reality that is unreliable and a world which has been filtered and altered for the benefit of another person or group and that is the very essence of corruption not only is social media corrupting the way that we behave as individuals in our own lives it is also changing the way that we act as a society and the ways that we interact with our political leaders in the recent us election Facebook's I voted function generated 340,000 extra votes while it hasn't yet been determined whether these were in favor of Republicans or in favor of Democrats the implications on our freedom of thought are worryingly clear to give you a perhaps more serious example in Facebook's recent fake news Scandal Facebook employees were accused by Gizmodo and other journalists of falsely of of choosing the articles that appear as trending on our news feeds based on their own political beliefs this alter ation of information this filtering of our realities is once again at the very heart of what corruption really is but the issue goes deeper than any one Scandal social media is giving massive followings to people who are popular rather than people who are professional truth is quickly being replaced with speed and access and journalistic integrity is something that is quickly becoming harder and harder to find we are not having organic interactions with each other with our friends with our Idols with our families or with our political leaders and if you think we are I would urge you to be more skeptical in summary my message is simple we need not condemn social media but to be aware of the fact that it is corrupting our interactions so tonight I say to you all it's time to stop stalking and and start talking and sometimes you can learn you can learn more by looking someone in the eye than you can from looking at their social media profile proud to propose thank [Applause] [Music] you