Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point

Social media is used to share and receive information during interactions with others through the uses of the internet. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram are some of the most commonly used social networking sites that people interact with. Twitter users post their thoughts, ideas and dreams for the world to see, opening the door for others to comment and interpret. Snapchat does not even require the user to communicating using the written word, but rather encourages communication through visual stimuli.

Social media has become one of the most dominate things in the lives of today’s youth. Millennials use social media for many reasons, to stay connected and as a source of entertainment. Among all the social media sites, one that is particularly popular is Snap chat. Most college and high school students check this app before twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Instagram noticed this trend early and tried to buy out snapchat, but their attempt failed and now snapchat has not only influenced its opens to copy its stories idea but also almost copy the format exactly. In my paper I will discuss two different articles that both focus on the topic of snap chat usage. I will also contrast these two articles and reveal how they have similar findings but different approaches.

Technology has helped connect people and created friendships that without technology couldn’t happen. A big way for people to connect with each other is by using social media like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. Facebook connects more of us to more of our friends and family than we have ever been connected before (Document 2). Every "Like, every Share, every comment is a way for us to renew on a tiny scale our connections with our friends (Document 2). Our phones are devices that can connect us to anyone around the world in the matter of seconds (Document 5). Technology is not only connecting us with other people it is also connecting us to more information.

When technological advancement began so did the growth of social networking. Social networking became easier with the innovation of smartphones, by making social media more accessible than its initial phases. However, in social networking’s earliest stages social media sites were created with the purpose of helping people stay linked together despite the distance separating each other. During that time, the only means of using these networking sites were by having access to a computer. Without the easy accessibility to computers, people back then could carry on with everyday life tasks without social networking distracting us from the life around us. Despite social media not fully taking off until the booming of mobile devices, the earliest known form of social media is believed to have been created in 1995 by way of Classmates.com. Eventually being followed by networks such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (Social Media). Unfortunately networking quickly changed in the 2010s when smartphones became more common and social media sites began to release their products as mobile applications or apps (Social Media). In this day and age in which some school-age children are gifted mobile devices almost everyone can get their hands on social media. It has become so easy to stay communicated by means of these social media apps that we are starting to forget how to interact among each other. We are moving away from face to face

It’s hard to believe, that only a decade ago social media took off and became the new trend. Of course, there was Friendster and Myspace that had been around for a few years but most of the world’s population hadn’t come around to it yet. Nowadays, social media has taken over our lives. It has influenced every decision we have made in life in one way or another.

Technology today is more relied upon than ever before. If one needs to call someone half way around the world, simply take out a cell phone and dial their number. Within thirty seconds, one can be speaking to that person just as if two people were conversing face-to-face. In the same manner, one has access to endless knowledge and resources by the pushing of a few buttons or the click of a mouse. The usage of social media today is becoming more prevalent than ever before because of the convenience it offers. This convenience includes being able to instantly know where a person is, what they are doing, and how they are feeling. All of these instances have one main commonality : technology. The interminable technological advances one has

To start off with, social networking helps to connect with other people, whether you want to meet someone new or just talk to friends. On an app called Instagram there is a place that you can browse and search, pictures, tags on pictures, or search the username of somebody. All you would have to do is find someone you want to talk to and send them a request to follow them if you don't already. The same goes for you as well. On another social networking app called Snapchat you can send a quick picture or start a chat with your friend with a simple swipe across the screen and and few words typed. If you would like to send a picture to a friend you just double tap over their name, snap the picture and send it! There is also the option of adding a picture to your story where

As the makers of snapchat say, “Snapchat is a camera.” This idea of considering snapchat to be a camera is important because of what cameras do. Cameras were first invented to help capture the beauty of people and objects of the world. Since its beginning, Snapchat has done just that and more, only with slightly more pizzazz. Snapchat’s innovative way of adding filters and refining a photograph to have stickers, words, and other silly displays has redefined the way pictures are taken, though many individuals consider this to be negative. While Snapchat offers a new way of expression of the self and it has cultivated a new way of capturing the essence of the being, it still has faults beyond belief, but to what extent is that really Snapchat’s fault? Snapchat is not the bearer of all things sinful

Snapchat, one of the popular apps, is showing up on numerous phones. Snapchat is an easier way to be in the moment with a friend who is not there. Often on this app, there will be the ability to add to a worldwide “story” which is a bunch of photos or videos compiled together. During famous or important events around the world, Snapchat manufactures gigantic stories to show others what is happening. Snapchat is an excellent way to communicate with people out of the country who are friends, or in a different state who are not allowed to provide their phone numbers. The beauty of this app is communication is easier, allowing users to be in the moment together, or seeing things happening around the

Sexting on Snapchat spread because of teenagers and by teenagers who wanted to escape from their parents control and have something to do that felt private. “what really makes a new social network become popular fast? Teenagers.”

Twenty-seven individuals were surveyed to determine for how many months do they use SnapChat in comparison to their age and if there is a relationship between age and usage of social media apps such as SnapChat. A Pearson’s analysis revealed a moderate negative correlation, r= -.38. Age does have a relation with the number months individuals used SnapChat, as confidence level in our testing is .049, which is lower than 0.05. The results are reported in Exhibit 1.

The oration sometimes asks the audience to imagine some of the more dangerous effects of Snapchat. This activates the emotions and forces them to imagine the dark world where Snapchat has taken over. For example, “In the blink of an eye, your friends will disappear, just as a magician disappears a bird, except in this case, your friends will not return at the end of the trick. Here I show how Snapchat can make you lose your friends. I use a simile to force the audience to imagine what their life would be like without their friends. This activates their feelings and persuades them to delete Snapchat.

Saying that it has begin to go back to its original roots, being a platform that keeps people connected and providing the opportunity to get reconnected with previous connections. Often adolescents value the independent self; DeAndra (2010) states that the independent self values the principle of separating the self for others. This is evident in adolescents’ use of social networking sites. For instance, Snapchat capitalizes on current connections and self-expression; which gives adolescents a prime opportunity and sense of power to facilitate their self-presentation. Snapchat’s video blog-like feature of sharing ten second videos gives adolescents the opportunity to craft themselves in a particular fashion to their followers. Also, this feature caters towards an instant gratification of information

In the article, they noted that “Snapchat may facilitate private communication and be a step in the relational process that enhances young adult relationships and…may have negative consequences for interpersonal relationships” (Vaterlaus et al.). This provided empirical evidence to support my argument and its validity. Due to the interdependent nature of my research and personal experiences, I will be able to provide both academically-reviewed data and qualitative accounts of the application and the multiple facets of

Van Dijck (2008) suggests that, “Communication and identity formation are not novel uses but have always been intrinsic functions of photography” (p.59). In the contemporary culture, especially among the younger generations, individuals are constantly posting images on social media sites to share their experiences online. This is particularly evident in the social media platform, Snapchat in which a study done in 2014 found that Snapchat users had sent over 700 million photos and videos per day (Lunden & Tsotsis, 2014). Snapchat is a mobile application which allows users to send snapshots or videos to friends with a brief message in the form of drawing or text. The company suggests that each snap ‘reflect an individual in the moment without the need to curate an everlasting persona’ (“Ads Snapchat,” 2015) This can be explained by the unique function of Snapchat as images will disappear after the set time expires. Therefore, the use of digital photography in Snapchat best represents how digital photography becomes a tool for communication, enabling users to connect and getting in touch. On the contrary, there are other social media networks that not only offer as a site for sharing experiences but also enable individuals to construct an ‘ideal’