What are the negative impacts of social media on society?

[Onora]

I'm assuming you mean web-based interaction such as Facebook, Twitter ...

It seems to me that using social media can too easily become a replacement for building real relation ships with real people. Clearly it can be used to facilitate organisational details of a social life but it becomes dangerous if the pursuit of virtual friends (e.g. I have 750 Facebook friends many of whom I have never met) eats up the time that should be used to nurture 6 good friendships that will last.

Another disadvantage is that it could become an isolating influence on an individual - either the skills to develop relationships will not fully develop or they will decay from lack of use. Meanwhile others will be forging ahead forming meaningful relationships.

Social media have a function as another layer of communication rather than as a replacement for convential face-to-face contact.