A Reflection On The Social Media

Born and raised in Marion, Iowa and into an evangelical church, my parents “Baby Dedicated” my life to christ. At age 5 my family moved to New Covenant Bible Church. When I was young I didn't think much of church, it was just something you did and was merely going through the motions. But when I hit middle school my parents made me go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. Key phrase, made me. At this point in my life I didn't like church, at all. As I grew older, I wanted to be at church less and less. And I dreaded going every time Sunday morning rolled around. I had the mindset that the world had more to offer me than Christ did. And so I made excuses and put up fights and soon I rarely went to church. My family went but I stayed

As we all know, social media has a tremendous impact on society and has affected in some way our daily life, relationships, and/or business. Every day, people around the world access famous social media network sites such as facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and so on to find out about other people, others might use social networking to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, or even meet their spouse. The excessive use of social media websites might bring negative effects; while for other people, it might bring satisfaction or positive effects. Technological advancements such as the internet, have given us the opportunity to connect with other people anytime and anywhere in the world. Pretty much all around the world, everyone has access to the World Wide Web via a desktop computer or smart phones. The fact is that no matter our current location or destination we might go, social media will always be following us as long as we have that direct connection. The main focus of this paper is to identify the good and bad of social media, and the current and future problems it will bring.

Social media is a variety of platforms provided to the public as a medium for expression and communication. Seemingly, social media could be viewed as a positive contribution to society, but one must consider the underlying effects of society. Many of us don’t take into account the role that social media plays in the way we perceive things, think, and live our lives. Social media plays a critical part in societal norms. “Social norms are rules of conduct that governs interactions among individuals within a reference group. Norm violations can often provoke disapproval and loss of esteem,” (Young, 2007). People seek approval or validation by their peers or other individuals in society; in effect, societal norms are generally abided by many individuals. “People want to be accepted by others in their social environment and often end up conforming to behaviors that they believe the majority holds as appropriate,”(Power, 2011). Often times societal norms create a strong scrutiny of individuals, which in turn can create poor body image, body dissatisfaction, and more. Poor body image and body dissatisfaction can be the basis for development of an eating disorder. “ The best known contributor to both clinical eating disorders and sub clinical cases of disordered eating is negative body image and high body dissatisfaction,”(NEDA). There are various types of eating disorders; “All feature serious disturbances in eating behaviors and weight regulation,” (Eating Disorders: More Than

Social media is one of the most popular means of communication today. The general public uses social media to talk to loved ones, find long lost friends, and participate in online discussions. As technological capabilities have advanced over the years, so has the public’s reliance on social media. Debates have surfaced about whether the public is misusing social media. Many people are questioning whether social media is replacing human interaction and isolating people from one another. In my life, social media has helped me find and stay connected to the people that I care about the most. Social media does not isolate people from one another and benefits society by making it possible to have discussions over the internet.

When you are suffering from a debilitating addiction, it 's easy to feel alone, isolated, and frightened during recovery. However, the emergence of social media has helped connect the world in a way never imagined. And you can tap into these brand new resource as a tool towards fueling our recovery and regaining a life of sobriety.

In this article, Malcolm Gladwell argues that in a network were loose ties are prevalent and Hierarchy is just a word, social media could never give what social change will ask for. He starts off by recalling the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, were groups of dedicated individuals challenged the status quo, with crucially, strategic activism that led to a true revolution. Mr. Gladwell illustrates that there are a few distinctions that show between traditional activism and social media. One being that social media is not a hierarchy, instead it is a network. Secondly, his more compelling argument that social media is built on “Weak –ties” which rarely will lead to the high-risk activism that is needed.

While many people put off and ignore the issue of social media and its downfalls, others say that people should think about how our lives are being affected by this advancement in technology, including, lack of human contact and precious time being lost due to consumption with social media. Social media is currently a highly controversial topic in which numerous people have mixed feelings. Society has typically viewed new advancements in technology as beneficial and a sign of success within their country. But, has it solely caused successful outcomes, or are there downfalls to these advancements?

Financial gain is not always the immediate objective of social media. However, monetization attaches a revenue stream to social media content. This monetization can be financial or psychic. Psychic income is defined as value that is not expressed in monetary form (Solomon, 2015). Like other businesses, social media providers need to earn money. To do so, they need to create a monetization strategy as a part of the company’s business model. A successful monetization strategy attracts consumers to the marketer’s content. By measuring who is viewing the content, the social media provider can determine how much a marketer should pay to place their promoted content (Tuten & Solomon, 2013).

My generation has grown up with technology in our hands since we were toddlers. We are dependent on technology, from Iphones, Laptops,tablets, ipods, even watches that keep us connected to a never ending supply of distant connection. Social media is the source of many problems in our society. One of the problems is the lack of communication in a relationship. One misconception about social media is that it has the ability to strengthen a relationship because you have another avenue of communication when in fact it is detrimental, due to lack of intimate interaction between two people. Social media not only takes away face to face interactions, but it leads to trust issues, cheating and a lack of confrontation.

Forrester Research provided the research behind Social Technographics. Their research identified six types of the social media users and how they interact in the online environment. The Social Technographics ladder presented in Figure 3.3. of our reading depicts a ladder with different participation groups at each rung. These groups include: creators, conversationalists, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives. It is worth noting that these groups are not exclusive, meaning a user could fit into multiple categories for different interactions (Tuten & Solomon, 2013, p. 74). Skittles is a poplar candy brand known for their wacky advertising. It is no wonder that their social media marketing would be just as wacky and popular. Skittles must be very aware to the different categories of the ladder to be so successful in their social media marketing efforts.

It is a fact that social media has existed for several decades. However, as technologies keep advancing, the usages of social media have gained attention because of the issues they may cause. On one hand, social media is fundamentally used to interact among users via the Internet; consequently, they may share and exchange pieces of information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. In summary, social media is basically used to connect people. On the other hand, recent studies have found that rather than making the users feel connected, they can promote loneliness and less social interaction, which may lead to isolation. The scope of this analysis is limited to five sources with the following four themes: loneliness, face-to-face communication, textual technological communication values, and negative emotions.

Since we as a society are currently living in the age known as the Technological Revolution, chances are that in some form or fashion you are aware of and have been exposed to social media. Well, imagine a world where the use of social media became more structured and used to improve education as opposed to just being used for keeping in touch with friends and family, sharing pictures, and seeing how many likes you can get per post. According to the Business Insider Intelligence Report of 2014, social media is now the top Internet activity in the world, Americans’ specifically “spend more time on social media than any other major Internet activity, including email” (Business Insider). Considering this information, it is obvious that social media plays a vital role and impacts the lives of our nation on a daily basis. Some argue that its impact can be negative and a distraction to the educational experience of the younger generation. Regardless of your personal opinion, what if educators were to work with the use of social media for educational purposes. Since it is highly used, it would not only gain the learner’s interest but also would reach more people at large. Therefore, we should learn to better utilize social media in a more constructive educational manner.

It is perhaps easier to count the amount of persons who do not have an account on a social media platform. The dawn of social media has carved out a way in which all generations can keep in touch with the world. According to Facebook’s newsroom, Facebook has over 1 billion daily active users. On Instagram, an average of 80 million photos are uploaded daily and approximately 3.5 billion likes. No wonder social media and its networks have opened up numerous avenues for young budding entrepreneurs to get the “word out” and generate business. From Facebook to YouTube, and all in between, entrepreneurs have utilized these platforms to share, like, upload, tweet, re-post numerous activities all in the name of business. Whether it is to create their own page or use their personal profile to sell their business, they have made use of social media and its ability to reach the masses.

A limitation of this project stems from the limited study on this subject. The internet is a relatively new mission field and the internet presents unique challenges with limited case studies to evaluate. As a result, this evangelistic tool is confronted with much reluctance and concern. First, some argue that evangelism should be a face to face encounter and not from the internet. Inviting folks into this new dimension of ministry is very challenging. Additionally, because the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers are less likely to be active on social media, they are harder to convince that social media ministry is a good for the church. “One of the issues surrounding social media is the digital divide because of the lack of knowledge about computers and the lack of access to computers as well as high speed broadband (wifi).” This limits who you can reach with social media and actually creates a digital schism with economic and social barriers. She says, “…the gap between the technological have and have nots becomes deep a deep divide when high-speed broadband is unavailable and inaccessible because of cost.”

The term ‘social media’ has become a broad-term to describe a large number of online systems that serve as a platform for the generation, and distribution of user-generated content. Social media creates a virtual social space, where a large number of users come together and interact with one another. These interactions can be either structured, such as responses that are moderated on blogs, semi-structured, such as a discussion between an extended network on Facebook, or unstructured, such as the anarchial functioning of Twitter.